February 6, 2025 Student Life newspaper, WashU in St, Louis

“Echoes of Her”

ALICE GOTTESMAN

2025

MANAGING SCENE EDITOR

“At Black Anthology, we really try to produce the encouragement that your skills matter, your passions matter,” Adrianne Gott, a first-year publicity and philanthropy intern, said. “No societal dilemma is bigger than the power that you have to change your community.”

The 2025 Black Anthology (BA) show, titled “Echoes of Her,” runs from Friday, Feb. 7 through Feb. 8 in the Edison Theatre. The details of the show are kept secret until the opening performance, but will live long after the curtains have closed.

“The stories that we’re portraying — they don’t end on the stage,” junior Avery Melton-Meaux, this year’s BA director, said. “They might [end] for the actors, but they’re very much living, breathing things and experiences that people have in real life.”

Black Anthology’s impact reaches beyond the stage

Each year, Black Anthology aims to highlight the lived experiences of Black people across the African diaspora. BA also selects a philanthropy partner every year that connects their work to the greater St. Louis community. Their goals are multifaceted, and different BA shows over the years have featured far-ranging subject matters and emotions through mixtures of theater, dance, and music. Doing so invites the difficult task of translating lived experiences into art.

“The most difficult part is the balance … of being representative of such an important topic and also making sure that we’re creating a great show for people,” sophomore Alana Taylor, a dancer in this year’s show, said. Senior and BA actor M.J. Brown has acted in two previous Black Anthologies, only missing last year’s show since he was abroad. Brown described “Echoes of Her”

as “more serious” than past iterations of the BA. He found that the heavier nature of this year’s show challenged him as a performer.

“I think this is the first time that, for me specifically, I played a character as very serious,” he said. “I feel like this [show is] much more of a drama than in the past … I had to tap into different acting styles.”

The work that goes into BA begins well before February, when it is performed annually during Black History Month. Preparation for this year’s show began in spring of 2024 with the election of a new executive board and playwright — and they didn’t take a break over the summer.

“The summer is pretty much all writing, revising, polishing the script,” Melton-Meaux said. “Our choreographers, they choreograph during the summer too … and then we hold auditions the first couple weeks of the school year.”

Set designer and junior Obike

Anwisye had his first draft of the set done by September. The whole process took intense planning, from building and painting to coordinating the structural elements of the show. Anwisye hinted at the final design. “I’d say it’s very echoey, it’s a little bit conceptual,” he said.

When the actors, dancers, and first-year interns join the team in the fall, BA hits the ground running. By December, the BA cast can do full run-throughs of their show, and after Winter Break they shift to weekend rehearsals, complete with costumes and makeup. From acting to dance, each facet of the show uniquely conveys larger messages of the production.

“I feel the dances this year will definitely make everyone feel something,” sophomore Anijah Lloyd, assistant choreographer of BA, said. “That’s the biggest goal that I have with creating my pieces.”

SEE BLACK ANTH, PAGE 4

‘He courses through our veins’: WashU basketball hosts second annual Justin

Hardy game

Why WashU won’t comment on allegations of sexual misconduct

In the past three years, two WashU professors have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct by students, leading to discourse online and student protests. To date, the University has not commented on its investigations or even confirmed that an investigation is happening.

Citing student safety, student protestors and student groups have demanded more transparency about the investigation process, including a Student Union Senate resolution to investigate one of the accused professors. This poses a complicated problem for the Gender Equity and TItle IX Compliance Office, which is bound by federal nondisclosure regulations.

Jessica Kennedy, Director of the Gender Equity and Title IX Compliance Office, said that federal laws prevent the office, and the University at large, from speaking about specific investigations publicly — or even confirming if someone is being investigated. Most significantly, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) limits what information a school can disclose about students.

Kennedy said that, if the Title IX Office receives a complaint about a professor, they will investigate the claim in a process almost identical to the process for investigating a student. In both cases, the only people made aware of the investigation are those involved and the members of the investigation panel, which typically consists of three people.

“We don’t announce when investigations are happening,” Kennedy said. “That information is kept private, but we don’t restrict the parties involved from talking about an investigation because we understand that complainants and respondents alike will seek support for what they’re going through.”

On Feb. 26, 2022, two months after he graduated from WashU, Justin Hardy subbed into WashU’s final regular season game against The University of Chicago. Weak from months of chemotherapy, he dribbled down the court and scored the Bears’ final points of the game. When the final buzzer went off, WashU and Chicago players embraced Hardy in what would be his last game for the Bears.

Five months later, Hardy tragically passed away after a 13-month-long battle with cancer which he fought while undergoing treatment and playing his senior season at WashU.

Now, three years later, WashU took to the court against Brandeis University on Jan. 31 for the second annual HardyStrong game, a game honoring Hardy’s legacy and raising awareness about stomach cancer.

“There are so many people that were touched by [Hardy’s story], not only in our community here at WashU and his hometown, but nationally, and I think all of us feel a sense of responsibility to carry forward,” WashU head coach Pat Juckem said about Hardy’s legacy. Hardy was diagnosed with stomach cancer before his senior season. What at first seemed like an insurmountable obstacle became a motivation for not only Hardy but also his teammates, family, WashU, and eventually the nation.

In February of 2022, Hardy sat down for a segment with ESPN’s

College Gameday and in March for one with SportsCenter. From there his story grew, showing people what his mantra “mind over matter” truly meant. In the SportsCenter segment, he said, “you write your story. From the opening cover to the very last page. This disease cannot take that away from you. Go out there and defy the odds. Rewrite how to live with cancer. You are going to do some incredible things.” And incredible things Hardy did.

While undergoing rigorous cancer treatment, Hardy played in 21 games and started in 18, averaging over 10 points per game. He also put up a career-high 28 points in a game not once, but twice. In the

classroom, Hardy continued to excel, being named to the all-academic conference team in 2022 and graduating from the Olin Business School in just seven semesters.

Two years ago, Hardy’s family started the HardyStrong Foundation to raise awareness about stomach cancer, provide scholarships to seniors at St. Charles East High School, Hardy’s alma mater, and honor Hardy’s legacy. Juckem, who coached Hardy at WashU, sits on the foundation’s board.

In an interview last spring, Juckem described serving on the foundation’s board as an honor.

“The HardyStrong Foundation is now in its second year and had an

absolutely incredible first year,” he said. “While it couldn’t save him, his life is gonna save many others, let alone make others lives better.”

On Friday, Jan. 31, the WashU men’s and women’s basketball teams honored Hardy’s legacy with the annual HardyStrong game.

Senior Hayden Doyle spoke before Friday’s game about the important role Hardy, who was a senior during Doyle’s freshman year, played in his life. Despite only knowing Hardy while he was undergoing treatment, Doyle described Hardy as a constant positive force on the team.

