April 3, 2025 Student Life newspaper, WashU St. Louis
WashU announces highest tuition increase in over 10 years amidst Trump administration
WashU students and parents were notified of a tuition increase for the 2025-2026 academic year via an email on March 27. Tuition will be $68,240 next year, reflecting a $3,740 increase — 5.8% higher than this year’s rate — making it the largest tuition increase in the past 11 years.
Beverly Wendland, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, told The Record that the abnormally large increase in tuition was necessary, in part, due to the loss of research funding as a result of federal actions from the Trump administration and a potential increase in the federal endowment tax.
Wendland explained that either a significant loss in federal research funding or an increase in the federal endowment tax would cause the school to seek out funding from various sources, including tuition.
“We are looking closely at all possible avenues for addressing a potential shortfall,” Wendland wrote in an email to Student Life.
“The tuition rate is only one part of the equation, but we do rely on funds from tuition to help support the education of our students, which is inextricably entwined with all the work we do at WashU.”
Wendland said that the University also relies on other means of funding beyond tuition, such as payout from unrestricted
SYDNEY TRAN | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Percent increase of tuition costs over the past decade. The 2025-2026 year’s tuition will rise to
$68,240, a 5.4% increase from the current tuition.
endowments, philanthropy, and indirect costs from research grants.
Aside from tuition, costs such as housing, meal plans, and fees will rise as well. Next year, the cost for a double room will range between $13,970 and $14,568, meal plans will range from $5,880 to $8,770, the student activity fee will be $682, and the health and wellness fee will be $672.
The cost for a double room has increased by at least $728 on the lower end to $760 on the higher end. Meal plans have risen by $560 to $724, depending on the plan.
The student activity fee increased by $36, and the health and wellness fee increased by $26.
Wendland emphasized that students who qualify for need-based financial assistance will continue to receive consideration for cost increases. Wendland also highlighted the “no-loan” policy and the WashU pledge, which makes undergraduate tuition free to students from the Missouri and Southern Illinois area with an annual family income of $75,000 or less.
First-year Olivia Hart said that while the increase in tuition makes
sense based on what is happening federally, it is frustrating for students.
“I think at first glance, [increasing tuition] makes sense, since the school is trying to make research opportunities available for students,” Hart said. “But, from the perspective of [that tuition increase] becoming the student’s financial burden, [that’s] almost convoluted. They’re presenting this idea of having research opportunities, but the student now has to be financially responsible after research funding cuts.”
WashU ranks No. 2 in dining, commits to multi-year overhaul
by the Platinum Plan meal points planning sheet provided by dining services.
Last August, The Princeton Review named WashU No. 2 in the nation for “2025 Best Campus Food,” up from No. 5 in 2024. The other five schools listed are the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (No. 1), University of Richmond (No. 3), Bowdoin College (No. 4), and Cornell University (No. 5).
The new rankings were released as part of the Review’s most recent edition of “The Best 390 Colleges,” which ranks the top 25 colleges in 50 different categories. For its 2025 rankings, the Review tallied the data from over 168,000 responses to an 89-question survey filled out by students at each of the 390 colleges.
“WashU is in our book due to our opinion of its academics and its programs — as well as how favorably its students rate it on our surveys,” Jeanne Krier, a publicist for the Princeton Review, wrote in an email statement. “It has been one of our ‘best’ colleges in this book for decades.”
However, in the months following the book’s publication, there have been frequent complaints from students about food prices and availability. An independent survey conducted by Student Life last September found that almost threequarters of respondents said they felt pressure to sacrifice health and well-being when planning meals.
The article, which includes the survey results, also found that a student on the Platinum Plan would only be able to afford an average of two meals a day, and that most WashU meals do not reach the minimum caloric requirements recommended by the US Department of Agriculture. This includes the caloric totals of the example daily meals recommended
To address these concerns, WashU has committed to a two- to three-year overhaul of its dining operations. According to the dining website’s Strategic Planning Section, this includes “reviewing higher Ed best practices, expanding All You Care to Eat (AYCTE) options, integrating national and local brands, adopting innovative technology, and reconfiguring meal plans to offer diverse options and
“Going into this spring semester, we were really focused on affordability,” he said. “The thing that we’re doing [today] is really working closely with our suppliers to understand how we can increase and enhance the offerings that we have.”
For the past several months, dining services has been focusing on responding to student feedback. Following complaints about limited portions and the lack of buying power of meal points, WashU made a host of changes to
price points.” In an interview with Student Life this March, James Dwyer — vice chancellor for university business services — reiterated WashU’s commitment to addressing concerns over prices and food availability.
its residential dining locales (Bear’s Den, Danforth University Center, and the Village) last semester, including introducing the All You Care To Eat (AYCTE) program at BD, expanding hours at BD and the DUC, as well as lowering prices on over 200 items at the start of the
Simone Biles announced as class speaker
Simone Biles was announced as the 2025 Commencement speaker by Chancellor Andrew Martin at the annual Class Toast event on March 31.
Biles, an 11-time Olympic medalist with 30 World Championships medals, is the most awarded gymnast in history. At just 28 years old, Biles has made history both in and out of the world of athletics, including being the youngest person to ever receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom three years ago.
She has also been applauded for her openness about her mental health journey, especially after she withdrew from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to prioritize her mental and physical health. Biles will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at the 164th Commencement ceremony.
Senior Elie Weitzman was surprised by the announcement because he was expecting the speaker to be an actor, but said that he was looking forward to hearing what Biles had to say and joked that she might perform a routine at commencement.
spring semester.
In response to many student requests, an AYCTE “to-go” option was also added this semester for $10.95, allowing students to take what they want and leave the dining area with their food.
“We’ve actually seen a ton of positive feedback this semester on the $10.95 to go option,” Dwyer said. “A high percentage of users are opting for that option, so we feel like they’re enjoying this as an option.”
Dining services is also looking to improve staff awareness this summer. According to Dwyer, over the past 12 months, dining services has welcomed new team members to the administrative team. He explained that dining services has “additional training” planned for dining employees over the summer.
“We have a lot of new team members on board,” he said. “We’re really focusing on enabling them to be successful in their jobs and then [helping to] enhance the experience.”
In addition to training new team members, dining services recently hired a food service consultancy firm, Envision Strategies, to conduct an outside review of WashU’s dining offerings. The firm invited select students to give feedback on dining this year during two focus group sessions held on March 18.
Dwyer also noted the difficulties in trying to accommodate different needs among the student body, especially as many students prefer to take their food to go.
“From a quality and choice perspective, it is complicated when you think about it,” he said. “The idea around [college dining] is that the dining experience takes place within the dining hall versus taking it to go. We are exploring how we balance those two things.”
“I’m a little worried about safety concerns, considering the occupational hazards that her background provides. Will the school have a trampoline, or will she just be jumping on flat ground?” Weitzman speculated. Martin also announced the other speakers who will deliver addresses at the 2025 graduation ceremony. Actress, singer, and author Jenifer Lewis, primarily known for her roles on the shows The Fresh Prince of BelAir and Black-ish, will address graduates of the Brown School.
Kendall Burks, an MD/ PhD candidate, will deliver the Commencement speech for WashU’s graduating class at the medical school. After graduation, Burks will head to Boston for an internal medicine and research pathway residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.
Senior Elijah Darden will deliver the undergraduate Commencement speech. Darden, majoring in Psychological and Brain Sciences and minoring in Music, recently won the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship and is part of both the Rodriguez Scholars and the Emergency Support Team at WashU.
WashU’s University-wide Commencement ceremony will be held on Monday, May 12, 2025, at 9 a.m. on Francis Field.
ELLA GIERE | PHOTO EDITOR
In late August, WashU was named No. 2 for “2025 Best Campus Food.”
