March 30, 2023 Student Life newspaper, Washington University in St. Louis

DORM COOKING

3 recipes you can try making in your dorm!

(Scene, pg 4)

WASHU VOTES

How to get involved in this year’s upcoming local elections.

(Forum, pg 6)

University changes dining providers, looks to increase partnerships with minority owned businesses

Women’s track finished 2nd place at Indoors Nationals, winning the DMR. (Sports, pg 8)

Treasury denies College Republicans appeal for economist speaker

ALIANA MEDIRATTA JUNIOR NEWS EDITOR

Student Union (SU) Treasury Representatives chose not to fund an appeal from the Washington University College Republicans (WUCR), who were requesting $6,977.85 to bring conservative economist Dr. Arthur (Art) Laffer to speak on campus, March 21.

Art Laffer is best known for his position on former President Ronald Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board and his creation of the Laffer Curve, which demonstrates the relationship between tax rates and government tax revenue. In recent years, Laffer served as an advisor to former President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Trump in 2019.

Junior Nathaniel Hope, President of WUCR, and sophomore David Tabarez-Cisneros, Social Chair of WUCR, directly appealed to Treasury representatives for the funds, explaining how a talk from Laffer would align with the club’s goals.

JULIA ROBBINS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Washington University is switching its dining provider from Bon Appetit Management Co. to Sodexo Food and Facilities Management, May 19. The University also plans to increase partnerships with minority-owned businesses in the satellite dining locations on campus.

Bon Appetit terminated its contract with the University after over 25 years of business, three years earlier than its contract was set to last. In the transition to Sodexo, all current employees of Bon Appetit will be able to retain their jobs if they reapply.

Bon Appetit did not answer questions from Student Life regarding why the company terminated its contract with the University, when the company let the University know it would be terminating its contract, or whether the company will face consequences from the University for terminating its contract early.

Jason McClellan, Associate Vice Chancellor for University Services, said that Sodexo will offer all workers currently contracted with Bon Appetit jobs at the same or higher rate of pay as they have

currently.

“As a University, we are requiring that all Bon Appetit employees who wish to remain at WashU will have an opportunity to remain with the new provider,” McClellan said.

Additionally, Sodexo will be honoring the time of service that each Bon Appetit worker has already served when deciding their benefits.

Shanay Robinson, a dining employee who works with Bon Appetit, said she attended a Q & A session for BA members to ask questions to Sodexo leadership.

“It was brought to our attention that everything will be the same,” she said. “We’ll still have our jobs, our seniority will be the same, everything will be the same; it’ll just be a new name. So it’s great news.”

McClellan said he does not know whether Sodexo will bring service workers already working for Sodexo to the University, but that it is a possibility.

Student Life also asked McClellan whether dining workers will have the same time off as they had under Bon Appetit.

“Sodexo offers comparable benefits and will meet with Dining team members to review benefit offerings,” McClellan said.

According to an article in The Source, “the University expects all people currently employed with Bon Appetit to have comparable opportunities with Sodexo under the new partnership, with no loss in pay or gap in benefits.”

Employees will have to complete an employment packet to be offered a job under Sodexo, but will not have to interview for their positions.

McClellan said that one of his main priorities in the transition of dining services is ensuring that “our team members who are a part of our community are taken care of. My hope is …we can start working with them on the transition and making sure that they feel comfortable.”

Jenny Slafkosky, Director of Communications for Bon Appétit Management Company said that Bon Appétit will assist current employees “interested in applying for other open positions within our company.”

During this transition, the University is looking to increase its partnerships with local minorityowned businesses in its satellite locations, which are all food locations on the Danforth campus except for Subway, Bear’s Den, the Village, and the DUC.

“We're hoping to leverage the change to make a stronger

commitment to the local economy and to our local region, as well as to minority businesses in the area,” McClellan said.

These partnerships could range from a local business creating another brick-and-mortar location on campus, similar to the owners of Coffeestamp Roasters opening a second café location in Hillman Hall, to having businesses sell food items at cafés on campus.

The University also asked Sodexo to at least maintain the current number of locally sourced food resources and ideally buy 25% of goods from local food groups.

Additionally, the University is looking into providing an “all you care to eat” option in the coming years, McClellan said. Administration has hired Bakergroup Consultants to look into how the University could make this option possible.

There are no current plans to alter meal plans, outside of changing with inflation, he said.

“I'm happy to say that we've been able to maintain a lower level of increase compared to the overall inflation rate in the United States and in the St. Louis area,” McClellan said.

“He is really one of the most prominent economists in the Republican movement and in the country,” Hope said. “Being able to hear from someone who might have new perspectives would give students the opportunity to think more critically.”

Throughout the discussion over the appeal, Treasury representatives focused heavily on the request for $1,586 in order to have the Washington University Police Department (WUPD) officers stationed at the talk for security purposes.

Hope explained that the request was based on a previous incident where Laffer had been unable to speak at a talk due to protests.

“When the speaker spoke at a peer institution, he was basically shut down,” Hope said. “We can't have any speaker funded by Treasury be shut down because then that's just money that could have gone into any number of different causes. Imagine if he had to leave the venue just because he was shouted down.”

The event Hope referenced occurred in 2019 at Binghamton University, when Laffer was scheduled to give a talk for the University’s College Republicans club that was canceled due to protests that began as soon as Laffer got up to the podium.

After Hope brought up the issue,

SEE REPUBLICANS, PAGE 2

David Kertzer, Vatican Historian, speaks about the Pope’s role during World War II

David Kertzer, a prominent professor of Italian and Vatican history, delivered remarks about his new book, “The Pope at War,” which details the behavior of Pope Pius XII during World War II, at an event held by the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and various community partners, March 27.

“The Pope at War,” the second Pulitzer Prize winning book by Kertzer, is based on documents released by the Vatican Archives in March of 2020 as part of an effort made by the Catholic Church to be more

transparent regarding their history. The newly public archives detail the behavior of Pius and provide context for his decision to not speak out against Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini during World War II. Pius’ lack of action throughout World War II has led some to refer to him as “Hitler’s Pope,” while others want to elevate Pius to sainthood. Kertzer’s book and remarks aim to provide context rooted in Church documents to this conversation.

While speaking with Marie Griffith, the Director of the Center on Religion and Politics, Kertzer explained that his research showed that Pius’

primary goal during the war was maintaining the unity of the Roman Catholic Church.

During his research, Kertzer made the “shocking” discovery that Hitler and Pius communicated with each other before the war and up until the Nazi’s defeat in 1945.