SEE HARDY, PAGE 7

For example, in 2006, Professor Joshua Smith resigned from his teaching position in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at WashU after allegations of sexual misconduct toward students. The University did not comment on the case, but the students who made the allegations discussed the investigation freely.

If the outcome of the investigation warrants a change in a professor’s teaching status, the Title IX office will communicate with the dean of the school but won’t announce the outcome publicly.

Kennedy added that, in addition to the federal regulations that bind them, her office believes the retaliatory reaction that might ensue after an investigation is made public is often harmful to the victim and perpetrator.

Junior Sonal Churiwal, who has been involved in protests against the University amidst the continued teaching status of Olin Business School Professor Philip Dybvig, says that Title IX must be more transparent for student safety.

“There are federal regulations that determine how Title IX works and WashU can’t really say anything about the status of an ongoing investigation,” Churiwal said. “At the same time, if WashU is committed to fully taking instances of sexual assault seriously, it’s hard to believe they don’t have the institutional resources to navigate a legal pathway to transparency.”

WashU head coach Pat Juckem wears a HardyStrong shirt at the second annual Hardystrong game.

ELLA GIERE | PHOTO EDITOR

ERAN FANN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Black Anthology performers rehearse before their opening show.

NINA LASER NEWS EDITOR

WashU has two undergraduate students and two graduate student representatives on its board of trustees. The board, composed of just above 40 members, has overseen distribution of the University’s resources since 1853. Apart from the student members, other trustees

include alumni, parents, community members, and donors. The board meets inperson quarterly.

The board is composed of 10 committees, several subcommittees, and occasional ad hoc task forces.

The student representatives serve a yearlong term on the “Student Experience” subcommittee, and generally report to that subgroup aside

from

is

Sarai

California, majoring in American Culture Studies with minors in Marketing and the Business of Social Impact. Aside from her work on the Board, Steinberg is involved with Uncle Joe’s and works at the Danforth Center for Religion and Politics.

Steinberg has a job lined up at a marketing agency in New York for next year, but hopes to go into nonprofit management in the future.

In her free time, she enjoys scrapbooking, spending time with her grandparents, and hiking.

Steinberg’s main initiative on the board is to improve course evaluations and to increase student participation in these surveys. She is still in the research phase, investigating the efficacy of course evaluations at providing instructors with actionable feedback.

Steinberg has been implementing a strategy she has learned in her business classes to work on resolving this issue.

“In the B-school they always say, ‘Fall in love with the problem before you fall in love with the solution,’” Steinberg said. “It’s annoying, but it’s true — so I’m currently in the ‘talk to experts’ phase.”

Steinberg said that one strategy that has proven to be effective when presenting to the board subgroup is to present them with data from peer institutions with different kinds of programming.

“They want data, they want to see what has been done at other universities, and they care what students think,” she said.

Daniels and Steinberg divide up their work, with Daniels taking point on student affairs and Steinberg taking point on the academic experience.

However, she added that she works closely with Daniels and their projects are not entirely distinct from one another.

from a final meeting in May, when they present in front of the entire Board.

The current undergraduate student representatives are seniors Amaya Daniels and Sarai Steinberg, and the current graduate student representatives are Jean Brownell and Andréa Charles.

Apart from the four board meetings, student representatives are expected to meet

Amaya Daniels is a senior from Columbia, Missouri majoring in Finance, with minors in the Business of Social Impact and Urban Studies. Outside of her role as an undergraduate representative on the Board, Daniels is a Programming Manager and the interim Marketing Manager for Campus Life. She is also a Taylor Family Star Scholar and a part of the Questbridge program.

After graduation, she plans to go into higher-education administration, and hopes to eventually become a financial advisor for low income young adults and families.

In her free time, Amaya enjoys crocheting, playing The Legend of Zelda, and traveling. She just returned from studying abroad in South Korea last semester.

Daniels’ main initiative on the board is to increase student attendance at department-led events. She hopes to do this by streamlining the process of finding events on campus, possibly through creating an online resource listing everything that is going on.

“I am mostly focused on [creating] this vision of ‘one WashU’ — creating some type of shared experience,” Daniels said.

As a small Division III school without big sports games to bring people together and encourage school spirit, Daniels strives to create a sense of unity within the school.

“There’s no centralized way of communicating about things that are happening on campus,” Daniels said.

Her project is similar to Charles’ in that she hopes to connect the student body across academic divisions, except on the undergraduate campus instead of the graduate schools.

regularly with members of the administration and serve as a liaison between the student body and the Chancellor. Graduate student representatives also are expected to attend the Graduate Professional Student Council and Graduate Professional Coordinating Committee meetings.

The application process to become a representative on

is a third-year

from

Law

Prior to joining the Board, Charles was the Student Bar Association President and was selected to be a student representative on the search committee for the law school dean. Later this year, Charles has plans to work at a law firm in Chicago, after she completes the Illinois Bar exam.

Outside of academics and work, Charles donates her time at the Immigration Law Clinic, a group of WashU Law students who provide immigrants in the St. Louis community with free legal services.

Charles’ main initiative through her role on the board is to provide graduate students with opportunities to connect and network across schools.

“Law students feel that they belong to the law school, business students feel that they belong to the business school, engineering students feel that they belong to the engineering school — but there’s no umbrella effect,” she said. “We don’t feel that we are one graduate body.”

Charles said that she is currently collecting data to confirm that other students share this sentiment.

“My goal is to make sure that once we graduate, we have our network,” she said.

“Law students will need business students once in their life, like to open a business together. We need some kind of framework to make sure that once we graduate, we have that network already established.”

Charles also said that her plan could make it easier for WashU to get back in contact with alumni for talks, donations, or other programming.

Charles said that being on the board has helped her to develop both professional skills and greater humility.

the board is rigorous, with an extensive application and several rounds of interviews with former student representatives, the current chair of the board, and the former chair. Applications to serve on the board will open in the Spring semester.

Jean Brownell is a third-year PhD student in the Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering Department of the McKelvey School of Engineering, originally from upstate New York. Her main research focus is on organic contaminants in drinking water, a subject area she hopes to continue to study in her professional career post-graduation. She hopes her research will influence policy for the betterment of environmental and human health.

Brownell said that her motivation to do this research is connected to the reason why she applied to be a representative on the board of trustees.

“I’m generally interested in the betterment of your own personal environment, and the betterment of conditions that people are operating in,” she said. “And so for me, this opportunity with the board is kind of a way to address that.”

Brownell’s main initiative while in this role is to make the process of providing graduate students with more accessible, comprehensive, and standardized platforms to give and receive feedback from their advisor as they progress through their program.