ALIANA MEDIRATTA STAFF WRITER
SU condemns Terry Collection, demands administration renounce Terry’s legacy
TANVI
For the past few years, WashU students have advocated for the repatriation of the Robert J. Terry Anatomical Skeletal Collection and the renouncement of its primary collector, former head of WashU’s Anatomy Department and self-proclaimed eugenicist, Robert J. Terry.
Last Tuesday, the Student Union Senate advocated for the same measures in a resolution addressed to the WashU administration. The resolution was authored by senators and leaders of the WashU Native American Student Alliance (WUNASA) and the Association of Black Students (ABS).
Founded in 1898, the Terry Collection consists of over 1,700 human skeletons. It is one of the most studied collections of human remains in the nation and includes skeletal remains of Indigenous peoples and African Americans.
WashU students criticize the collection as being unethical because the remains were obtained from individuals who did not consent to donate their bodies to research. Part of the nearly 800 African American remains in the collection were taken from the dead in St. Louis public institutions who were not claimed by family members within 36 hours of their death.
The issues surrounding the Terry Collection are especially important since the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) “governs the
return of Native American remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony to lineal descendants, culturally-affiliated Indian Tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations.”
As WashU receives federal funding, Terry’s critics believe that the remains should be returned to Indigenous groups. Senior Taryn Dixon, president of WUNASA, said that institutions can often find loopholes to avoid returning these remains, but it is unclear whether WashU has been affected by NAGPRA or not.
The collection continued after Terry left WashU through his successor, former anatomy professor Mildred Trotter.
In 1967, most of the Terry Collection was moved to the Smithsonian Institute. However, a portion of the collection remains at WashU, some of which has been used for classroom instruction for classes in the Department of Anthropology up until 2022.
Julie Flory, Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications at WashU, confirmed in an email to Student Life that the Terry Collection is no longer used for teaching, research, or any other purpose at WashU.
SU Senate passed the resolution 17-1, specifically calling for the removal of the collection and its namesake’s legacy from the University. This includes the annual Terry Lecture Series and the Terry Endowed Chair of Neuroscience at WashU School of Medicine. The resolution was approved by SU President Hussein Amuri March 26.
While the resolution was co-authored by some senators, senator and sophomore Saara Engineer explained that the majority of it was written by
WUNASA and ABS.
Dixon said she hopes this resolution is the beginning of WUNASA and Native students’ further involvement in political conversations around campus such as the Terry Collection.
“I hope that this resolution indicates to the WashU student body that Native American students on their campus are invested in receiving a presence in political conversations across campus,” Dixon said.
Since the remains are primarily housed at the School of Medicine, some senators said the section of the resolution about the Terry Endowed Chair of Neuroscience at the School of Medicine may be out of their purview. In accordance with SU’s constitution, SU Senate can only legislate on issues that are “affecting constituents and their welfare under this constitution.”
“I do think that if we are to make the logic that anything impact[ing] undergraduate students falls under our jurisdiction … [then] the powers that we have are made virtually unlimited by the constitution for what we can pass legislation on,” sophomore and senator Jace Slone said.
However, other senators said that they believed that SU could advocate for this issue since many undergraduate students do research on the medical campus and some have interacted with the collection in their classes.
Senior and Vice President of ABS Paul Scott has been advocating against the continued celebration of Terry since his second year on campus. Scott has interacted with the collection both through his research as a WashU Slavery Project Scholar and through his “Introduction to Human
Evolution” class in 2022.
He said the first step he would like to see from the administration is an acknowledgement of the ethically questionable history of the Terry collection.
“We had an article in [Student Life] three years ago, and that’s the only documentation,” Scott said. “There’s no reference [from the administration] of how many skeletons are on this campus, nor the decades and decades where students were forced to interact with these unethically sourced bones.”
WashU students have advocated for the removal of the collection and Terry’s name from the University since a Student Life article about the collection and Terry’s legacy was published in December of 2022.
Over the 2023-24 winter break, the Association of Black Students (ABS)
MANUEL LOPEZ |
published a series of Instagram posts entitled “Enough is Enough,” condemning the University’s relationship with its students of color and citing the Terry Collection as an example of the University’s transgressions against marginalized groups.
Last month, the Coalition of Liberated Students outlined nine core missions in their “Telling You Again Campaign,” the first of which is getting the University to return the Terry remains and ending the named lecture series.
In Chancellor Andrew Martin’s recent State of the University Address, Martin expressed pride in students’ calls for change and said that the activism has been influential on the Naming Review Board.
“I’m really grateful for the advocacy of a number of student leaders around the
Terry collection,” Martin said. “Once that intellectual work is done, this will be an example of students tee[ing] up the most important conversations.”
While the Naming Review Board is currently considering renaming lecture series in other departments, Flory said the University has created a separate University committee that will create a report regarding the Terry Collection and the legacy of its namesake.
“This is an important and complex situation that will require a carefully considered resolution,” Flory wrote in an email to Student Life.
To Scott, for the University to remedy the situation, it needs to explicitly acknowledge it first.
“The first step is an acknowledgement. We can’t talk about an issue that doesn’t exist,” Scott said. “The second step is repatriation.”
Jewish educator Charlotte Korchak gives talk on Zionism and the Jewish identity
there and maybe be able to get to a place where we can have some dialogue.”
Dozens of students convened in McMillan Hall for Charlotte Korchak’s talk titled “Concepts and Misconceptions about Israel, Zionism, and Jews.” Korchak, founder and senior educator at the Jerusalem Education Institute (JEI), led the discussion-based lecture focusing on understanding Zionism and the Jewish identity on March 27. JEI’s stated aim is to improve education and information surrounding Israel, Zionism, and the Middle East.
The main goal of the lecture, Korchak said, was to provide a comprehensive perspective on Israel, Zionism, and the Jewish people. By providing a historical framework, Korchak said that she, as a Zionist, hopes to foster constructive dialogue around these topics.
“We’re going to learn how we deal with some of the misconceptions out there and how we hold some of the concepts,” Korchak said, referencing the importance of dispelling myths while retaining important truths about Zionism and Jewish identity. “That way, we can really push against a lot of the propaganda and rhetoric out
The event was preceded by outcry on social media due to a series of Instagram stories posted by Eden Yair, the Jewish Agency for Israel Fellow at Chabad WashU. In the posts, students painted a promotion for the event on the South 40 underpass. Yair’s post sparked debate online over what some users viewed as an offensive reference to the mural previously in that spot, which featured the phrase “Free Palestine.”
The Coalition for Liberated Students, who had produced the original mural, provided a comment to Student Life about the incident.
“We are extremely concerned at the behavior exhibited by a staff [member] of Chabad on her Instagram story, depicting her painting over the words “Free Palestine” on a mural painted by students of color depicting themes of displacement, sexual violence, genocide, and erasure,” the Coalition said.
Chabad WashU, who collaborated with StandWithUs to organize the event, noted that the audience was mostly comprised of Jewish students and members of Chabad staff. StandWithUs describes itself as a pro-Israel organization dedicated to fighting
anti-semistism via education.
WashU sophomore Alex Janower, a Building Israel Connections Engagement Project (BICEP) Fellow with StandWithUs, reflected on the lack of non-Jewish students or affinity groups present at the talk.
“I was hoping that some people would come,” Janower said. “I think it’s really important for people to listen to those they don’t agree with, because that’s how we can understand one another’s arguments.”
Coalition of Liberated Students said that they did not feel that pro-Palestine students would be welcome at the event.
“The harassment and delegitimization of activism by students of color is part of a pattern by several WashU affiliated community members who have intimidated pro-Palestine students for over a year,” the Coalition said. “Given this established pattern of harassment and intimidation tactic by publicly painting over the mural, it is disingenuous to expect coalition members [or] affinity organizations who have not been invited to willfully enter a hostile environment.”
The first subject Korchak tackled in the talk was understanding the Jewish identity. She explained that
to be Jewish is not merely to practice the Jewish religion. Moreover, Jews are not necessarily white, Korchak said. Rather, they are defined by a complex ethnic identity and bound by a common culture, origin, and nation.