When the Germans initially invaded Poland in 1939, Pius did not speak out.

Kertzer posited that Pius remained neutral during and after the invasion for a variety of reasons, including the fact that Pius was the leader of all Catholics and according to Kertzer, “worried about producing a fracture in the Roman Catholic

Church in Germany.”

Halfway through the discussion, Griffith asked Kertzer

about

about the Holocaust, given that

SEE POPE, PAGE 3

The University is starting a contract with Sodexo Food and Facilities Management on May 19th after 25 years with their previous provider.

AVI HOLZMAN SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

JAMIE NICHOLSON | STUDENT LIFE

David Kertzer spoke at Graham Chapel

his book, “The Pope at War.”

FORUM

COVID — and Long COVID — are still here

REBECCA TREIMAN PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES

How worried should you be about getting COVID19? According to Cheri Leblanc, quoted in an article published last month by Student Life (Feb. 21), not very. Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 (currently the most common COVID19 variant), Leblanc says, doesn’t cause more severe symptoms than earlier variants, and the bivalent booster reduces the chance of significant disease. Indeed, many of you are not wearing masks and not taking other precautions.

What you may not think about is that the symptoms that you get when you are first infected with COVID-19 may not be the end of the story. Studies suggest that about 10% of vaccinated people who get COVID-19 experience Long COVID, or symptoms that

continue for three months or more beyond the original infection. Long COVID takes different forms in different people. As a faculty member who is only now recovering from Long COVID symptoms that I’ve had for almost a year, I can assure you that all of these forms are unpleasant.

Many people with Long COVID experience serious fatigue. I have measured my progress in terms of going from lying on the couch all day long, too tired to do anything, to taking both a morning and an afternoon nap, to taking one nap in the middle of the day. I’m at this third stage now. Other people with Long COVID have lung problems. I have measured my progress in terms of being out of breath just shuffling around my house, to being able to walk to the corner of the block, to being able to walk a mile before I have to sit and rest in someone’s yard. I’m at the third stage now.

REPUBLICANS from page 1

Treasury representatives shifted focus to talk about why protestors had shut down the event, however, there was miscommunication about how the protest had actually unfolded.

“The more I look into it, the more I see that there is evidence of the speaker saying something inflammatory at this event,” Treasurer sophomore Sam Hogan said. “At the Binghamton event, something happened that made students very unhappy that he was on campus.”

Videos of the event at Binghamton show that the protest occurred before Laffer even started his talk, as it was pre-planned and based on his previous political associations and beliefs.

Hope explained why he believed Laffer’s talk was disrupted.

“If you look at colleges across the United States these days, it's not uncommon for speakers of a divergent view to be shut down,” Hope said. “I'm not just saying only conservatives get shut down, only conservatives face discrimination. It's just the case that sometimes speakers get shut down on college campuses.”

As the discussion

continued, Treasury representative sophomore Leena Rai expressed her concern that security was seen as a required cost in order for Laffer to come to campus.

“I'm also against the idea of security, intentionally bringing a speaker to campus that requires security, I think is first of all a completely unnecessary cost, like purely on that,” Rai said.

“Additionally, if we're concerned about if we can control whether the speaker says something bigoted, I think it raises concern whether the speaker should be on this campus.”

While in the past the Treasury has funded certain line items in appeals without funding all of them, some representatives explained that they felt it would be irresponsible to fund the honorarium, or speaker fee, but not the security.

“I just think if we were to fund line items to bring Laffer to campus, we have some obligation to fund security because we want this to be a safe event,” Treasury representative sophomore Sadie Karp said. “If you don't feel comfortable funding security, maybe that means you don't feel comfortable

A recent college graduate that I know developed diabetes as a result of Long COVID. Other people develop heart problems or erectile dysfunction or see their hair fall out. Many people develop “cognitive fog,” or brain problems that hurt their memory, attention, and thinking. Being able to think, remember, and talk is vital, of course, for students and professors. I’m fortunate that I had just a few weeks of forgetting things, like forgetting to close the freezer door one evening and waking up the next morning to a soggy mess. For some people with Long COVID, the cognitive problems have persisted for several years.

Long COVID affects young people as well as older people. It affects people who have had all their vaccines and boosters (as I had) as well as those who have not. It affects people who have a mild case of COVID-19 in the acute

funding the event.”

After approximately thirty minutes of discussion, Rai made a motion to fund their appeal for $0, effectively denying their request, and it passed after representatives voted. Treasury representatives Justin Kouch and Reed Caney were the only votes of opposition to not funding the event.

In a follow-up interview with Student Life, Rai explained that another piece of reasoning to deny funding was a video clip of Laffer that had been sent in the Treasury Slack channel, which the representatives typically all look at during the meetings.

While the contents of the video were never brought up explicitly or stated during the meeting itself, the Fox News clip went viral in 2021 for a comment of Laffer’s that many viewed as offensive.

“For those people who are coming into the labor force fresh, not old-timers who’ve been around, the poor, the minorities, the disenfranchised, those with less education, young people who haven’t had the job experience, these people aren’t worth $15 an hour in most cases,” Laffer said in the news clip. “Therefore

phase as well as people who have a severe case. It affects people who are very fit as well as those who are not so fit. The day before I first tested positive for COVID19, I was taking a five-mile hike with a heavy backpack to prepare for a hiking trip in the Grand Canyon. Now, I can’t do that, and I don’t know if I ever will. Long COVID symptoms can be experienced each time you get infected with COVID-19. You can recover quickly the first time you get COVID-19 but then get Long COVID after the second time.

Due to Long COVID and its complications, I had to teach on Zoom for one semester. For a month during another semester, other faculty members had to fill in for me while I took a medical leave. Students were gracious about the disruptions, but it’s better for everyone if professors and advisors are as healthy as possible so they can do their best work.

when you have a $15 an hour minimum wage, they don’t get that first job, they don’t get the requisite skills to earn above the minimum wage and after a few years they become unemployable and after becoming unemployable they become hostile.”

After the appeal, Hope was interviewed on the television program News Nation, which also featured a response to the Fox News clip from Laffer himself.

“They missed the point,” Laffer said. “This was not a value of worth of a person, this was in the marketplace in the inner city, these people who are basically untrained and have not gotten the requisite skills, they’re not going to find a lot of employers who were going to employ them for $15 an hour.”

Additionally, in the interview, Hope stated that Laffer agreed to waive his honorarium fee and speak at the University for free after hearing about the appeal.