Prior to pursuing a PhD at WashU, Brownell studied Chemical Engineering and Sustainability at the University of Rochester. A job at Anheuser-Busch brought her to St. Louis, but the city culture is what made her want to stay.

At WashU, Brownell has also served on the EECE Graduate Student Council, the Graduate Student Academic Advisory Board, and as a McKelvey Graduate Ambassador. Offcampus, she can be found volunteering at Gateway Pets in East St. Louis, cheering loudly in the stands at a STL City or Cardinals game, or supporting local music artists at Joe’s Cafe.

Although all universities are bound by the same federal regulations, there are some differences in the operational details of how universities treat confidentiality in Title IX cases. Some institutions, such as Williams College, require more confidentiality. At these universities, all people involved in the investigation process are “bound to confidentiality,” and asked to not speak publicly about the issue.

Other universities have practiced less confidentiality, and have spoken about specific investigations under extenuating circumstances, usually those that are deemed threatening to students. However, disclosure is largely motivated by the severity of the case rather than the university’s policy.

Kennedy said that there could, theoretically, be a situation at WashU in which Title IX would speak more publicly about an investigation, but that it is extremely rare and she has not seen such a case arise at WashU.

“I never want to say never,” Kennedy said, about the possibility of Title IX making a public statement about investigations regarding professors. “Because something will happen and I’ll go, ‘Oh, there’s the exception.’ But I’m not aware of any circumstances right now that would cause us to change.”

Generally, to be deemed significant enough to constitute an exception, a case would have to involve perceived threats to students or other community members.

According to the Department of Education (DOE), there are three cases for which a university could bypass federal regulations to speak directly about an investigation against a professor: if FERPA allows for the identity to be disclosed, if the identity of the complainant or respondent is required by law to be revealed, and/or if disclosure is necessary to carry out the purpose of Title IX.

Read the rest online!

Andréa Charles

at WashU

originally

France, near Paris.

AMAYA DANIELS

ANDREA CHARLES JEAN BROWNELL

Steinberg

a senior

Mountain View,

SARAI STEINBERG

PHOTOS BY ALAN KNIGHT, MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

SCENE

LNYF 2025 - A recap in photos

Avi

The annual Lunar New Year Festival (LNYF) show took place this past weekend from Friday, Jan. 31 to

day, Feb. 1. Students celebrated East Asian and Southeast Asian cultures in a show which consisted of 15 acts, ranging from dance to percussion.

This year’s theme was “Interwoven,” a tribute to the Year of the Snake. From dancers to musicians, here are a series of photos showcasing several acts from the performance. ELIZABETH

Dancers from Water Sleeves

Two members of Taekwondo perform a choreographed fight scene. A crowd favorite, the routine includes high jumps, impressive acrobatics, and the breaking of wooden boards. The martial art form originates from Korea.

ERAN FANN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Dancers from Chinese Umbrella elegantly pose with umbrellas in hand. The performance took the stage this year for the first time as a brand new act. The combination of the precise choreography, the delicate umbrellas, and the welldesigned lighting made this act a showstopper.

ERAN FANN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Drummers from Samulnori, one of several percussion elements in the LNYF show. Korean Samulnori drumming involves spectacular synchronization from all the drummers. A variety of sizes of drums are used by the performers to create varied and captivating rhythms.

ISABELLA DIAZ-MIRA | PHOTO EDITOR

ANTH from page 1

The show represents a year-long process of creativity and cooperation between students from all different academic divisions and expertises. For many, BA is a source of great pride.

“I’ve learned the power of collaboration and putting creative minds together,” senior Temi Akinwuntan, BA Publicity and Philanthropy Chair, said. “We start with a little seed, and to see it performed in Edison is honestly so powerful and makes me excited for the future.”

For many, BA is just as much about the community as it is about the show. Cast and executive members work together both on stage and behind the scenes — their efforts culminating in this annual event.

“I think there is so much talent that is showcased within our shows, but then also within our meetings,” Gott said. “I feel like we’re such a well-rounded team that we’re unstoppable in everything that we do.”

The BA community stretches far beyond the Edison Theatre. Several cast members described the community as “a family,” and emphasized the close, accepting nature of the organization.

“It’s so amazing to just be in a space where I feel like I can be myself, express myself creatively in a way that really matters to me, and then also make an impact,” Taylor said.

Each year, BA partners with a local organization to raise money and awareness, expanding their impact beyond WashU’s campus. This year, their partner is Jamaa Birth Village, Missouri’s first Black-owned midwifery clinic.

“When we pick a philanthropy partner, it’s so that we can help uplift them in any aspect,” Akinwuntan said. “We meet with them and we ask them, ‘What would you like from us?

How can Black Anthology help your mission?’”

In partnership with the clinic, BA held a Black maternal health disparity panel and a kit-making event where students built postpartum kits for Jamaa.

Each year, the completely original show captivates audiences made up of students, alumni, and St. Louis community members alike, functioning as a celebrational, educational, and socialimpact minded space.

“Be inspired to make a difference in any way that you can,” senior Sarah Aliche, the producer of

BA, said. “I think that’s kind of a common theme in a lot of our shows. It’s kind of a call to action, especially in this show.”

As Black Anthology adds another year to its storied history, its members encourage WashU students to attend with an open mind, ready to think about the issues raised by the show in this iteration.

“I do think [this show] is some of our best work,” Melton-Meaux said. “Even at the beginning of this year, before we cast anyone, I knew this was gonna be something special.”

The show runs from Friday, Feb. 7 through Saturday, Feb. 8, at 7 p.m. on both nights. Each show has a pre-show panel that begins at 6:15 p.m. You can purchase tickets by visiting the box office at Edison Theatre.

Additional reporting was done by Avi Holzman, Nina Giraldo, Laurel Wang, and Elizabeth Grieve.

Grounded in history: The origins of Black Anthology

SIOBHAN DAVENPORT

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Although WashU has numerous traditions on campus, the most widely known and attended are the various cultural shows put on each year. While other campus traditions foster community within their organizations, something about the cultural shows instills a sense of pride in the identity of their members.

For many Black students, that is Black Anthology.

Black Anthology is one of the four main cultural shows at WashU. The others are Diwali, Lunar New Year, and Carnaval. Cultural shows allow students to showcase customs and practices that are important to themselves, their friends, classmates, and fellow WashU students. They give students from diverse backgrounds a community that supports and understands where they’re coming from.

Black Anthology was created by Marcia Hayes-Harris, who started at WashU in 1980 as a Residential Life Coordinator. During her time with ResLife, HayesHarris was involved with the program Quest for Success, an initiative that developed programming for African American students and other students from underrepresented backgrounds. She was tasked with creating something during orientation that would bring together Black students on campus.

“One night I was asleep, and this production emerged in my dream,” Hayes-Harris said.