“Argument number one to understand Zionism goes back to the notion that we are a Jewish people,” Korchak said.
To understand this concept, Korchak said, it is important to understand the shared history, culture, language, and land of the Jewish people. She argued that the existence of Israel is essential to preserving and protecting the Jewish people and their identity.
“You cannot disconnect the Jews from the land of Israel,” Korchak said. “Our connection to that land goes back 3,000 years, and yes, it is an indigenous connection.”
The topic of indigeneity is important to understanding the Jewish people’s claim to the land of Israel, Korchak said. She argued that Jews have linguistic ties to the land, and that Arabic-speaking Palestinians do not.
“I am someone who very much believes that Palestinians have a deep connection to the land that they call Palestine … but to call Palestinians indigenous is just wrong,” Korchak said.
The Coalition of Liberated Students said that they thought it was more important to focus on the current conflict.
“Rather than argue in circles and uselessly litigate who is and isn’t indigenous, it is better to ask which state is blocking aid to and starving the people of Gaza?” they wrote in a comment to Student Life.
Korchak was also concerned with putting forth an understanding of modern Zionism.
“Zionism is the belief in a Jewish state in the land of Israel,” Korchak said. “Don’t put anything else on me when I label myself a Zionist.”
Korchak said that being a Zionist does not mean you have to take a side on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“You can believe in modern Zionism and also believe in the Palestinian nationalist movement,” Korchak said, “If you don’t, you’re a hypocrite.” Korchak also aimed to debunk what she views as false claims against the existence of Israel. In particular, she argued that Israel has not committed genocide against the Palestinian people. Instead, she said, Israel is focused on targeting Hamas.
“This is war, not genocide,” she said. Korchak encouraged the
audience to “learn the full history” so that they can engage in more productive conversations about Zionism, especially with Palestinians. She was hopeful their differences can be reconciled through informed discussions.
“Maybe just one day if the two of us can understand each other’s stories, one day we could actually live in that land together and work together and thrive in that land together,” Korchak said.
Kyra Sorkin, senior and member of the group Jewish Students for Palestine at WashU, wrote in a comment to Student Life that Israel’s actions make coexistence more difficult.
“This is exactly what the term “Free Palestine” means. A place free from colonialism and occupation, where everyone, regardless of their religion, has equal rights under the law,” Sorkin wrote. “This is not the case today because of the apartheid system implemented and upheld by the Israeli Occupation.” Director of Engagement and Programming at Chabad WashU, Itta Khutoretsky, expressed that bringing speakers like Korchak adds additional context to the conflict.
“There are answers, and you just need to ask the right people,” Khutoretsky said.
ThurtenE returns for 90th annual carnival after abrupt shutdown last year
ALIANA MEDIRATTA STAFF WRITER
On a sunny Saturday afternoon last April, thousands of WashU students and St. Louis residents were milling around the parking lot outside of Simon Hall — which had been newly transformed into the annual ThurtenE carnival — when chaos broke out.
Multiple fights involving non-WashU students led the WashU Police Department to halt admissions and eventually evacuate the carnival lot. Videos of one fight began to circulate,depicting a group of people kicking someone on the ground,as well as clips of hundreds of people running across Mudd Field to evacuate.
Multiple buildings on campus, including the nearby DUC, were closed off to the public for hours. Rumors about guns and other weapons started immediately and spread quickly, though it was later confirmed by WashU administrators and ThurtenE members that no weapons were present.
The final day of the carnival, Sunday, April 21st, was cancelled in an email to the student body from Anna Gonzalez, vice chancellor for student affairs, who cited public safety concerns. Student groups were reimbursed by the school for the money they lost out on at their booths. A week later, the fights at ThurtenE were
DINING from page 1
Last week, WashU also announced a 5.8% increase in tuition price for the 202526 school year and additional increases to the cost of meal plans. Because of the added cost to meal plans, there is now a ~$1,200 fee to convert dollars to meal points, up from $885 this year, if the allotted amount of meal points per plan remains the same next year.
To address concerns about the unbalanced dollar to meal points ratio, dining is evaluating the possibility of restructuring the point-based meal plan system. The possibility of implementing a meal swipe-based plan, where students can swipe and receive their meal for a set number of times each week, is currently under consideration.
However, Dwyer stressed that WashU is not looking to make any changes to this system [meal points] for next year, and a meal swipe basedplan would potentially not be set into motion until around 2027.
Dwyer also mentioned that WashU dining stands out for its integration of retail dining locations into the campus
brought up again as part of the reasoning for moving the annual WILD concert indoors, in addition to an incoming storm.
By any metric, it was not the outcome that the 13 juniors in charge of the ThurtenE carnival had envisioned after months of meticulous and intensive planning.
One year later, a new class of juniors has taken over the parking lot for setup week, spending 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. outside Simon Hall to coordinate the arrival of carnival rides and supervise student groups as they build their booths.
With a few policy changes for student safety, a recordhigh 43 student groups renting booth space, and a big emphasis on having a good time, ThurtenE is setting their sights on bringing back a safe and fun community event this weekend.
“We’ve been doing this carnival for 90 years,” junior Emily Cole, Public Relations and Marketing co-chair, said. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to make sure this carnival happens again in the safest way possible.”
The ThurtenE Honorary has existed, in various forms, since it was formed as a secret society in 1904. Around the same time, a men’s honorary society called Pralma began to host a circus festival called “Younivee Surkuss,” featuring rides, a vaudeville show, and one year, a silent film. In 1935, ThurtenE
food scene, such as Corner 17 at Whispers Cafe and Collin’s Farms at the Law Cafe. He believes that these restaurants set WashU’s dining apart from other universities’ offerings.
“On a lot of other campuses, the retail element is there as a secondary piece,” he said. “But we’re different in that regard. Here, retail dining has become a highly integrated aspect of our dining program.”
He added that his team is currently working on addressing pricing concerns at these retail locations. Because retail vendors like Corner 17 are separate from residential dining facilities, dining services has less control over their pricing.
“We are having discussions with them on food cost, labor costs, whatever their expected margins are on their products,” he said. “We’re trying to get to a solution where we can provide a quality [and] good product. This is what people are looking for, [that] it’s going to meet the caloric needs, and it’s going to meet that price point.”
Beni Bisimwa, Student Union’s (SU) current Speaker of the Senate, and member
officially took over the carnival and sold 15,000 game tickets at five cents each.
Over the course of 90 years, the carnival has only been cancelled three times — twice during the pandemic and once in 1943 due to World War II. Last year was the first time the carnival had ever been shut down midway through for non-weatherrelated reasons.
In many ways, the task of preventing fights is nebulous, especially given the fact that there were no weapons involved that could have been screened out with additional security. This year, though, the group is implementing some changes they hope will reduce the possibility of another public safety issue.
“We’re working very closely with the WashU police on this,” junior Krish Bathija, public relations and marketing co-chair, said. “They really emphasized how they want to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.”
There will be a separate entrance and exit to avoid big crowds forming, a nobag policy except for medical use, and a requirement that minors be accompanied by a parent or guardian (this does not apply to WashU firstyears who are under 18).
“We’re not trying to prevent groups of people under 18 from coming to the carnival, we’re minimizing the risk of them coming in unsupervised and doing anything [they shouldn’t be],” Bathija
of SU’s dining subcommittee said that he is glad to see that dining is listening to student concerns and responding to SU activism related to dining, but emphasized that more progress is needed.
“We came back from winter break [and] prices were lowered, and I was like ‘Oh, this is nice, but there’s still an ongoing issue of dining.’ So this is not the end of our work,” Bisimwa said.
Bisimwa added that one of the biggest concerns of SU’s dining subcommittee now is the limited hours and lack of dining options on the East End of campus. He encouraged all students to fill out a survey SU is conducting about the issue, in collaboration with dining services.