While the show’s host, Leland Vitter, said that Laffer told News Nation he had agreed to speak for free the entire time, Hope told Student Life that Laffer only told WUCR he would waive his speaker fee after the appeal

We usually think that modern medicine will help us if we get sick. But Long COVID is not well understood, and there are no treatments. I use inhalers to help my lungs, for example, but these just deal with the symptoms and not the cause.

The only way to prevent Long COVID is not to get COVID-19 in the first place.

If Long COVID is fairly common, why don’t we hear about it more? It’s partly because celebrities and politicians who have it usually don’t want people to know, and regular people may think they’ll lose their jobs if they tell their boss or their colleagues.

(The Americans with Disabilities Act allows for accommodations at one’s job, but people may not know about this and, even if they do, they may hesitate to divulge a disability.) Some people, too, don’t know that the symptoms they are experiencing are Long COVID.

was denied.

In a follow-up interview with Student Life, Hope stated that he believed Treasury representatives were engaging in viewpoint discrimination.

“By saying that the speaker could incite a protest like the one that occurred at the other institution was not only baseless, but really left us with the implication that if Dr. Arthur Laffer, of all people, is too controversial to speak on college campuses, then any conservative is,” Hope said.

In a follow-up interview with Student Life, Treasury representative freshman Meris Damjanovic said that he believed if WUCR appealed for a speaker who did not have a history of saying problematic things, he would have no issue with them coming to campus.

“I definitely think there are Republicans that don't make inflammatory statements that could come to this campus,” Damjanovic said. “I mean, if they found a speaker that I couldn't immediately find problematic things about online, I'd be fine.”

In a follow-up interview with Student Life, Treasury representative sophomore Jason Zhang stated that one of the main reasons he chose

Scientists at Washington University have done some excellent research on Long COVID. But the University has dropped the ball when it comes to protecting students. For example, why doesn’t the University share data about spikes in COVID-19 cases? Why don’t they mandate that everyone be up to date on boosters?

Why aren’t there free N-95 masks in every classroom and every dorm? Studies show that these work better than the blue surgical masks that are currently provided in some places on campus.

Many people think that being vaccinated and boosted is all they need, and that COVID-19 isn’t much more than a cold. That’s true for some people. But I am sharing my experience to help you understand the very real risks of Long COVID, encourage you to take precautions, and remind you and the University that COVID-19 is still here.

not to fund the appeal was because of the high cost per person.

“The most important thing for me was the fact that this was $7,000 going towards 60 people, so that's more than $100 per person,” Zhang said. “So it's just a lot of money being put towards a small number of people. If it was maybe a little less or something like that, it probably would have had a higher chance of passing through, but just that amount of money seems like an unfair and inequitable use of resources.”

Rai emphasized that her decision was based solely on the cost of the event and whether the rationale to fund it was compelling.

“I don’t think the conversation was ever that we weren’t funding him based on what he believes nor that the College Republicans never deserve to have speakers” Rai said. “I think that they chose a speaker who required something that we weren’t comfortable funding for the security and it didn’t prove to be worth the price point for the number of potential attendees.”

SU passes general budget of $4.2 million

LILY TAYLOR AND JOEL SWIRNOFF JUNIOR NEWS EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Student Union unanimously passed a $4.2 million general budget on March 26 for the 2023-2024 academic year, an increase by 5% from this year’s $4 million budget.

The budget will be divided between four primary categories: school councils, block funding, Student Union operating, and student group funding.

Max Roitblat, the Vice President of Finance for SU, began the annual general budget meeting with a description of rules and decorum and expressed desire for a succinct meeting.

“I want today to be as efficient as possible,” said Roitblat in his opening remarks. “What that means to me is that we don't need to arbitrarily extend today just for the purpose of talking and showing that we’re talking.”

To streamline the meeting, Q&A sessions were hosted for each fiscal section, as compared to announcement and discussion for every line-item cost, of which there were 80.

“We have the whole planning phase to allocate $4.2 million, not necessarily to get too much into the weeds on every single individual line item,” Roitblat added.

“The word of the day is compromise.”

The joint session between the Senate and Treasury lasted 1 hour and fifteen minutes, vastly shorter compared to previous years’ sessions which sometimes went on for several hours or days.

SU began the session with “immovable costs,” that go towards SU operations, including staff salaries, website expenses, etc. The most prominent movable cost in the budget was Student Affairs, which received $800,000.

The Social Programming Board was allocated $423,220 during the meeting. $325,000 is designated towards contracting performers for events including WILD, comedy events, and the Trending Topics speaker series.

SU allocated $35,000 for the Fall 2023 WILD, and $160,000 for Spring 2024, indicating that the Spring event will be the larger of the two. Roitblat said that Fall 2023’s WILD will likely be held off-campus.

“The difference between this fall WILD and WILD’s you may have seen in the past is that they’re planning to host it at the Pageant on the Loop rather than on campus,” Roitblat said.

Beginning with Spring 2024’s WILD and moving forward, the event is scheduled to take place on Mudd Field, “for as long as possible,”

POPE from page 1

it was a central point of contention when examining Pius’s silence about the war. According to Kertzer, the treatment of the Jews frustrated Pius, who expressed these feelings to a German ambassador present in the Vatican at the time.

During the war, many Jews tried to get baptized because they knew the Nazis were less likely to send a Catholic person to a concentration camp, according to Kertzer.

Teree Farbstein, a local member of the Jewish community, said she doesn’t know what she would have done if she were forced to decide between choosing faith or survival.

“I don’t know what I would do,” Farbstein said. “I can’t judge anyone else in that position.”

Sharon Summers, another Jewish community member, said she would have prioritized survival over allegiance to religion.

“First mitzvah is to health, and what is healthier than surviving,”

Summers said. “The individual decision to survive is just that, an individual decision.”

In 1998, Vatican officials released a statement titled “We Remember,” which, according to Kertzer, expressed the position that the church and Christianity generally bore no responsibility for the demonization of the Jews that led to the Holocaust. The statement argued that it was something else, “namely modern antisemitism, which was based on the social, political, economic and racial demonization of the Jews.”

During the reception following the event, Reverend Merek Bozek, a Polish priest who is a quarter Jewish, called the document “an excuse” and “dishonest,” and also stated that this period in history has been completely “white-washed.”

He went on to say that the Catholic Church is still struggling with how it addresses Jewish history, and he expressed frustration at the fact that

according to Roitblat.