Once she returned to work, she pitched her idea for Black Anthology to Tony Novak, her supervisor, who was on board with the idea.

“[Tony and I] were thinking it was just gonna be a one-time event,” HayesHarris said. But there was such a positive response that they decided to make it an annual event. “It

wasn’t just for the residence hall students. It was for all students.”

Black Anthology intended to support students of color as they navigate spaces in predominantly white Institutions.

Black Anthology created a space where Black students could be around people who looked like them and engage with their shared culture.

Simultaneously, Black Anthology grew into an event where non-Black students could also learn about Black culture.

“Black Anthology was a way to introduce the community to culture through literature and performance,” Hayes-Harris said. “[The] script was based on all these different literary works, so it was truly an anthology of work. And then we would infuse the music and the dance.”

Some of the other cultural shows consist of several distinct student groups coming together to create one show. While Black Anthology has connections to the Association of Black Students, they are not the same thing nor connected in any official capacity. Instead, Black Anthology is made up of a cast of people and an executive board after elections are held in the spring and auditions in the fall.

Black Anthology also intentionally brings together students from WashU’s different schools across campus.

“You’d have the Fine Arts department students working on backdrops … or business [students] would be the ones that have really helped with the business [aspect]… as a way of being inclusive of all the colleges,” Hayes-Harris said.

Although Black Anthology came about in a dream, nothing about it is hazy. Carlos Sneed, a cast member of the original Black Anthology cast and later a Black Anthology advisor, remembered that Novak bought tickets to give away to students, which

mirrors a program that ResLife does today, called “Take To” programs.

“[Novak and HayesHarris had] social and political capital and investment in Blackness,” Sneed said.

Since its premiere in 1990, Black Anthology has served as a space for Black students to feel represented and for other students to learn about cultures they don’t identify with. It has also been a space for its members to celebrate art and cultural works that are significant to them.

“People brought in their favorite poets, performers, writers into the work. I remember us sitting around tables with paper, trying to piece together this theme,” Sneed said.

The premiere show was inspired by notable figures in Black history: Ntozake Shange, Langston Hughes, and W.E.B. DuBois. Sneed was not only in the original cast, but the first person to perform in the show. He performed the opening monologue: a dramatic reenactment of “Creation” by James Weldon Johnson while a fellow classmate did an interpretative dance.

Talking with Sneed over three decades later, he easily recalled the names of his castmates and details about the production as though it had happened yesterday.

“Black Anthology brought us together and gave us something to be proud of,” Sneed said.

Over three decades later, I found myself sitting alone at my first Black Anthology performance in 2022 after getting my ticket through the “Take To” program. The title of the show was Asifuye Mvua Imemnyeshea. The title of the show was written in an African language that I did not recognize, so I was concerned that I might be lost. I sat back and opened myself up to the experience.

As an avid theatergoer, I have seen good, bad, and awful productions on varying levels, from high school

and church productions put on in gymnasiums to shows on Broadway. What I saw that February was unforgettable, and I left the theater deep in thought. I felt lighter — seen and understood by people I didn’t even know.

Dean Wilmetta ToliverDiallo, the current faculty advisor for Black Anthology, emphasized that WashU undergraduates are the intended audience of the show. Sneed touched on the importance of centering the WashU community as audience members, especially early on.

“I [get] the sense that my white peers at the time … weren’t informed, aware, or concerned. That speaks to the climate of the late 80s and the early 90s,” he said. Black Anthology has evolved over time both in regard to theme and format. One large change is a shift away from the anthology format towards an original production with one storyline.

Though Black Anthology has a long history of being adaptable, COVID-19 almost snuffed out the campus tradition’s flame. The show always takes place during Black History Month, in February. With the timing of the pandemic, the show escaped unscathed

in 2020, but had to adjust the next year to being online.

Black Anthology was one of the first major shows to transition to an online format. “[2021] was weird,” said Seth Kleinberg, a recent graduate and lighting designer for Edison Theatre. “We didn’t know if anyone would watch it because it was online. We would walk in, we would film the whole thing, and we would leave … so we never got to feel what the audience was thinking or how they would react.”

Kleinberg joined the behind-the-scenes team for the cultural shows during COVID-19. Originally he was asked to be the lighting designer for Black Anthology, and has since been involved with almost all the cultural shows for the last four years. When the show transitioned back to in-person performances, “It took some adjustment. It got there because everyone was so excited to be back,” Kleinberg remembered. Due to COVID, many students did not know what Black Anthology was, or that it was a longstanding campus tradition. Slowly, current students are returning the shows to their pre-pandemic levels of

grandeur.

“I think they’re events that the campus anticipates for the entire year. It’s really the only events in the Edison that get sold out. It’s really exciting to have a full house … When there’s screaming and there’s clapping, you kind of become a part of the energy that is in the room,” Kleinberg said. Alumni still smile in loving support for the organization that meant so much to them during their years at WashU. Even though Black Anthology looks different than it did 35 years ago, it still speaks to its origins with each new iteration.

“I like the evolution of it,” Sneed said.

Hayes-Harris has also stayed connected with the Black Anthology community. Toliver-Diallo reached out to her a few years ago so she could meet with students working on the production and share the history of Black Anthology with them. “I’ve been coming back ever since,” Hayes-Harris said.

Black Anthology continues to serve its original purpose as set by HayesHarris and Novak: giving Black students an outlet to express themselves and share their lived experiences with others.

Photo of the 1994 Black Anthology show.

MIKE PETERS | STUDENT LIFE ALUM

Members of BA build postpartum kits for local midwifery and their philanthropy partner, Jamaa Birth Village.

ERAN FANN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Black Anthology performers rehearse before the opening night of “Echoes of Her.” ERAN FANN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Dear Scene,

I feel like everyone rushed this year. My older sister went to WashU and said Greek Life wasn’t a big thing, but then this spring it seemed like everyone was doing it. I decided to rush but I got dropped from the only two sororities I felt like I connected with. Now I feel like everyone is in Greek Life and I missed my opportunities to make friends and be part of a social organization. What should I do? Should I have joined a sorority I didn’t vibe with just to be part of it all? This feels suffocating and lonely…help!

- Panicked Potential New Member (PNM)

Sure Greek Life is all around you, but it’s not everybody’s college experience.

Take us writers for example:

One of us is a junior in a sorority, while the other is a junior and completely unaffiliated with Greek Life. Neither of us is friendless.

From a sorority member

who has been on both sides, rush can be extremely overwhelming. While it is exciting to meet so many different people, it is balanced by the anxiety of waking up at 5 a.m. to see which chapters invited you back for their Philanthropy and Preference Rounds.