Similarly, Dwyer urged students to utilize QR codes throughout the dining locations to provide feedback on the offerings, and pointed to the Food Security Fund as a resource for students who may be running out of meal points. The Fund allows students to donate unused meal points at the end of each semester and distributes them confidentially to students in need.
said.
Clubs can rent different sized booths at the event as a fundraiser, with past years seeing students run dunk tanks and selling food. ThurtenE provides the necessary materials, but the students build and decorate the wooden booths themselves during the week leading up to the carnival.
Student groups who are renting booths have always been required to complete online training modules in order to use the construction tools necessary to build their booths. This year, in addition, ThurtenE has added a mandatory emergency training, run by WUPD and ThurtenE’s internal business director, junior Grady Freeman, for students
He concluded that despite the challenges his team faces, they continue to find ways to focus on key issues and
running booths to learn how to respond in the event of violence, a missing person, or a natural disaster.
The net proceeds from the carnival are donated to a different St. Louis-based nonprofit each year — last year was Ranken Jordan, a pediatric bridge hospital for children transitioning home after long hospital stays.
This year, ThurtenE’s community partner is the Little Bit Foundation, which helps break cycles of poverty by giving resources to underserved children.
“They provide essential resources like school supplies, clothing, books, health services, and mentorship to ensure that every child has the opportunity to succeed in the classroom and beyond,”
Some
“We want them to sort of be front and center and allow a lot of people who might not have got the opportunity to come to the
to experience all the different parts of it,”
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“There are a lot of people that are working really hard
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Sylvie Richards Managing Forum Editor forum@studlife.com
Matt Eisner Managing Sports Editor sports@studlife.com
improve the overall dining experience.
on this to try and do the right thing on this, and to make this program a success,” Dwyer said.
said junior Ginger Schulte, ThurtenE President.
of the children supported by the Little Bit Foundation will be in attendance at the carnival this year.
carnival,
Bathija said.
ALAN KNIGHT | MANAGING MULTIMEDIA EDITOR
The 2024 carnival was cut short on the second day after fights broke out, causing the WashU Police Department to evacuate the event. This was the first time the carnival has ever been cancelled midway through for a non-weather-related issue.
Beyond the stage: How Carnaval fosters growth and legacy
audiences.
Laughter roared, applause erupted, and delighted “oohs” rippled through Edison Theatre during Carnaval this past Friday (March 28) and Saturday (March 29). The Carnaval Executive Board and Washington University’s Association of Latin American Students (ALAS) co-hosted the Carnaval showcase, a yearly celebration of Latine culture.
This year’s show featured 10 acts and 150 students, marking a record-high number of performers. Carnaval’s theme was “Eternidad,” which represented eternity through family bonds and legacies passed down from generation to generation.
“It was important for us
Seeds
From soil degradation to waste disposal, the ecological concerns of the 21st century are becoming increasingly worrisome.
to highlight our legacies like where we came from, all of the traditions that we’ve been carrying for generations,” junior and Assistant Director Mariana Quiroz said. From dance acts like Salsa, to music performances like the Mariachi [and] Chicane Band[s], to the skit that ran throughout the show, it is the people who make Carnaval a community. Senior and lead choreographer of Brazilian Funk Vlad Alarcon joined this community starting his first year of college.
“It’s very much a family,” Alarcon said. “We’ve cried together and we’ve been crying for the past three months about nerves, anxiety, and just the fact that some of us are seniors and this is our last time doing Carnaval.”
Alarcon has performed in a total of nine Carnaval acts
throughout his time in college. What sets this year apart is his decision to bring a new dance act to the stage, after getting inspiration from his time in Rio de Janeiro this past summer.
“I was in the culture every day, with the food, dance, and people,” Alarcon said. “That’s when I fell in love with the culture and wanted to explore more. I pushed for Brazilian Funk because I learned it over there and I wanted to bring it to WashU.”
Alarcon’s involvement in Carnaval has allowed him to grow and take on a leadership role, choreographing a five-minute dance featuring 12 people.
“Traditionally, I’m not the one to push for something,” Alarcon said. “I’ve always been in the background… This was genuinely the first
time I’ve ever led something by myself, so it was very scary, but very rewarding.”
Sophomore Ian Gómez returned to Carnaval after performing his first year, this time taking on a larger role as an actor in the skit. The act embodies the show’s theme of “eternidad”, telling the story of a family reckoning with love and loss.
“My personal connection to the skit is understanding that even though sometimes you might have a tough relationship with one of your parents, or that it’s difficult to navigate, that there is a lot of love there, and that love just takes on so many different forms,” Gómez said.
He shares the same sentiment as Alarcon for Carnaval — the show has been a place for him to grow and share his cultural identity with
“It’s been a really awesome process to connect closely with my culture, whether it be something as superficial as just wearing our national soccer team’s jersey, or something deeper to really getting in touch with what it means to be Costa Rican American,” he said.
First-year Camila RosarioCalderón joined Carnaval as a dancer in Bomba. Growing up in Puerto Rico and transitioning to WashU, she has found a sense of home through Carnaval.
“It was really incredible for me to just go back in time and feel like maybe I’m not in St. Louis for an hour and a half; I’m actually back home with my friends and family,” Rosario-Calderón said.
Beyond WashU, the spirit and community of Carnaval
extend into St. Louis. This year, the show’s philanthropy partner was STLParaTi, and its corporate partner was the Hispanic Festival of St. Louis. The show also received support from the Forsyth School.
“Everyone is so passionate about every aspect of the show, and I really hope the audience could see how much we all care about the show and the Latine community both at WashU and in St. Louis,” Quiroz said.
Carnaval has been a space for students to grow, taking on new leadership and embracing cultural identities, and leaving their own mark on a tradition that continues year after year.
“Part of eternidad is understanding that even if one chapter ends, another one is always beginning,” Gómez said.
Aiming to highlight these environmental risks and sustainability challenges, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum unveiled its new exhibition titled “Seeds: Containers of a World to Come,” on Feb. 21. Running until July 28 2025, the artworks featured in the exhibition center on seeds and their ability to serve as symbols of the environment’s diverse and regenerative future.
The exhibition was curated by Meredith Malone, an associate curator at Kemper and admirer of art’s ability to advance social issues. Through her role,
Malone seeks to broaden the scope of the museum’s collection to address various societal issues — the environmental crisis being a pivotal one.
“Sometimes the environmental crisis can [be] so overwhelming and abstract, but through the visual arts, we can have a different entry point to understanding it,” Malone said.
In order to convey environmental timeliness, Malone landed on seeds to be the focal point of the exhibition’s works, showcasing their everlasting importance to environmental prosperity.
“Seeds are actually pretty interesting when you think about them. They are the first link in the food chain, an embodiment of biological
and cultural diversity, and they also have a repository of life evolution,” Malone said.
The exhibition features a large range of three-dimensional works from artists around the globe. The exhibition includes art inspired by representations of seeds themselves, mechanisms that house seeds and their growth, and cultural portrayals of seeds in an attempt to highlight varying geographical climates. Each of the pieces are subtly intertwined, an idea emphasized by environmentalist and artist Anne Percoco, whose seed library is featured as a work in the exhibition.
“I am just thrilled to be in a show that has such a lively dialogue between all the works,” Percoco said.
One local St. Louis artist, Juan William Chávez, is passionate about combating climate change locally. His piece, “Decolonize the Garden Seeds to Bees,” features a series of handcrafted sculptures called “survival blankets.” Each blanket is composed of myler, the material of the blankets used in U.S. immigration detention centers. Chavez also has potatoes made of concrete and objects from his family on display, all connecting to his Peruvian roots. As a whole, the work brings attention to the immigration crisis and Chavez’s strong political convictions.
“Ultimately, he sees the blankets as a portable version of the garden that he has in nursing,” Malone said.