SU ended the session with discussion of block funding. Emergency Support Team (EST), Uncle Joe’s Peer Counseling, and Campus Y elected to attempt to receive block funding this year. Block funded groups are guaranteed the full extent of their requested funds given that they gain the signatures of 15% of the study body.

Although block funding is part of the SU general budget, Roitblat noted that SU does not have the direct ability to approve block funding allocations.

“This is an immovable that we don’t have the ability to vote on because of our constitutional procedure for block funding,” Roitblat said. “SU as a general organization has no purview over [block funding]. We take the request for their budget and disseminate them to the student body. The groups are really in charge from there.”

All three organizations were successful in collecting the number of signatures required to qualify for this method of funding and received the full amounts requested. EST received $55,258.99, Uncle Joe’s received $21,565, and Campus Y received $43,155. SU moved to do a single vote on all budget items, which passed unanimously with no abstentions.

“it is 2023 and [the Catholic Church] is still trying to find a way to say ‘mea culpa.’ They don’t know how to say ‘we messed up.’”

Reverend Alan Young, who works with the Christian group Companions of Dorothy the Worker, said, “We must need to know the depth, the totality of what is being repented for before extending forgiveness,” and said that repentance and forgiveness are linked.

In an interview with Student Life after the event, Kertzer discussed how recognizing the intersection of religion and violence is critically important for understanding conflict taking place today.

“It’s the archbishop who is the head of the Russian [Orthodox] Church who is calling on all good Christians [to fight in the conflict with Ukraine],” Kertzer said. “That kind of misuse of religion is… another one of the lessons that I think [is] very apt today.”

SCENE

Creating Space: Kemper Museum’s “African Modernism in America” Exhibition

Jamaal Sheats, the director of Fisk University Galleries, first explored the works in the Fisk University archives with co-curator Perrin Lathrop in 2016. At the time, Lathrop was the assistant curator of African art at the Princeton University Art Museum. The pair had traveled to Nashville to visit the vast collection held at Fisk University.

“When we pulled them out, I promise you, they were glowing — it was just amazing,” Sheats said.

As Sheats and Lathrop went through the archival vault of works that would make up the exhibition, they described the experience as incredible. It was one of the impactful steps they took in their curation journey for their exhibition, “African Modernism in America” which landed at the Washington University’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum on March 10.

Over the past few years, the project has grown from one artist to a world built by a multitude of creators. Today, “African Modernism in America” is the first major traveling exhibition that examines the interconnection between African artists with key historical

time periods such as the Civil Rights Movement, decolonization, and the Cold War. The exhibition features more than 70 artworks by 50 artists from countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, and Ethiopia.

Part of the job of being a curator is to pick and selectively showcase certain artists and their work. Lathrop emphasized how difficult of a task it is; she said that it feels like every artist deserves their own book, their own lecture, and their own show.

“We hope the story here only invites people to gravitate towards what interests them and do more [than] what the exhibition can do,” Lathrop said.

While curating the exhibition, Lathrop and Sheats focused their organization around established art history eras, such as surrealism, abstract expressionism, and minimalism, which have been present since the 1900s.

“I would always be looking for certain works to be remaining on the checklist, and I’d be holding my breath, you know?”

Sheats said as he explained the feeling of attachment towards certain masterpieces as they made their final cuts. Both Sheats and

Lathrop strove to create a show that would represent artists from all corners of the continent.

While rewarding, the process certainly had not been easy.

“Those early months of COVID were nerve-racking because we had already sunk years into this project, and it possibly wouldn’t happen,” Lathrop said.

The lost time and access to the archival buildings, and the uncertainties surrounding 2020 were a period of low morale for both Sheats and Lathrop.

“You feel paralyzed,” Sheats said as he noted the clashing between the stagnancy of COVID-19 with the just-rising excitement from the momentum the exhibition had picked up. In addition, Sheats mentioned the difficulties when people transitioned from the project due to COVID19. Even so, Lathrop and Sheats are able to chuckle about it today.

Moving forward, Sheats and Lathrop hope that this exhibition will offer more space, inspiration, and scholarship not only at Fisk University, but also at other universities across the globe.

“It is interesting to think about how this work will continue [once] the

work has been consumed,” Sheats said.

Sheats highlighted how amazing it was being able to link certain current artists and works back to the exhibition. Ted Jones, for example, was a colleague of Sheats and former Professor of Art at Fisk University for 15 years who taught and influenced his students with a rich history.

Jones made a promise to Sheats to attend the opening of the exhibition when it was first happening at Fisk University. In addition, artists and students inspired by such works came to tell their stories. With all of these guests at the opening exhibition of “African Modernism in Americ”a at Fisk University, Sheats was amazed at the scope their project had reached.

“Renewing the idea of this exchange is something at the forefront of this movement,” Sheats said.

The exhibition is still available for students and guests to come and view until Aug. 6, 2023 at the Kemper Art Museum. Walking through the exhibition, guests can see a wide variety of pieces, ranging from paintings to wood carvings to ceramics.

“I only hope that this project continues to create more space,” Lathrop said.

Top: Head of Samson Imade by Ben Enwonwu. 13 inch Ebony statue displayed at the Fisk University Galleries. Gift of the Ben Enwonwu Foundation courtesy of American Federation of Arts

Bottom: “Snake Amid Flowers,” by Pilipili Mulongoy. Acrylic on Masonite board displayed at the Fisk University Galleries. Gift of the Harmon Foundation courtesy of American Federation of Arts

Dorm Delicacies: Three recipes using Paws and Go ingredients

ELIZABETH GRIEVE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

After a full day of classes and activities and with another midterm approaching rapidly, I grab my ID and trudge to Paws and Go for the third time this week. It’s a Thursday evening, and I’m too tired to scrounge something from my practically empty mini-fridge (as if I had the ingredients to make something anyway), so naturally, I give up on trying to cook. Whether you’re like me, an aspiring home-taught cook, or have never set foot in a kitchen before, I doubt cooking in your dorm is something you do on a daily basis.

I love to cook, but despite having a kitchen right down the hall, last semester I found myself swapping my passion for cooking for the convenience of Paws and Go ready-made items. Even when I could make the milelong trek to Shnucks to get

ingredients, I barely cooked in my dorm.

Going home for winter break made me realize how much I miss cooking, yet the barrier to getting ingredients has remained a challenge. This is something I seek to change. Lately, I’ve begun to compile and test ideas for recipes I could make without having to take the south campus shuttle — that is, with ingredients I can find in Paws and Go or in the dining halls.