For many who rushed, it can be confusing why certain chapters invite more PNMs back than others. While the number of people a sorority decides to invite back is up to their discretion, it normally comes down to two factors:

1) How many PNMs a chapter can have in a pledge class (PC)

2) The likelihood a PNM would accept a bid from that chapter

This process can be tough for sororities when decisions essentially come down to five-minute conversations with PNMs but even harder for PNMs simply receiving final decisions without knowing the process. I understand, even with this information, it is upsetting to be dropped from a house you felt a connection with. I have friends

who have had similar rush experiences and either decided to continue to rush or drop completely. Two years later, “post-rush,” I can report back that they are extremely happy where they landed, whether it be in a different chapter or outside of Greek Life.

Most likely, you are seeing billions of Instagram posts of “Bid Day” featuring people in your year. Just know that this is the scheduled posting cycle of many sororities’ social media accounts. As time passes, and people settle

PUZZLE PUZZLE Mania

back into school, these types of posts will only come in waves for certain events (BigLittle Reveal, Mardi Gras, etc.). Eventually, it will start to fade into the background and it won’t feel like everyone is in a sorority. Which is completely true! There are many people on campus who either dropped the rush process or didn’t even participate and still have a community at WashU. And even if your friend group is split between being part of Greek Life and not, that doesn’t mean that your friendship will end. Now, speaking from the perspective of a non-Greek Life affiliate, WashU, unlike bigger state schools, does not center social life around Greek Life. This, in a way, is a good thing because it allows students to find many different communities in a variety of different ways. Many students find their niche in other clubs or extracurriculars (Cough Cough StudLife, join Student Life!). Don’t be afraid to try a new club if it interests you. Additionally, if you have people you talk to in your classes, or in your dorm, reaching out is less awkward than you might think. There are plenty of people with no Greek letters still searching for friends, and college

friendships have a funny way of blossoming in the most unexpected circumstances. To that point, it honestly just takes time, patience, and some trial-and-error to find your people. It’s not something that you can force, and it can (frustratingly) take a long time to build a lasting friendship or friend group. It’s very common — in fact, a lot more common than you might assume — for college students to not find the right people for a while. I know many people, both in Greek Life and not, who didn’t meet their best friend until they were juniors. The reality is that your college social life will always be fluctuating. But that’s good because it means nothing is set in stone. Rush does not make or break your social network at WashU, no matter if you joined Greek Life, if you got dropped, or if you didn’t rush. While it can take a while to meet them, take heart in that there are thousands of people for you to meet on campus and that your niche of people is still out there. No matter what, it will work out.

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‘Hey, stranger (no, really)’: We should all be talking to randos

KATIE HANSON CONTRIBUTING WRITER

As a middle schooler, I adored my baby cousin, choosing to devote whole summers to being at his house just to spend time with him. He had a lot to say to just about anyone: strangers on the sidewalk, strangers at the grocery store, strangers at the park. So, when I transferred to WashU a decade later, I took a page out of his book.

Before I got to campus, I knew people would be a bit thrown by a stranger approaching them.

Devastatingly, only 7% of people would talk to a stranger in a waiting room and less than a quarter of people would talk to a stranger on a train. Sad! Yet when University of Chicago behavioral scientists tasked these very people with speaking to an unknown person on a train, introverts and extroverts alike enjoyed their commute more. Not only do we preemptively undervalue these interactions, we also underestimate how much we enjoy conversations with, and just generally like, strangers.

Eventually, these strangers can become crucial to our social and emotional health.

University of Cambridge researchers observed that strangers diversify the types of social connections we experience. This varied, integrated engagement with our community not only helps us feel more at home in a café, but also has serious benefits, like serving as a protective factor against disease development.

This has serious implications for everyone, but especially Gen Z — dubbed

the “loneliest generation.”

Close to 3 in 4 Gen Zers report feeling lonely sometimes or always, a concerning rate that’s higher than that of any other generation.

Researchers point to a myriad of factors as the culprit: increasing social media usage, fewer shared spaces, and lingering social isolation after the pandemic. Regardless of the reason, it’s undeniably an issue that our generation is struggling to find community.

Cue my entrance to WashU: I didn’t know anyone aside from the handful of transfers I met at orientation, so I challenged myself to start talking to strangers (a lot). I quickly noticed that a lot of WashU students move in groups: Clusters of students eat lunch in the DUC, study together in Olin, and gab in Whispers Café. I knew I was a free agent, and I was eager to meet people. So, like a baby, I started with strangers. I would ask strangers in Whispers about their coffee order, compliment water bottle owners on their stickers, and shake hands with the people next to me at the long, second floor Olin tables. I was also aware, and still am, that many people saw these interactions as bizarre, random, and even a little off-putting.

Many times, these little moments made my day, energizing me with the beauty of newfound community taking root. Even when the moment was temporary, a one-time interaction after which I never saw them again, it filled me with joy. Just talking to a new person helped me feel more embedded in the WashU community. As a transfer student, I celebrated these interactions, and still do.

FKA twigs turns us eusexual

JOSHUA MILLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In the last few seconds of the music video for “Perfect Stranger,” released last October by FKA twigs, three sentences flash on the screen. They read: “Eusexua is a practice.

Eusexua is a state of being.

Eusexua is the pinnacle of human experience.” At that point, Twigs had already announced her then-forthcoming third studio album, but the mantra left viewers with an important question: What does any of this mean?

It’s unclear. A term she coined herself, Twigs describes eusexua as “...that feeling when you’ve been dancing all night and you lose seven hours to music.

It’s also if you meet somebody that you really like, and you just kiss all night, and you kiss for all hours. You lose time.” Because eusexua is a new creation — or because its center is too slippery for anyone to define but Twigs herself — she’s able to stretch it to mean whatever she would like. Eusexua is specific, but it’s all-encompassing.

Eusexua is emotionally poignant and spiritually vast.

“Eusexua” is 11 tracks and 43 minutes. Eusexua is in Twigs, eusexua is in all of us.

On “Eusexua,” Twigs

I only get two years here, and I feel beyond lucky to have those years. At the same time, I’m keenly aware that’s half the time of most other students at WashU. So, I try to pack each day to the brim. Yes, with exciting classes and interesting on-campus activities but also with the people of WashU.

Sometimes, my singular interactions form a chain, progressing a connection from a chance encounter to a developing friendship. Other times, these chains form webs, introducing me to whole groups of people I’ve grown to really enjoy. Either way, I cherish it.

Last February, I randomly talked to a girl in Bauer about her red nail polish. Our conversation quickly involved a mutual friend, discussing the disturbing nature of the movie “Saltburn” and how we all craved Costco memberships. Soon enough, we found ourselves on a trek to secure the perfect Costco rotisserie chicken (a rite of passage for any adult). Now, we pencil in sacred one-onone time, journaling together, walking aimlessly around campus on the weekend, and having heart-to-hearts in the basement of Olin.