On a global scale, the exhibition showcases how the climate crisis affects various terrains. Beatriz Cortez, a contemporary artist who immigrated from El Salvador after the war in 1989, is the creator of the oval shaped pod made out of steel that houses seed containers. The back side of the pod contains a living garden.
SOPHIE
JUNIOR
ISABELLA DIAZ-MIRA | PHOTO EDITOR Flag Walk performers wave the flags of various Latin American countries.
“This is like a space pod with the intention of preserving seeds for humans of the future. Also, she’s thinking about some NASA kind of experiments such as growing plants in a mini natural space station” Malone said.
Connecting to her El Salvadoran roots, the pod is meant to represent chultuns, a technology that Mayans used to dig pits
and caves underground to hold water, food, and seeds. The different containers of seeds are representative of Mayan culture and feature bioproducts such as corn, potatoes, and amaranth. The seed vessels are meant to highlight timelessness.
“Seeds themselves are tiny little time travelers. They can remain dormant for long periods of time, and then they can wake up again. They embody that
link to a cultural image,” Malone said.
The exhibition allows visitors to actively engage with seeds through a seed library — drawers of seed packets from different weedy species in St. Louis, enclosed by a roof in the exit, created by Anne Percoco and Ellie Irons, a New York based environmentalist.
The two have been working together for 10 years and collect weeds in various
locations, moving the library with them.
“There’s a lot of interesting sites and property that’s been abandoned around St. Louis. We visited super fun sites like a burned out library, the car police, Manuscript Library and River Des Peres,” Percoco said. “Any place is cool for us to collect weeds, because they have had to adapt, change and deal with pollution and
higher temperatures due to the urban heat island effect. They have accommodated to have a form of superpowers.”
Collectively, the unique pieces in this exhibition offer viewers a chance to see the environmental crisis through a novel lens and to question how they can uphold environmental prosperity in the future.
“I want you to think about what the relationship
between fragility, preservation and possibility is. What do those terms mean? How does preservation function on multiple different levels?” Malone said. Whether passionate about the climate crisis, contemporary art, or gardening, this exhibition has something for everyone and is exemplary of Kemper’s ability to transform spaces to address pressing societal issues.
‘Up and Atom!’: The Human Pangenome Project: WashU
“‘You cannot use a single reference!’ I will scream that from the rooftops,” said Macias, who is a postdoctoral researcher at the Wang Lab.
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was a 13-year, multi-billion-dollar effort that partially took place at WashU, and concluded in 2003 with the creation of the “human genome reference sequence” — a comprehensive map of the DNA found in one human cell. Today, the reference genome is a powerful tool for clinical research, helping to identify the mutations in individual patients’ DNA. However, WashU researchers say the reference genome is due for a major update.
More than 20 years after the conclusion of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Juan Macias and other researchers at Wang Lab in the Department of Genetics and Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology are working as a part of the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium (HPRC), an NIH-funded project working to create a reference “pangenome” to capture the full range of human diversity.
While the reference genome remains a cornerstone of genetic research, Macias says it represents only a narrow slice of human diversity.
“[Using the reference genome] is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle,” explained Macias. “We just have the picture on the box, and we’re using it to match the pieces to the picture. The problem is that [a] single picture is not representative of very many individuals.”
Rather than using a single reference of what a human’s DNA should look like, the HPRC seeks to combine the genomes of many individuals into a widely applicable map of human genetics — the pangenome.
Creating an accurate picture of human genetics is no small undertaking. The HPRC’s first draft of a pangenome reference was released in May of 2023, and included nearly complete genome assemblies representing 47
PUZZLE PUZZLE Mania
different individuals, each of whom were specifically chosen to achieve the widest possible diversity.
The nature of this pangenome is more than just a big list of genomes to reference; it is a computational map that links genomes together where they share similarities, and branches off where they have differences. For researchers like Macias, modeling the relationships of these genomes poses a
unique computational challenge, but the benefits could be instrumental for treating diseases such as cancer and Alhzheimer’s.
In more concrete terms, Macias expressed that the pangenome offers a faster, more effective, and often cheaper way to narrow down genetic loci (specific locations) where genetic variation impacts the body’s ability to fight such diseases.
“I’m particularly interested
in understanding how those individual level variations are going to impact our ability to leverage stem cell therapies, iPSCs [induced pluripotent stem cells] in particular, to develop therapeutics in the future.”
In the next draft, HPRC will expand the pangenome to include DNA from more than 200 people, making it far more effective than the first draft at capturing the full diversity of the human population. Macias explains that this kind of reference will become essential for advancing personalized medicine, a primary goal of the NIH.
“It’s clear that it’s going to have a very significant impact. Anything that deals with clinical genetics will be dramatically improved. The problem is how we get people to adopt it, how we teach them to use it effectively and really to leverage the unique beneficial properties of the pangenome.”
In addition to being a monumental project for all of genomics, Macias says that working on the pangenome has also been an engaging
and transformative part of his scientific journey. He was pursuing a career in agriculture when he began his PhD at WashU, but soon changed course when he encountered the pangenome.
“My family has a history in agriculture in Mexico, so working in agrotech was sort of a natural connection. But [at WashU] they tell you ‘do rotations and in areas that you’ve never done anything in, because you never know what you might like.’ Turns out, I really like weird, complicated genetics.”
As this project continues, the Department of Genetics, where this research is performed, will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a symposium on April 24. The symposium will feature speakers who were instrumental to the creation of modern genomics, including talks from Robert Waterson, one of the pioneers of the original Human Genome Project, and Eric Green, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and WashU alum.
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ELIZA STULMAN
SPORTS EDITOR
The WashU track and field teams began their outdoor season at two of the largest outdoor track meets in the midwest: WashU Distance Carnival and WashU Invite on March 28-30.
This year’s Distance Carnival and WashU Invite were much larger than they had been in the past. Despite competing against 1,400 athletes across Divisions I, II, and III, the Bears’ success was not hindered, securing 28 top 10 finishes over the three days.
One of these notable finishes was accomplished by senior Yasmin Ruff, who performed the tenth best pole vaulting height in D-III history.
WashU Distance Carnival
The WashU women’s track and field team placed in the top 10 five times throughout
SPORTS
the weekend.
Senior Izzy Gorton won the 800-meter with a time of 2:09.68, with sophomore Caroline Echols finishing 1.26 seconds later, placing third. In the 3,000-meter steeplechase, senior Abby Patterson finished in sixth place with a time of 10:49.47.
Senior Sophie Bekins finished in 4:30.53 and junior Katie Rector finished in 4:33.03, placing third and eighth place, respectively in the 1,500-meter run. Both Bekins and Rector shaved time off their entry times.
The men’s squad saw one top 10 result: a ninth-place finish for graduate student Frankie Lynch, who ran 1,500 meters in 3:48.97.
While the meet was the first of the outdoor season, Lynch believes the transition from the indoor season has been smooth.
“The transition has been
pretty seamless, and everyone came out last weekend or this past weekend ready to compete at a really high level, and we just started off the season … [on] a really high note,” he said.
WashU Invite
In the women’s field events, WashU’s women’s teams earned 11 top 10 finishes, including an historic pole vaulting record.
Winning the pole vault with a height of 4.10 meters, senior Yasmin Ruff not only set a new stadium record, but also secured her name at the tenth best pole vaulting height in D-III history.
While the mark is a milestone in D-III, Ruff has her eyes set on another target — a third NCAA title and the WashU school record.
“I think maybe an even bigger goal is to break our outdoor school record,” she said.
“I don’t have that yet. Our outdoor school record is 4.15 meters, and I actually this season jumped 4.16 indoors, but it doesn’t count for the outdoor record.”
Junior Jenae Bothe found success at both the shot put and discus this past weekend, winning the shot put event with a throw of 13.87 meters and placing fourth in discus, with 40.80 meters.