Now, sometimes instead of grabbing a croissant from Cherry Tree, I use some premade dough from Paws and Go and bake treats for myself and my friends. I’ve compiled some of my favorites here to share with you. I encourage you to do a little experimenting; yes, dorm cooking is rustic, but that’s part of what makes it fun. My hope is that regardless of your cooking experience or the equipment you have in your dorm, you can find a recipe to try here

Molten chocolate mug cake from boxed cake mix

Ingredients: 1 boxed cake mix, a few tablespoons of cooking oil, 1 chocolate bar, water.

Equipment: Microwavesafe mug, microwave.

Yields: 1 serving

Directions: Fill your mug about 1/3 of the way full with the cake mix. Stir in equal parts of cooking oil and water (you should use around a few tablespoons of each) until the mixture forms a thick batter. The ratio of cake mix to liquid should be around 2:1. Microwave for 30 seconds, then remove and put a few squares of chocolate into the center of the batter. Microwave for another minute and 25 seconds, then let cool before serving.

SEE RECIPES, PAGE 5

GINGER SCHULTE | STUDENT LIFE

Chocolate bark study snack

Ingredients: 2 chocolate bars, toppings (I used sunflower seeds and dried cherries from the salad bar in Paws and Go, but you can use any type of nuts, seeds, or dried fruit you like)

Equipment: Flat dish (like a plate, tray, or container), microwave, microwavesafe cup or bowl, parchment paper (I got some for around six dollars from Amazon).

Yields: 2 servings

Directions: Line your flat dish with parchment paper.

Melt your chocolate in the microwave, then pour on your parchment-lined dish. Spread out until smooth, then add your desired toppings. Let sit until the chocolate is fully hardened, then break into pieces to serve.

Berry-filled croissants

Ingredients: Pillsbury crescent roll dough, fresh berries of your choice (both are in the back refrigerator section next to the drinks), sugar (I took a few sugar packets from Cherry Tree).

Equipment: Oven-safe baking dish or tray, fork, oven.

Yield: 8 croissants (4 servings)

Directions: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Open and unroll the crescent rolls, and separate them along the perforated lines into 8 triangles of dough. On the short edge of the triangle, place one or two berries, and mash them up using a fork. Sprinkle on a bit of sugar, then roll up the crescent roll and shape it according to the instructions on the package. Evenly space out the croissants on your baking dish, then bake for around 9-12 minutes or until the croissants are golden brown. Let cool before serving.

ILLUSTRATION BY SOPHIE LEONG

WU/FUSED: The movement that started it all

Over one year ago, Washington University adopted a need-blind system in its admission process with a $1 billion investment in financial aid. For the first time in the school’s history, the University stopped considering an applicant’s ability to pay in admissions decisions and will still meet 100% of the demonstrated financial need if that student enrolls. WashU Class of 2026 was the first class in WashU history to be admitted through this system.

But like most historical moments, the move to adopt a need-blind system and improve WashU’s socioeconomic diversity numbers didn’t happen overnight.

When Fernando Cutz, class of 2010, was a student on the Danforth Campus, conversations concerning economic diversity were nonexistent. At the time, he

said, nobody was talking about socioeconomic diversity. When people talked about variety, it was primarily a racial conversation and was also starting to become more focused on sex and sexual orientation.

But as senior class president and a John B. Ervin Scholar, Cutz was determined to change that. According to him, while many WashU students enjoyed the freedom of grabbing a bite by Delmar Loop multiple times a week, for other students — especially those who were Pell-eligible — that wasn’t the case. But it wasn’t just the difficulty of affording dinner out; for many students, the problem was also affording academic tools such as textbooks.

“A lot of times, the list of books that [professors] had us buying back then [cost] between two to $4,000 a semester,” Cutz said. “And that was just insane. A lot

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of people on campus, not just Pell-eligible, found this astronomical.”

At one of the country’s most prestigious and wealthy institutions, Cutz and his friend Chase Sackett decided to create Washington University for Undergraduate Socioeconomic Diversity (WU/FUSED) in the spring of 2009.

“We felt like it was a topic that most students at the University weren’t thinking about or considering and the administration at the time certainly didn’t seem to be thinking too much about it or considering it,” Cutz said. “The vast majority of campus at the time was students that had good financial needs, came from upper-middleclass or sometimes just upper-class families,” said Cutz.

Cutz and Sackett wanted to go beyond just raising awareness around socioeconomic diversity on campus. More than anything, WU/FUSED was

founded on the belief that if you are an academically talented student, your family’s inability to pay for higher education shouldn’t get in the way of you attending WashU.

“Our ultimate goal was to create a situation where WashU would agree to be need-blind — which I know recently, it has finally been something the university has committed [to],” Cutz said. “[But] at the time, it was a hard no [from the University]. It wasn’t even under consideration.”

Cutz and Sackett weren’t the first students to propose a need-blind admissions system. In the early 2000s, Student Life published multiple staff editorials and columns criticizing WashU’s lack of socioeconomic diversity and pushing them to adopt a need-blind system in their admissions process.

In a 2003 staff editorial titled “The buck stops here”, Student Life called out WashU for buying several

plasma TVs and other technologies in what became known as the “Olin Library Arc Technology Center”. In the editorial, StudLife wrote, “the costly TVs may seem like a trivial point, but they serve as daily reminders that Washington University is spending what seems to be an excess of money — from Olin Library’s copious cherry wood paneling to the decorative glass dome that will sit atop the building upon completion. No student on campus has not seen an example of money being wasted somehow.”

The editorial would go on to argue that “although the University seems needblind in terms of buying things it does not need, WU, ironically, is not a need-blind institution where admissions are concerned.”

At the time of the publication of the 2003 editorial, several peer institutions — all Ivy League schools plus Tufts University and the University of

Chicago — were need-blind. While it was only Cutz and Sackett when the movement began, the pair wasted no time. In the fall of 2009, the seniors assembled various student leaders for their first-ever meeting. The goal: present their mission statement and overall objectives and goals, including creating a program for RAs to promote consciousness of socioeconomic diversity, and decrease textbook and dining costs. Perhaps most importantly, Cutz and Sackett wanted to add admissions counselors to attract students from socioeconomically diverse backgrounds.

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PRIYA ANAND AND AMELIA LETSON CO-CHAIRS OF WASHU VOTES

It's not uncommon for college students to feel disconnected from local politics. While federal election cycles command attention — through constant media coverage, eye-catching campaign ads, and even an on-campus polling location — local elections tend to slip under the radar on many college campuses. But, as we love to say at WashU Votes, every year is an election year. We need to start giving local races the importance and consideration they deserve, especially as we approach Missouri’s April 4 election.