I know this sounds like the typical friendship trajectory, but without an in-the-moment, split-second decision to randomly approach a seemingly ordinary person, I wouldn’t have access to our now extraordinary friendship.

This same stranger-centered philosophy guides me in my interactions off campus. This fall, I was on a walk around my neighborhood with my best friend (shoutout,

Leah Sylvia Sager). We happened upon the cutest baby playing in the dirt with his dad. We played with him for a bit (we’re all peers here), then he and his dad waved goodbye. “I need to babysit again!” I declared to Leah. It felt urgent.

Soon enough, there was another baby on the sidewalk, playing with her mom. Together, we played with my boba straw, commented on the possibilities of dirt mounds, and had a good oldfashioned time. The mom asked if I could babysit, and now I play peekaboo with her child professionally several times a month.

This connection could have been easily manufactured online. I could’ve posted a

profile on a number of babysitter search websites and met a nearby family, and the whole thing could have been conducted through screens. But to me, the value of the interaction and later connection was in its spontaneity. It was rare and special and not planned.

The sacredness of the inperson stranger interaction extends into nearly every type of relationship. Like babysitting, most dynamics can be mediated by an app. Romantic relationships can be instigated with an overflowing handful of dating apps, friendships can be sparked via social media, and so on. Yet, regardless of the category, the connections we hold the closest are

CAPTION CONTEST

usually the ones we initiated in offline, unplanned ways. Those initial interactions also serve as a great first page of our mental scrapbooks. It’s a little harder to reminisce on the time you double-tapped or swiped on each other than it is to cringe at the time you spilled matcha on the other person’s shoes or curtsied to them in the hallway. So, talk to the stranger! Who cares if it feels embarrassing? Later, you can share a laugh about the clumsiness of the interaction with the non-strangers in your life. And maybe you’ll look around and remember that all those non-strangers — the best friends, the partners, the roommates — were all strangers once, too.

offers a culmination of her immeasurable talent as a musician and visual artist: she crafts a sinuous and sensual sonic world that’s both physically moving and emotionally touching, masterfully weaving together her razor-sharp pop sensibilities with her uniquely Twigs-ian avant-garde vision. Her conviction in her own delivery sells many of the songs. “When a girl feels good, the world goes round,” she sings on “Girl Feels Good” over a warping, stuttering synth that’s almost a carbon copy of something from Madonna’s 1998 album “Ray of Light.” This homage should come as no surprise, considering that Twigs enlisted Marius de Vries — who has collaborated with both Madonna and other clear influences on “Eusexua,” like Bjork, in the past — for production on a number of these songs. These inspirations Twigs draws from, however, never eclipse her own iron-strong artistic identity — these are FKA Twigs’ creations, no doubt about it. It would be a disservice to the world of “Eusexua” to only discuss the auditory aspect. Accompanying the album are four music videos: that for the title track, “Perfect Stranger,” “Striptease,” and the most visually striking, “Drums of Death,” where Twigs

is placed in an uncanny 9 to 5 workday building. She doesn’t play an office siren, however, but rather an office Loch Ness monster, devouring fax machines and turning cubicles to rubble with crushing synths. Just as the vocals and beats glitch and stutter, she contorts her body and voice into something both menacing and vulnerable. Despite her corporate garb, she will not be relegated to filing paperwork — she becomes the paperwork, and also the office building, and also the CEO. “Crash the system, diva doll,” she chokes, “Serve cunt, serve violence.”

And she does crash the system on “Eusexua,” just as she has crashed the system for much of her career — which is why the only true eyebrow-raising moment on this album sticks out plainly, the inclusion of a North West (yes, daughter of Ye West and Kim Kardashian) feature on the otherwise excellent and danceable “Childlike Things.”

Read the rest online!

1st Place: I just know this is the start to a real shitty “Three x walk into a bar” joke.

-Sean Henry, Current WashU Student

2nd Place: A donkey, a dog, and a cat walk up to a bar…

-Karina Ravipati, Current WashU Student

3rd Place: How quickly we lock in when the teachers walks by during a test.

- Frankie Welder, Current WashU Student

Scan the QR code to enter your submission by 11:59 p.m. on Monday.

KEVIN KAN | STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

JAMIE HEBEL | HEAD OF ILLUSTRATION

HARDY

from page 1

“Even though he was sick, he was always positive,” Doyle said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

After the game, which the Bears won 83-58, Doyle spoke about the importance of carrying on Hardy’s legacy through events like the HardyStrong game.

“I mean a lot of it is just telling stories and memories that I have and our

SPORTS

other two seniors have of experiences we have had with him or stuff from when he was younger that we heard about and trying to get his legacy to live on forever,” Doyle said. “That’s gonna be hard once we leave because [the younger players] didn’t have a relationship with him like we did. But I think it’s just telling stories and reminding people, and

when something comes up where it’s like a big game and we talk about him, [it] is really cool.”

Doyle also shared the positive impact that Hardy had on his life both on and off the court at WashU and Hardy’s ability to connect with everyone on the team.

“He had such good relationships that he knew how to connect with each

guy in a unique way,” Doyle said.

This year’s seniors, Doyle, Kyle Beedon, and Drake Kindsvater, are the last class of WashU basketball players to have played with Hardy. Next year, remembering Hardy will enter what Juckem described as a “new phase.”

“I think [there is] even more responsibility on our

part to keep Justin’s legacy alive here at WashU in our program,” Juckem said.

“And it’s a cool opportunity. We’re gonna keep bringing new people in, new students who haven’t heard [and] weren’t here… I hope and pray someday that someone takes it up and turns it into a movie. It should be a movie. It was pretty miraculous. And to this point… really the only

athlete that we could find that actually went through and was playing competitively at a high level while undergoing the most aggressive chemotherapy and treatment possible. It’s just something that is not done.”

Eliza Stulman contributed reporting

In a weekend full of conference play, the WashU women’s basketball team dominated Brandeis University, defeating the Judges 74-50 on Jan. 31. However, the Bears lost 80-46 to the reigning national champions, No. 1 New York University on Feb. 2.

During Friday night’s game, the team honored the legacy of Justin Hardy in their annual HardyStrong game. Hardy graduated from WashU in December 2021 and earned national recognition for playing his senior season while undergoing chemotherapy treatment for Stage 4 stomach cancer.

While Hardy tragically passed away in May 2022, after a 13-month-long battle with cancer, WashU has continued to honor his story by partnering with the HardyStrong Foundation to raise awareness of gastric cancer.

Graduate student guard Jessica Brooks, who knew Hardy personally, spoke about the importance of the game to her and the entire team.