In the long jump, triple jump, and high jump, graduate student Ebun Opata soared. Opata finished in fourth for long jump, leaping 5.66 meters, first in triple jump with 12.18 meters, and third in high jump, with a height of 1.66 meters.
Sophomore Olivia Theisen also did notably well in the high jump event, receiving fourth place with a jump of 1.61 meters.
On the track, WashU’s female runners dominated as
well. In the 4x100, the team of sophomore Maya Davis, senior Lauren Gay, senior Nicole Stewart and junior Jasmine Wright took first in the event with a time of 46.83 seconds. Wright and Gay each secured another win during the Invite: Wright in the 100-meter dash, tying the University of Chicago’s Gabri Meschino with a time of 11.78, and Gay in the 200-meter with a time of 24.33.
The 200-meter also saw first year Quinn Bird place in fourth in 24.94 seconds and Stewart in fifth with a time of 25.07.
The 400-meter saw a neckand-neck result with junior Kylie Spytek beating her sophomore teammate Cate Christopher for first place by 0.2 seconds.
Bekins and senior Virigina Pridgen also crossed the finish line within milliseconds of each other — Bekins secured second place with a time of 2:16.01 and Pridgen finished next with a time of 2:16.33.
Rounding out the weekend, the team of Bird, Christopher, Spytek, and Gorton won the 4x400 relay in 3:45.82. The team of Stewart and sophomores Julia Coric, Caroline Echols, and Gayle Henderson were the runners-up, finishing in 3:52.90.
The men’s team also saw great success on both the field and around the track.
The first of two tiebreakers the Bears competed in at the Invite was between sophomore Peter Lichtenberger and graduate student Tommaso Maiocco, who both cleared 5.05 meters pole vaulting, but Lichtenberger was awarded the gold due to missing fewer attempts at the previous height.
The second tiebreaker was in the high jumping event; junior Eli Goldman finished
in fourth, despite also clearing the same as the third place finisher: 1.89 meters.
In the running lanes, senior Fernando Ribeiro Duraes finished the 1500-meter race in 3:55.11, securing second place. William Frohling finished the 400m in third with a time of 49.00 — a new personal record.
“Running a new 400m PR was a great feeling,” Frohling wrote in a statement to Student Life. “Consistency in training and trusting that all of the work I had done throughout the fall and the indoor season would set me up for success were some of the key factors in achieving that time.”
Juniors James Corbett and Brandon Brazil both excelled at the 800-meter race; Corbett won the event with a time of 1:52.68 and Brazil placed fifth in 1:54.94.
The 200-meter race saw a second place finish from junior George Bourdier with a time
Softball sweeps UChicago 3-0
The Maroons put in an effort that resulted in two players in scoring positions.
The No. 18 WashU softball team dominated against The University of Chicago, winning all three games against the Maroons on March 28 and 29. The Bears are now 18-5 for the year and 5-1 in the University Athletic Association (UAA). The weekend opened with a tight game as the Bears defeated UChicago 1-0. At the top of the fifth inning, junior catcher Alexa Hanish hit a one-out double, allowing senior Erin Reardon to double down the left line, scoring first-year utility Christina Smith, who ran for Hanish.
The Bears were able to end the game by forcing a groundout that stopped the Maroons from scoring. Reardon went 2-2 with one RBI. Sophomore pitcher Maria Brooks pitched a complete game with no runs and six strikeouts.
Junior outfielder Sydney Schneider, who has a fielding percentage of 1.00 this season, praised the team’s pitching and hitting in the first game.
“We knew going into the weekend that Chicago has one of the strongest pitchers in our conference, and I think our offensive performance in game 1 highlights where we may have initially struggled,”
Schneider said. “Fortunately for us, our pitching staff is incredibly dominant and reliable across the board, and they were able to support us as we worked to make those hitting adjustments.”
The Bears came out even more prepared on Saturday morning to open a doubleheader against the Maroons, earning the 5-2 victory. After Chicago scored their first run at the bottom of the first inning, WashU tied the game at the top of the fourth on senior catcher Natalia Pilpil’s second home run of the season.
WashU had four runs in the top of the sixth inning, starting with a single by Reardon, followed by a double by senior right fielder
Brooke Capparelli, driving in Reardon and giving the Bears the lead. Capparelli scored on a Pilpil single later in the inning, and senior shortstop Taylor Geluck capped off the rally with a two-run home run, bringing the score to 5-1.
The Maroons hit a home run in the seventh inning, but the Bears were still able to win the game 5-2. Pilpil finished the game going 2-3 with two RBIs. Senior pitcher Jordan Rossi pitched for five innings and had three strikeouts, and senior pitcher Jamie Burgasser had two strikeouts in the last two innings.
The Bears closed out their dominant weekend with a 4-1 win against Chicago. The Bears scored their first run of the game in the top of
the third inning, with a Pipil single that brought Reardon to home base. However, the Maroons tied the game in the bottom of the inning.
The Bears scored the rest of their runs in an exciting top of the fourth inning. First-year catcher Harper Nix scored on a double from senior center fielder Maggie Baumstark, who was able to score on a Reardon single. After stealing second base, Reardon was able to score on a single from Capparelli, causing the Bears to lead 4-1.
Reardon had an impressive game, going 4-4 with two runs and one RBI. Burgasser struck out two Maroons in her 4.1 innings on the mound.
As the team looks ahead to more conference play,
of 21.42 seconds.
First-year Benjamin Kruger entered his first spring collegiate season placing in fourth at the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 55.70.
In the 3,000-meter steeplechase, the Bears had a 1-2-3 finish with first-years Benjamin Lorenz and William Ruszkowski receiving the gold and silver, respectively, and senior Charlie Fallon obtaining the bronze. Lorenz finished in a time of 9:38.39, Ruszkowski in 9:38.46, and Fallon in 9:42.89. In the 4x400 meter relay, the team of Brazil, Frohling, sophomore Alex Gardner, and senior Elvin Binagi received third place with a time of 3:16.71 — 0.21 seconds behind the team from Southern Illinois University (SIU). The Bears will next compete on Saturday, April 5 at the SIU Saluki Fast Start.
Schneider says they need to keep up the intensity against every opponent.
“Something we’ve struggled with in years past has been competing to the best of our ability against teams that we don’t perceive to be the strongest,” she said. “Winning conference is the overarching goal of ours this season, and in order to do that, I think it’s important that we continue to play our best softball regardless of what name is on the opposing team’s jerseys.”
WashU currently ranks second in the UAA, just behind Emory University. The Bears will continue with conference play in an away series against New York University on Friday, April 4 and Saturday, April 5.
Izzy Gorton wins the 800-meter event in the WashU Distance Carnival.
PHOTO COURTESY OF OLIVER WITT
PHOTO COURTESY OF OLIVER WITT
James Corbett and Frankie Lynch running in the 1,500-meter race at the 2025 WashU Distance.
FORUM
Title IX at WashU: Bureaucratic delay, legal failure, and institutional betrayal
ANONYMOUS GRADUATE STUDENT
Editor’s note: This article contains discussion of sexual violence. Resources and helplines can be found at the bottom of the piece. Additionally, as outlined in our publication policy, anonymity of an opinion writer is strictly reserved for limited circumstances.
The Gender Equity and Title IX Compliance Office exists to protect students from discrimination and harassment. Yet, when I sought help from WashU’s Title IX office, I encountered a system designed not to support survivors, but to shield the institution from accountability. My experience exposed a pattern of bureaucratic obstruction, legal negligence, and institutional betrayal — failures that actively endanger students.
This is not just incompetence. This is a university failing its federal legal obligations under Title IX. Students deserve to know the truth.
Bureaucratic obstruc-
tion: Delays, vagueness, and active discouragement
From the outset, the Title IX office weaponized bureaucracy to deter accountability.