Our day-to-day lives are often more impacted by statewide and local politics than by federal elections. Public transportation, zoning laws, school board policies, and public safety legislation are generally decided on the local level. Moreover, issues like funding for law enforcement, voter accessibility laws, and more recently, access to abortion and reproductive care, are increasingly becoming “state issues,” and local elections are your chance to make an impact.

Because non-federal elections historically have a much lower turnout, your vote matters that much more in determining your state’s political landscape. Often, local elections are decided by a margin of just a few votes. Additionally, many political careers begin on the local level, making these races a powerful way to promote future diversity and representation in government. As Co-Chairs of WashU Votes, we urge you to get involved in one of the many states, including Missouri, that are holding elections this spring.

You can only vote in one location. You can register to vote in Missouri or at your permanent address. You should decide where to vote based on which issues are most important to you

and where you want to make your voice heard through your vote. Visit VOTE411 to view sample ballots for every location and for information about each state’s registration deadline. Keep in mind that the registration deadline for Missouri’s General Municipal Election this spring has passed.

Missouri’s General Municipal Election is on April 4, and just like in the fall election, voters will be required to show a government-issued ID to vote. Acceptable forms of identification include a Missouri-issued ID (typically a Missouri driver’s license) or a federally-issued ID (this could be a passport, global entry card, or any other photo ID issued by the United States government). Since the passage of HB 1878 last summer, students may no longer use their WashU IDs or out-ofstate driver’s licenses to cast their ballots in Missouri. For students who are planning to register or update their voter registration, we urge you to consider these requirements when deciding where you would like to vote.

For Missouri’s April 4 election, what appears on your ballot will differ by county and district. Ballot measures across the state include a Marijuana taxation proposition, Alderperson elections for St. Louis County and City, and School Board Elections.

To look up sample ballots by

address, visit the City of St. Louis Website and St. Louis County website.

If you are registered to vote in St. Louis County, you may vote at any polling place in the County on Election Day from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. If you are registered to vote in St. Louis City, you may vote at any citywide polling place in the City on Election Day from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. If you currently live on campus, the closest polling location on Election Day is Wydown Middle School located on Wydown Blvd.

To find out if you are eligible to vote in an election this spring, visit Ballotpedia. If you know you won’t be able to cast an in-person vote, request your absentee ballot now. Many states have introduced renewal requirements for voting absentee, so you may have to file a new request even if you voted absentee in the fall. In collaboration with the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, WashU Votes offers free postage and notary services to students mailing their ballots.

While voting is one of the most important ways you can engage in local politics, it is certainly not the only way of getting involved. If you

WashU Dining Service employees must be top priority in new contract with Sodexo

BRITTANY KIEFER MSW CANDIDATE 2023

Soon, WashU’s 20-plus year contract with dining services vendor Bon Appetit will expire and a new food service management company will be responsible for feeding the mouths and minds of our student body.

First place: “Bear and Brookie fighting our demons” Sam Gil | Current WashU student

Second place: “Bear and Brookie simultaneously curing my depression AND anxiety (at least for the five minutes they lay on me)” Aidan

Stern | Current WashU student

Third place: “Bear: ‘So the barkchain is a decentralized ledger of all the bones in existence’ Brookie: ‘Damn that’s crazy…’” Seth Melamed | Current WashU student

are not eligible to vote in this election cycle or are looking to get more involved within your community, consider joining WashU Votes or one of the many civically oriented organizations on campus. Additionally, we urge you to research local issues and work directly in your community by volunteering for a non-profit, political campaign, or advocacy group. Voting is only one avenue of civic engagement, and while we encourage you to vote and discuss the importance of this practice with your friends and families, we also recognize that there are many other meaningful ways to participate in local politics.

To learn more about elections in your state and to make an informed vote, visit VOTE411 or Ballotpedia. For more election information, follow WashU Votes on Instagram (@washuvotes). If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out via Instagram or email. For civic engagement opportunities, subscribe to the Gephardt Institute mailing list and follow their Instagram.

The fight to boost voter participation and engagement must extend to all elections. Although local races have historically received less attention, they serve as avenues for significant change in our communities. We encourage you to do your part in making an impact across the country this election cycle.

Under Bon Appetit’s awardwinning service, WashU has consistently been recognized as a top university in the country for food and beverage quality. An institution that prides itself on a commitment to the St. Louis community, WashU lauds its collaboration with local businesses like Companion Breads, Kaldi’s Coffee, and the social enterprise Propel Kitchens. A review of the University’s excellent food service must also include recognition of their quick adaptation to the COVID-19 pandemic when serving the campus under rapidly implemented social distancing precautions.

Of all these commendable successes that contribute to our student experience, the most valuable success of Bon Appetit’s tenure is WashU dining employees winning a union contract through the United Food and Commercial Workers labor union in 2017. This hard-won contract secured many important benefits for the more than 300 food service workers including mandatory raises, increased vacation time and funeral leave, guaranteed pay for shift work, improvement in overtime rules, and access to healthcare and retirement packages. As Bon Appetit’s contract is expiring and will not be offered renewal, WashU is seeking a new food service management company.

Without the dedicated service of our dining workers, our institution would not have earned its accolades or accomplishments for our dining services. A commitment to sustainable practices and a positive impact on the St. Louis community starts with ensuring WashU employees earn fair wages and are provided necessary benefits.

According to UFCW655 President David Cook, if more than half of Dining Service workers are hired by the new food provider, Sodexo, they will be legally obligated to recognize the union for bargaining and representational purposes; if less than half of previously employed Dining Service

workers contract with the new company, Sodexo may dodge accountability to a union altogether. If more than half of the Dining Service employees work with Sodexo, they should honor the contract; if less than half of previously employed Dining Service workers contract with the new company, Sodexo may dodge accountability to a union altogether. For the University to maintain its commitment to upholding excellence in our community, any new contract must honor the union contract that Dining Service employees have fought to win.

WashU is the second largest employer in the city. With such a great reputation comes great responsibility to be an example of equity, stewardship, and positive social impact in the region — three of the guiding principles in Washington University’s strategic plan “Here and Next” that aims to make the University a “global hub for transformative solutions to the deepest societal challenges.” A “community driven vision for academic distinction” must begin with Washington University using its power and influence here in St. Louis to center social and economic justice before tackling these issues globally.