“I knew Justin personally, but a lot of our younger teammates didn’t get the chance to know him,” she said. “We got to listen to his story, learn about him, and share that with the younger girls, and they really bought in and played for something bigger than themselves. I think that’s honestly what pushed us to win that game.”

During Friday’s game, the Bears took a quick lead, going on a 9-0 run. WashU extended their lead throughout the quarter with an impressive 3-pointer from sophomore guard Alyssa Hughes. Brandeis picked up some steam towards the end of the quarter, but the quarter ended with the Bears up 24-10.

Brandeis closed the lead in the second quarter to only six points which ended with the Bears up by a score of 34-28.

The Bears outscored Brandeis in the third quarter 18-13, a fast-paced and exciting period with both teams trading baskets. First-year guard Hope Drake made both of her free throws and Brooks made an impressive tip-in, putting the Bears up by 11 points to end the quarter.

WashU dominated the fourth quarter, never allowing less than a single-digit

lead. The Bears were able to score 12 points in the quarter. This included an impressive jump shot and two made free throws from sophomore guard Catherine Goodwin, who was second in points for the Bears with 13 on the night.

The Bears ended the game with a 74-50 win over the Judges.

The game included an impressive three Bears scoring double-digit points, as well as three players having double-digit rebounds. Alongside Goodwin, who had 13 points, junior forward Nailah McBeth put up seven points and 10 rebounds. Brooks had her ninth double-double of the year finishing with 12 points, 10 rebounds, and two steals.

Sophomore Center Lexy Harris recorded her sixth double-double of the year and was the team’s leading scorer, with 17 points and 14 rebounds.

“[Lexy] is the best post player in the country in my opinion,” head coach Lisa Stone said. “She draws a lot of attention.” Coming off of Friday’s victory, the Bears were unable to sustain their momentum against NYU. The Bears knew the game would serve as a test as the Violets are the reigning national champions, and are undefeated this season.

NYU got off to an early lead, scoring the first 10 points, and continued to dominate, leaving the Bears down 31-13 at the half.

Following the break, both teams came out ready to score.

However, a 14-0 run by

the Violets midway through the final quarter would leave WashU down 76-36.

Brooks said that the greatest challenge for the Bears was facing off against NYU’s aggressive press.

“We broke their press really well and played together pretty well, but we just got sped up by their pressure,” she said. “That’s something we know, we can work on, and we can be better at.”

WashU was led by Brooks who put up 15 points and nine rebounds, falling just short of her 10th double-double on the season. Junior forward Nailah McBeth was dominant on both ends of the court, contributing 11 points and eight rebounds.

Stone highlighted McBeth’s performance, noting her growth as an offensive threat to the team.

“She gives us second chance opportunities and I told her not to be afraid to score, so I think we’re seeing that,” Stone said.

Stone believes that the opportunity to play NYU again this season will continue to prepare the Bears for postseason play.

“That’s the kind of team everybody is looking to beat,” she said. “We held them to their lowest half ever this season, but we just couldn’t score. Our team has to stay in the fight.”

WashU will face off against both teams again on the road next weekend, taking on Brandeis at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 7 and NYU at noon on Feb. 9.

After defeating Brandeis University 83-58 on Jan. 3, No. 10 WashU men’s basketball broke their five game winning streak on Sunday, losing 77-62 to the No. 3 New York University (NYU) on Feb. 2. The Bears are now 15-3 overall and 5-2 in University Athletic Association (UAA) play.

No. 10 WashU v. Brandeis

On Friday, WashU came out swinging at Brandeis, going on an 8-0 run to start the game. It was clear from the moment the Bears stepped on the court that it was theirs to win. The Bears ended the first half up 42-28 and would not give up their lead for the rest of the game.

In the second half, WashU maintained a double-digit lead and was able to create a lead as big as 25 points. The Bears came out victorious, beating the Brandeis Judges 83-53.

Sophomore Connor May led the team in points with 18, four of which were 3-pointers. Seniors Hayden Doyle and Drake Kindsvater trailed close behind with 15 and 13 points, respectively.

Friday’s matchup in the Field House, however, was more than just a basketball game — the Bears, including former WashU basketball players, honored the late Justin Hardy at the second annual HardyStrong game.

Justin Hardy was a WashU student and member of the men’s basketball team who was diagnosed with Stage IV stomach cancer in April 2021, the end of his junior year. But Hardy’s disease did not stop him from doing what he loved best — playing basketball.

“We never, ever, ever would have thought he was going to play basketball. We were just hoping that he could come back and finish his degree and maybe be

around the team,” WashU men’s basketball head coach

Pat Juckem said. “And, lo and behold, he ends up playing, playing well at 30 pounds lighter.”

WashU graduates from the 1960s through 2024 came to honor Hardy as an amazing athlete and a resilient person, but also to carry on his legacy of “mind over matter” — a mantra Hardy adopted that exhibits the power of a positive perspective even during the darkest of times.

Seniors Doyle, Kindsvater, and Kyle Beedon are the final members remaining in the program that played with Hardy. Before Friday’s game, Doyle made a speech about who Hardy was and the impact Hardy had on his life.

“He was very uplifting,” he said about Hardy. “I played a lot as a freshman, and we were on the court a lot together. When I’d be struggling, he would get in my ear, and he kind of knew how to motivate me, which was really cool. … He had a really good feel and balance of how to connect with his teammates and get them to perform at their highest level, which is really unique, because you can’t talk to everyone the same way, everyone is so different.”

No. 10 WashU v. No. 3

NYU

At Sunday’s game against NYU, former WashU men’s basketball players showed up once again to support their alma mater.

“It’s awesome,” sophomore George Gale said about playing in front of retired members of WashU’s basketball program. “Yeah, I love it. … Having Hardy weekend too and Hardy night on Friday night, his whole family was out here. … I think it really shows in how many alumni come out to the events, how many parents. We had a dinner on Saturday night. There must have been 50, 60 people there that were WashU basketball related.”

There was a clear distinction between the two halves during the NYU game. Early on, NYU gained a quick lead, up 12-2 in the first four minutes of play. A 3-pointer from Doyle appeared to change momentum but the 13 rebounds for the Bears was not enough to lead the game compared to the NYU Violets’ 23. The Bears entered the second half down 39-18 but quickly clawed back into the game, losing by only six points at the 14-minute mark. There was a clear shift in energy on both the court and in the stands.

WashU found their stride, outscoring NYU 44-38 in the second half. However, it wasn’t enough as WashU ultimately fell 77-62. Four WashU players racked up double-digit points against NYU. Gale led the Bears with a new career high of 15 points and Doyle scored 10. Kindsvater and senior Will Grudzinski both scored nine points. Kindsvater led WashU with five rebounds. Gale shared that the loss was not necessarily bad for the Bears.