Instead of providing clear, structured guidance, they created confusion, delays, and unnecessary barriers, making the process exhausting and discouraging. I had to repeatedly ask the same questions in different ways just to get partial answers. When I insisted on clarity, they seemed annoyed.
When I asked how to file a formal complaint, they subtly discouraged me by emphasizing the time, effort, and emotional toll it would take — less as a warning to protect me, but more like a veiled threat, as if to say, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Meanwhile, the delayed response prolonged my distress. I was told it would take two weeks just to take basic steps, such as speaking with the person I had reported. When I requested a written response outlining my rights and next steps, they refused to provide one, insisting instead on meetings — further delaying any answers or guidance.
And when I needed actual help, such as facilitating academic accommodations to avoid my harasser, they redirected me to my department instead of intervening. An endless loop: the office designed to protect me refused to take responsibility,
leaving my safety back in the hands of the administrators who had no legal obligation to enforce Title IX protections.
This wasn’t just incompetence — it was a deliberate strategy to exhaust and silence survivors.
Legal negligence: Retaliation as an institutional choice
Retaliation, such as bad-mouthing, delayed graduation, threats to funding, blocked recommendations, research sabotage, and intimidation, is prohibited under Title IX. Yet, when I asked how the University would protect me from potential retaliation, the Title IX coordinator’s response was chillingly indifferent:
"Retaliation is common."
“There are many types of retaliations.”
"We’ll read them the noretaliation policy. I can also send it to you."
That was it. That was their version of protection. No proactive safeguards. No enforcement mechanisms. Just a reminder of the rules. By framing retaliation as inevitable — and protection as nothing more than a policy reminder — the University abandoned its legal duty to ensure student safety.
Survivors were left vulnerable, while harassers faced no meaningful consequences.
Institutional betrayal: Title IX officers showed no Empathy, no urgency, no care
Beyond the procedural failures, what struck me most was the complete lack of empathy from the Title IX staff.
During meetings, staff scrolled through their phones while I spoke. They dismissed my trauma as a “miscommunication” and became irritated when I returned to their office for clarity.
At no point did I feel supported. At no point did I feel like they took my case seriously. They wanted me to go away — not because my case wasn’t serious, but because helping me required effort, and they didn’t want to do the work.
Why is WashU failing its students?
I am writing this not just for myself, but for every student at WashU who has been dismissed, discouraged, and abandoned by a system that claims to protect them.
So I ask the Provost and University leadership directly:
1. Why does the Title IX office refuse to provide written documentation of survivor rights?
2. Why are students pressured to abandon formal complaints?
3. Why is retaliation treated as unavoidable instead of proactively prevented?
4. Why must survivors beg for academic protections that Title IX legally requires?
5. If Title IX at WashU is failing to provide basic protections, what purpose does it serve?
This university proudly markets itself as a safe, inclusive place to learn. But behind the scenes, students are being ignored, misled, and left unprotected.
Where do we go from here?
I demand the following:
- Independent audit: A full investigation into the Title IX office’s failure to protect students and fulfill its legal obligations.
- Transparent processes: Clear, accessible written guidelines for complaints, timelines, and protections — not vague, discouraging responses.
- Immediate academic protections: Survivors should not have to fight for advisor transitions or accommodations that Title IX legally
requires.
- Enforced anti-retaliation protections: Actual consequences for retaliatory acts, not just “reading a policy” to an abuser.
WashU must decide: Does it actually stand with the students, or does it just pretend to?
To other students: If you have been silenced, gaslit, or abandoned by WashU’s Title IX office, share your story. The only way to force change is to make silence impossible.
The Sexual Assault and Rape Anonymous Helpline (SARAH) provides confidential and anonymous support and can be reached at 314-935-8080 24 /7 during the fall and spring academic semesters.
There are counselors at the Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention (RSVP) Center, located in Seigle Hall, Suite 435, available confidentially to any University student. The office can be reached at 314-935-3445 or by email at rsvpcenter@ wustl.edu.
The National Sexual Assault Hotline can be reached at 1-800-6564673 or via online chat at https://hotline.rainn.org/ online 24/7.
Staff Editorial: Protecting student forums
In response to the detainment of Tufts international graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk on March 25th, 2025, the editorial board of Student Life affirms the importance of student journalism for varying and opposing dialogue on contentious issues. We call upon our university administration to be proactive in protecting its students’ right to free speech.
Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student, was detained by several plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. This detainment comes nearly a year after Öztürk and three other Tufts graduate students published an op-ed calling on their university to, among other demands, adopt Tufts’ Community Union Senate resolutions and cut ties with Israel.
Öztürk’s detainment is not an isolated event; Trump-aligned politicians have threatened to revoke legal immigration status to
retaliate against free speech that displeases them. Marco Rubio, expressing support for ICE detaining Öztürk and other students, epitomized this pattern: “We gave you a visa to come study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.” Though the Trump Administration insists that Öztürk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” at the time of publication neither the Department of Homeland Security nor Rubio has provided evidence.
The editorial board of Student Life condemns federal agents' attack of legal residents of the United States. These legal residents are entitled to the freedom of speech, granted by the First Amendment. It is deeply troubling that the constitutional liberties of students are devolving into conditional offers. Öztürk’s op-ed focused solely on the Tuft Senate’s resolutions and contained no
3/7 WINNERS
threats of violence nor statements in support of Hamas.
No one should have their legal immigration status threatened for nonviolently expressing their opinions.
We are committed to supporting students in expressing their beliefs through Student Life. We acknowledge the very real threat to the safety of immigrant students under the Trump Administration, which has prided itself on its no-tolerance immigration policies. We are committed to providing guidance and working with vulnerable students who wish to write for the Forum section to ensure their wellbeing and protection as best as we are able. Please reach out to forum@studlife. com with any questions or concerns.
We ask that all students and members of the WashU community, regardless of political affiliations, be willing to protect everyone’s inalienable rights, whether that be through writing
1st Place
letters to the Administration or standing up for peers at threat of being targeted. We also urge the administration to clearly and transparently state the actions it intends to take if a WashU international student's visa or green card is revoked without the University’s consultation, and if federal agents attempt to detain a student on campus grounds. The WashU Administration should commit to protecting its student body and student journalists from infringements upon First Amendment rights.
In his Feb. 18 email to the student body, Chancellor Martin reminded us that “excellence, academic freedom and free expression, and access” are the university’s core principles. Academic freedom and free expression should mean protection for students who express themselves in Student Life Newspaper, and access necessitates that those students are on campus and allowed to
Shawtys all over me when I’m just tryna have my bread. Frankie Lynch, The Caption Contest Enthusiast
2nd Place
All these birds tweeting, but have any made a real statement??
Sean Henry, Current WashU Student
3rd Place Meal Points: 1.82
Harlem Taylor, Current WashU Student
continue their studies.
Staff editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of our editorial board members. The editorial board operates independently of our newsroom and includes members of the senior staff.
Sydney Tran, Editor-in-Chief
Avi Holzman, Editor-in-Chief*
Riley Herron, Editor-in-Chief Nina Giraldo, Editor-in-Chief* Jordan Spector, Managing Forum Editor*
David Ciorba, Senior Forum Editor
Kate Theerman Rodriguez, Senior Forum Editor
Sylvie Richards, Managing Forum Editor Amelia Raden, Senior Forum Editor
William Fieni-Thies, Junior Forum Editor
Alice Gottesman, Managing Scene Editor* Olivia Lee,
Junior Scene Editor Matt Eisner, Managing Sports Editor Elias Kokinos, Senior Sports Editor* Tim Mellman, Newsletter Editor Camden Maggard, Head of Social Media* Quinn Moore, Managing Newsletter Editor
Kate Westfall, Managing Design Editor
Astrid Burns, Special Issues Editor Bri Nitsberg, Managing Photo Editor Madison Yue, Managing DEI Editor Cathay Poulsen, Managing Chief of Copy* Mia Burkholder, Managing Chief of Copy AnaElda Ramos, Managing Illustration Editor
Beatrice Augustine, Design Editor
*This editorial board meeting was conducted before our April 1 editor turnover. Asterisks indicate that these titles became former positions after April 1.