The University is certainly known for excellence on a global scale, but locally, there can be much more distrust of the institution that has been criticized for extraction and exploitation of the community that houses its research, outreach, and expansion. Paying fair wages and providing other necessary benefits to dining service employees are necessary steps to addressing the racial wealth gap and health disparities that persist in St. Louis.

While the city seeks to grow through attracting enterprising businesses and a talented workforce, the University is already poised to incubate economic opportunity. When St. Louis workers are paid competitive wages, those resources are transferred directly into our local economy.

Washington University needs to put its money where its mouth is and demand any new contract with a food service management company honors the current Dining Service workers’ union contract.

Local elections are just as important. Here's how to get involved in yours.

WashU Votes volunteers paint the cube under the underpass in preparation for the upcoming elections.

LYDIA NICHOLSON | STUDENT LIFE

SPORTS

3 years later, WU BLAC is still calling for more diversity in coaching positions

HUSSEIN AMURI JUNIOR SPORTS EDITOR

In the wake of the death of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer in the summer of 2020, millions of people nationally and globally took to the streets to protest police brutality and systemic injustices against Black people.

On the Washington University campus, Black student-athletes drew on this moment of racial reckoning to call attention to the need to improve the experiences of other Black student-athletes by creating the Washington University Black Letterwinning Athletes Coalition (WU BLAC). The organization was inspired by similar student groups on campuses nationwide. Three years later, they have seen some progress. but they’re also still working towards some of the same goals that they started with.

Other University Athletic Association (UAA) conference teams have their own organizations dedicated to supporting Black student-athletes. In 2020 — the same year WU BLAC was founded — students at the University of Chicago founded their own chapter of the Black Letterwinning Athletes Coalition. In January 2021, student-athletes at both Case Western Reserve University and Carnegie Mellon University founded the Black and Latinx Athlete Coalition (BLAC).

“We have huge social unrest and all of these things with Black Lives Matter, and I’m sure that fueled wanting to get something going in the Athletic Department,” then-junior basketball player Samantha Weaver said in a Student Life article published in November 2020. “But I think there’s always been a sentiment to have something like this.”

With the broader goal of bringing Black student-athletes together and fighting the reality of “going into a practice or a game setting each time and being the only person in that space that looks like you,” WU BLAC had several demands for the Athletic Department. None were as paramount as increasing diversity in coaching positions: hiring more Black coaches that Black studentathletes could relate to.

Three years after its

founding, WU BLAC is still fighting for that demand.

“We need more Black staff,” senior Mycah Clay, Events Chair for WU BLAC and sprinter on the track and field team, said. “Coaches… play multiple roles depending on how invested you are in your sport. But outside of just instructing you on how to excel in your sport, they’re also a form of support. When you feel like at times, your white coaches might not understand certain aspects of your identity that are impacting … your mindset going into a certain meet, game, or match — it would definitely help if we had more people that look like us within higher positions.”

For Clay, having more Black staff is not only about having coaches who understand her identity; it is also about lifting the burden often placed on WashU Black student-athletes.

“I think it’d definitely be really beneficial to have more Black staff so that we’re not forced to constantly be the spokespeople of every Black athlete at WashU. We want those people within those higher positions to carry some of the burdens, for lack of better words,” Clay said.

Charis Riebe is a junior hurdler on the WashU women’s track and field team and WU BLAC’s co-president this school year. In a statement for

Student Life, she emphasized the benefits she has received from WU BLAC as a member of the group.

“To me, WU BLAC is a much-needed community to empower Black athletes on campus,” Riebe wrote. “It is not always easy being a person of color at a predominantlywhite institution, and being a part of a sports team comes with additional challenges.

WU BLAC provides Black athletes on campus with a space to grow personally, academically, athletically, and professionally, and I am honored to be a part of it.”

Since the organization’s inception in 2020, there have been notable changes within the University’s Athletics Department as a means of accommodating WU BLAC’s demands. Members of WU BLAC have been allowed to sit on interview panels of candidates applying for WashU coaching positions. Beyond allowing Black student-athletes to sit in on interviews, the department has continued to support WU BLAC’s mission through Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) training for staff in conjunction with the Center of Diversity and Inclusion and the Academy of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

“For the WU BLAC inaugural executive team, we

provided an executive coach to discuss leadership, structure, and insight for the academic year 2019-2020. The Athletic Department hosted events for students of color,” Director of Athletics Anthony Azama wrote in a statement for Student Life.

In his statement, Azama elaborated how he has focused on utilizing university resources to train his staff team and has been working on the issue of mental health by employing resources provided by Habif.

“As we continue to make DEI work a priority, we will seek opportunities to further partner with the Academy for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to ensure that all students, staff, faculty, and student-athletes alike feel welcome and safe in our athletic and rec spaces,” Azama wrote. “We utilize University resources to train staff during our monthly department meetings. As a department, we rely on Habif to hire and provide mental health professionals. However, as we continue to identify mental health resources both on and off campus, we can bring awareness of these concerns from student-athletes of color.”

Azama explained how the Athletic Department has been working with coaches and other athletics staff members to provide them with

opportunities to learn more about the unique experiences of student-athletes of color on campus.

“For the academic year of 2022-23, the department, in partnership with the CDI, held a Latinx panel in the fall and a Black Student-Athlete panel discussion in February which had significant attendance from student-athletes, staff, and both head and assistant coaches,” Azama wrote. “We offered and strongly encouraged all staff, including coaches, to attend both panels. By attending these discussion panels, coaches were provided unique insight on the experiences of students of color on this campus.”

Clay acknowledged the steps that the Athletic Department has done to support Black student-athletes at WashU. She also believes that the department could be doing more.

“I think that including student leaders in recruiting faculty is integral to authentic and sustainable change. Given that these athletes are the ones who will be interacting with said individuals, it’s important that they be included in some aspect of the recruitment process,” she said. “However, I don’t think that’s where the administration should stop.”

Specifically, Clay believes that more could be done through microaggression

training for white coaches and hiring more Black staff outside the coaching positions.

“Hiring x amount of Black staff does not automatically solve the difficulties Black athletes face in predominantlywhite spaces. While this is definitely a step in the right direction, existing coaches and staff should also be expected to understand all of their athletes and not just leave it up to those who share the same color,” Clay said. “Examples of this could be microaggression training and attending student diversity events. Sports psychologists would definitely lighten the load of the coaches as well as provide student-athletes with the support and tools they need.”