“We just learn from all of our losses, try to take away as much as we can. It’s nice to be riding hot, but it can’t go on forever,” Gale said. “And I think in some ways, it’s not a bad thing to get kind of punched in the nose like this, and learn from your mistakes, because then you don’t have the pressure of this winning streak going into another game.”

WashU will face Brandeis and NYU again on Feb. 7 and 9 in New York. Going into the game, the Bears hope to use this weekend to prepare a new game plan for their trip.

“We got really competitive people, and we are all going to look within and find what each of us [can] do, and it starts with coaches. We have to have maybe a little different plan, a better plan,” Juckem said.

First-year Connor May steps back to take a shot against Brandeis on Jan. 31.

ELLA GIERE | PHOTO EDITOR

Sophomore Lexy Harris goes up for a layup in a game against NYU on Feb. 2.

RACHEL BENITEZ-BORREGO | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

After making it to nationals last year, the No. 11 WashU men’s club ultimate frisbee team, more commonly known as “Contra,” hopes to return to the national stage and cement their status as one of the best collegiate ultimate frisbee teams in the nation.

“A big goal a lot of people on the team have is to make it back to nationals,” senior co-captain Jake Tindall said.

“Last year, we made nationals for the second time in team history, and that was so much fun, and a lot of us really want to improve on how we did there. We got 15th, and given that we’re ranked 11th, we think we can do better.”

There are two paths to the USA Ultimate College Championships in Washington state — either

winning one of the 10 divisional tournaments or gaining a “strength bid” given to the top 20 teams in the nation. Last year, Contra, who competes in the South Central Division with teams like the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Texas at Austin, made it to the tournament through a “strength bid.” Earning a bid gives a team a spot in the playoff series where they compete to make it to the national tournament.

Alongside Colorado, who placed third at nationals last year — Texas, Texas A&M, The University of Arkansas, and Colorado State University are top contenders in WashU’s region. If Contra makes it to nationals they will likely have to face off against competition including Brown University, California Polytechnic State University,

and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“[Making it to] pre-quarters at nationals would be sweet,” senior co-captain Oliver Every said. “That means you make the championship bracket, which means you’re top 12 team in the country pretty unequivocally.”

The journey to nationals starts at WashU’s South Campus, where the team practices three times a week in both the fall and spring. While practices are led by the team’s two coaches, one of whom is a former Contra player, they are driven by the team’s three captains, who this year are all seniors. Contra’s practices look like that of many other team sports. Players begin by pairing up and tossing a disc before moving into a warmup, drills, and scrimmages.

“We have two coaches who

are about 40 years old, who are members of the St. Louis Ultimate community, who work for free, who just love it, and they listen to us, which is fantastic,” Oliver Every said.

“[The captains] sort of drive what’s going on, but it’s really important to have an authority figure who runs practices.”

As the team has become more prominent on the national scene in the past few years, they have begun to travel throughout the country to states like Tampa, Florida for the the Florida Warm Up and California for the Stanford Invite.

Senior co-captain Bennett Schwartz describes the team as a community that frequently spends time together outside of practices and games to create a strong sense of community. The team has weekly Friday evening dinners and a team Spring Break

trip to the Smoky Mountains.

Contra’s sense of community is so strong that five players are returning for their fifth or even sixth years on the team while pursuing master’s degrees and Ph.D.s at WashU. Unlike NCAA sports, where student-athletes typically have four years of eligibility, ultimate frisbee allows students five years of eligibility, with an additional year added for players who had missed a season due to the COVID-19.

Oliver Every attributed the returning graduate students’ dedication to their desire to gain an education and the close knit bonds they made on Contra.

“These are people who lived together for three years,” he said. “I think having that built community says a lot and would definitely be my [reason] to want to come back

here.”

All three captains attributed the culture of the ultimate frisbee community, and Contra, to the relative novelty of ultimate frisbee. While many people grow up playing sports like soccer, basketball, and football, often people do not get into ultimate frisbee until later in high school or college. The lack of high-paying professional exit opportunities in ultimate frisbee also leads to what Tindall described as an environment driven by “the spirit of the game.”

As their two championships approach rapidly with roughly a month left in their seasons, the No. 11 men’s and No. 15 women’s WashU swim teams faced DePauw University on Feb. 1, with both teams coming out victorious. In their final tune-up before the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championships, the men’s team won 196-85, and the women’s team won 189-100.

Head coach Brad Shively described the change in the team’s preparation as they approach the end of the regular season.

“We have transitioned to more speed and pace work in the last couple of weeks in preparation of the UAA Championships,” he wrote in a statement to Student Life.

“It’s challenging work as you have to force the speed in practice. The training volume is overall lower than we had in the fall which gives them more

relay with a time of 1:33.28, a race where the top-three finishes were all held by WashU swimmers.

Junior Orluke Borjigin won the 200 yard freestyle with a time of 1:41.99, and fifthyear Kyle Wolford won the 100 yard backstroke in 50.92 seconds.

First-years also notched many strong performances for the men’s team throughout the dual meet.

In the 50 yard freestyle, firstyear Jacob Tulchinsky came in first place with a time of 21.17 seconds. Ben Scott noteched the fastest time in the 100 yard backstroke with a time of 57.57 seconds. Additionally, Chas Jones not only claimed the 200 yard breaststroke, but the 200 yard individual medley (IM) as well. In the distance events, first-year Allan Chu beat out DePauw competition to win the 1,000 yard freestyle in 9:53.43.

“The 10 minutes goes by because the first half of the race, you don’t feel much.

200 yard medley relay team consisting of sophomores Izzie Gattone, Hannah Lee, Elizabeth Chen, and Peyton Watson finished in first with a time of 1:49.05. This event’s top-three finishes were again claimed by WashU swimmers.

First-year Annabel Hermacinski won the 200 yard butterfly with a time of 2:13.09, the team’s top firstyear finish.

Graduate-student sprint swimmer Abbey Mink won both the 50 yard freestyle and 100 yard butterfly. On the other side in the distance events, junior Anna Fonda

to have the whole team supporting me. It was definitely a really, really good feeling.”

Junior Avery Dixon claimed the 100 yard breaststroke, followed by first-years Becca Hackel, Julia Pintescu, Maddie Sammut, and Lindsay Alisbah rounding out the top five, respectively.

In the 200 yard freestyle relay, a team consisting of Mink and seniors Riya Sahota, Isabella Barrientos, and Caroline DeLuca narrowly finished in second behind a team from DePauw.

As the team continues to prepare themselves for the

in the country,” he wrote. “The UAA Championships are a 3.5 day meet so an athlete needs to

“[Shively’s] kind of been pushing us to be our best in practice and in meets and every little thing. He’s been really pushing us, focusing on all the details,” she said. The Bears will now travel to Atalnta to compete in the UAA Championships on Feb.