Caption this! Enter this week’s contest
Scan the QR code to enter your submission by 11:59 p.m. on Monday.
DAVID CIORBA | SENIOR FORUM EDITOR
The WashU Bear deserves a name
and athletic teams adopted the nickname “The Pikers.”
The Bear has served as the WashU mascot for over a century. Though the original fur ball was a black bear from Canada, today, our school spirit takes the form of a student in a bear suit. Having worked closely with the Bear, I have witnessed the mascot’s magnificent ability to enliven any setting — from sporting events to Olin brunch parties. Yet, no matter where our game-day grizzly appears, one question is sure to follow: what’s your name? The truth is, the WashU mascot is nameless. But, how did this happen, and what does it say about WashU?
Like many St. Louis traditions, the history of the WashU mascot began at the 1904 World’s Fair. The amusement section of the fair, named the Pike, ran a mile down the north side of Lindell Blvd., taking a turn at Skinker. When WashU relocated near this site, students
As decades passed and the term “Piker” gained a negative connotation, the student body voted to adopt the Bear as the new mascot. Since that fateful vote in 1924, the WashU Bear has taken on many shapes and forms. Yet, to this day, the mascot does not have a name.
I find it comical to imagine a nameless fursuit roaming the stands of a football game, but I also believe that the mascot’s lack of identity tells us a lot about our university.
For starters, it is no secret that WashU has an identity problem. Last year’s rebrand, which emphasized the university’s colloquial name, aimed to raise the profile of WashU. Still, we are consistently mistaken for other universities with “Washington” in its name. In fact, WashU’s FAQ page features a list of universities which bear a similar title to ours.
Within the walls of the university, things aren’t much better. Take school pride at
sporting events, for example. Student Life has published countless articles urging students to celebrate WashU’s exceptionally successful “Scholar Champions.” Yet, attendance at games remains low. For many, WashU feels less like a place of deeprooted culture and pride and more like a temporary stop on the road to something greater.
There is nothing more symbolic of these issues than a nameless mascot — the symbol of our school pride and spirit. I believe offering a name to our mascot would be a step forward in resolving our identity issue.
A name carries weight. It transforms something generic into something recognizable, personal, and enduring. Universities with iconic mascots — like Wisconsin’s Bucky the Badger or Georgia’s Uga — have built strong traditions around them, fostering school pride and a deeper connection among students and alumni. A named WashU Bear could
Juice the orange
If one of us was having a bad day in our high school days (washed-up grandpa over here), my best friend and I would refer to ourselves as a “juiced orange.” “Pulp” if it was really egregious. It was as if the force of impending deadlines, uncertain futures, or the timeless existential stress was taking our zest for life and ruthlessly draining it. This past year, I started referring to each task, instead of myself, as the orange. Rather than just getting through the day and feeling like my orange was intact, I looked for the sweet nectar elsewhere, drained it, and savored the full glass of juice. This reframing not only helped me feel more in control, it also helped me find and enjoy the sweeter things. So, here’s my step-by-step guide on how to most effectively juice the plumpest oranges.
1. Pick the right orange
If you’ve ever been fruit picking, you know it’s tempting to pick just about every fruit in sight. But when you
get to the scale, you don’t want to be paying for fruit that’s not quite ready or munching on some bitter slices during your next lunch. So be selective about what you choose to pluck from the vine or the tree or … you get the point. Not every orange can come from the highest or lowest branch. It’s the variety that helps us. This semester, I reached for a high branch with exciting writing-intensive courses I was a little reluctant to take. At the same time, my basket also had a low-hanging intro level course from within my major. I know I didn’t want to exert all my energy reaching; I need some for later in the juicing process.
2. Wash it right off
With any orange, it’s inevitable to encounter some grime. The first bad grade in a difficult class, the postwinter break awkwardness as we defrost friendships, the sixth inning migraine — it happens. This grime calls for a rinse. Sometimes it’s as easy as pointing it out and letting it roll off your back. Other times, you have to put a little elbow grease into it. Going to office hours, asking
serve as a rallying point, reinforcing a sense of community and school spirit. It would no longer just be “the Bear” but a character with history, personality, and significance, strengthening the bond between students and their university.
The question remains, what would we name the Bear? While some argue “George” would be a fitting title (an obvious reference to WashU’s namesake), the name would only feed into WashU’s identity dilemma, especially as George Washington University’s mascot goes by the same moniker.
Instead, our mascot’s name should be distinct, have a unique significance to the brand, and if possible, be gender-ambiguous. That’s why I propose the name Piker. Though it has been a hundred years since WashU students have officially gone by the term, the name holds a special place in WashU history (and, let’s be honest, I have never heard the word
your friend to hang out first, or popping that Advil are all ordinary steps of the washing process.
3. Choose a knife
At first glance, this sounds violent, but I promise it’s a mere matter of pragmatism. With anything, you need a plan of attack. WashU feels like the world’s plumpest orange. It’s filled to the brim with opportunities in every corner. I want to juice every day for what it’s worth, and doing so requires being aware
of my approach. For me, that usually just means talking a lot. I chat up a storm with my classmates, professors, and random neighbors. Those conversations have helped me click start on my goals. It was through a random conversation with a friend that I found out about my favorite class I’m taking now with the professor I consider my mentor.
4. Squeeze that citrus
Making the most of something rarely, if ever, refers to a singular cut. The first incision
“piker” used as an insult).
Reviving the term would honor the university’s past while giving the mascot an identity rooted in tradition. It’s a name that connects old and new, reminding students of where WashU has been and where it’s going.
By naming the WashU Bear, we wouldn’t just be giving a mascot an identity — we’d be strengthening our own. A name would serve as
can be the hardest, but continuing through is often the most laborious and rewarding part. Whether it’s pushing through the difficult middle chunk of the semester weeks of math class or continuing to think of choreography when you’ve put all your best moves in the first two minutes, the point where you keep plowing ahead is the clenched fist on the rind. Continuing to squeeze to get every last drop can be exhausting, but it leads to long-lasting growth.
I encountered this stubborn squeeze during my college transfer applications. I was energized at first by all the possibilities, but mounting essays and what felt like a gazillion logistical tasks were tiring and demoralizing a month in. Steaming ahead during that period granted me the realization that I could more than get through the daunting tasks and eventually drink the sweet juice.
5. Gulp down the pulp
Not every moment is 100%, refined juice. Sometimes the orange juice is cluttered with white sprinkles of pulp. Yes, a pulpless, perfect glass of juice — the job acceptance we’ve
a symbol of unity, tradition, and school pride, something students and alumni could embrace for generations to come. If we want WashU to stand out in name and spirit, why not start with the emblem of our community? Maybe the mascot doesn’t need to go by “Piker,” but one thing is certain — the time has come to give the WashU Bear the name it deserves.
been crossing our fingers for, the signed lease, the exam grade we dreamed of — is the sweetest. And that pulpy fiber can be bothersome. We don’t want to have to do a third round interview or drive in person to sign the lease or take a two-part exam. But, those annoyances add nutrients that only make us better equipped for the next fruit. The pulpy fibers are filled with learning moments, however uncomfortable. The rejected interview leads to a renewed approach in the next application. The bombed test reminds us of what we didn’t learn the first time around.
6. Sit down and enjoy the glass
When good things happen, I’m tempted to keep looking forward. I let myself be excited and jump around, but an hour later I’m looking for the next thing. When I accepted my on-campus job, I was eager to immediately move into the onboarding process. Now, I’m working on letting myself soak in the joy of realizing a long-term goal. So, kick up your legs, take the world’s smallest sips, and relish in the juice. You earned it.