The issue of microaggressions is important to WU BLAC as it was an essential aspect of their foundation.

Specifically, in the wake of WU BLAC’s initial operation on the WashU campus during the Fall of 2020, several Black student-athletes alumni wrote a letter of support to the organization. The letter was signed by nearly 250 recent alumni of WashU athletic programs. As part of the written letter that was sent to the administration, alumni shared anonymous stories of their experiences with racism at WashU. The stories shared ranged from unchecked microaggressions and stereotypes to active and overt racism in the WashU athletic community. Specific experiences that were listed by former WashU athletes included coaches and captains “joking about lynching and speaking negatively of protests for racial justice or avoiding rap music in the weight room because it was too ‘urban.’” Others had stories with more broad charges, reporting how athletic trainers would ignore their physical conditions and how pushback against microaggressions was met with few changes.

“In my own experience and

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Mycah Clay and Abayomi Awoyomi, two members of WU BLAC, pose on the track.

ELLE SU | STUDENT LIFE

A storybook ending: Women win DMR en route to second place at indoor nationals

CLARA RICHARDS MANAGING EDITOR

As the Washington University Distance Medley Relay (DMR) lined up on the orange and yellow banked track at the NCAA Division 3 Indoor Track and Field Championships, head coach Jeff Stiles knew he was making a calculated risk.

The leadoff runner, senior Emily Konkus, had never raced the six laps of the 1200-meter first leg before. The second runner, Kathryn Leighty, had never competed at a conference championship, let alone on a national stage. Racing third with the 800-meter leg, junior Ally Sarussi spent ten weeks on crutches in the fall with a femoral stress fracture.

Senior anchor Aoife Dunne had run a 2:11 800M just hours before and had never run the mile leg of the relay before.

“Really from the outside, it probably seemed like an underdog situation,” Dunne said.

From the starting gun to the finish line, in their own words: the making of a national championship DMR team.

Stiles: The thing that I love about [the DMR] is that it’s a team event, even from the different event groups. You have sprints, you have middle distance, you have distance… And it also brings in different coaches, different event areas. It’s really a great representation of the team and diversity of events, so I think it’s super fun.

Dunne: The DMR is really a beautiful relay; it gives your team the opportunity to showcase an array of strengths, from sprints, mid distance, to distance, and it’s a relay you only get to run indoors.

Konkus: Putting relay lineups together is puzzle-piecing people between their individual

events and how you [can] best use people off of the order of events. And definitely, there were a lot of iterations.

Stiles: We rearranged the order strategically because we thought it gave us a better chance to win…We switched Emily Konkus and Aoife Dunne. This will sound weird, but we took them away from their better legs. It made no sense to switch them, but we felt like it made a lot of sense, because the 1200M is gonna be more tactical at the national meet.

Leg 1

Emily Konkus starts from the line in the first 1200M leg; as the pack settles in, she establishes herself up front. Her legs, used for the steady pace of the 3,000 meter race, easily keep up with the quick speed at the front as they grind through the 6-lap first leg.

Konkus: I run better when I’m in a pack of people, which I was in the leadoff leg. Being able to solidify a position early on in the race had a lot to do with us being able to win.

Stiles: Emily had never run a 1200M. She led off in 3:32, which is the second-fastest 1200M in school history.

Konkus: I really enjoyed it. The 1200M is the perfect mix — you’re never really going out, like in an 800M where you have to have this incredible turnover, but by the end, you’re also tapping into mile speed and you get to stop two laps early.

Leighty: I was concerned about the handoffs — I didn’t have a lot of experience receiving handoffs, especially messy ones like that.

Konkus: The 1200M to 400M[handoff] is one of the most chaotic ones because you’re still in a massive pack… but I remember being very

nervous because you’re handing off and the paces are so different.

Leighty: I was trying to prepare myself for all these possible scenarios of traffic. But the scenario that I least expected was what happened — Emily doing amazing and leading at the front. I was the first one to step out on the track and take the baton.

Leg 2

Kathryn Leighty grabs the baton, escaping the chaos of the handoff zone. She doesn’t look behind her, only ahead.

Leighty: Honestly, in the week leading up to the meet, there was not really a lot of certainty, at least from my end, who was going to be running on that team. And I’m not really sure that I wasn’t necessarily the right choice. But I’m so, really happy with the way that it turned out, really honored that I got that opportunity to run with these three other amazing women and represent the 60 amazing women that we have on our team.

Stiles: Kathryn Leighty had never run in a conference championship. She’s never really made a conference lineup. And she’s a national champion.

Leighty: When I was actually running the race, it felt like running any other race. I was running by myself for a lot of it, which is very similar to how the rest of the season has gone for me. It didn’t really hit for a little while — like, oh, my gosh, I just like at a national meet. But I was very happy. I didn’t get passed.

Stiles: Kathryn Leighty, who has never run a conference championship, out there running her best 400M leg of her life at the national meet, was pretty neat.

Leighty: I was just happy

that I was able to get Ally the baton cleanly, and that she was able to get away and get off to a good start.

Leg 3

Ally Sarussi takes the baton, in a clear second place. She begins the chase to the lead runner, slowly narrowing the gap in front of her.

Sarussi: I stress-fractured my femur, which is a pretty big injury. I started running in December and really got back training fully with the team in January.

Stiles: She was out 4 months, maybe. She was in the pool, unable to run for quite a bit of time. We didn’t know when she’d be back.

Sarussi: I did a lot of work in the pool with aqua jogging, so that was really helpful. But definitely, it was hard to get my foot speed back.

Konkus: Ally is an incredibly resilient athlete. It’s been an honor to watch her compete and train.

Stiles: In my mind, I’m like, man, if she can be back, running competitively, by outdoor [track season], that would be amazing. And in Ally’s mind, it was very clear that she was working hard to be back for indoor. And I really think that testifies to the power of the mind. For her, it was never in question.

Sarussi: I had told people, ‘Oh, like, it’d be great if I like made conference, but I’m not gonna put pressure on myself.’ But I was able to progress pretty well, especially with the 800.

Stiles: And it should be noted that she was willing to pass up the open 800M. The mental toughness that that took, and the selflessness that took, was phenomenal.

Sarussi: The coaches think, okay, how can we capitalize

on individual events and have people ready to also perform really well in this relay? For me, that meant not doubling [in the open 800M] and just focusing on the DMR, so I could be fresh for it.

Konkus: She’s an amazing athlete and a very, very crucial part of that relay. When I saw her closing that gap — I think she dropped a 2:12, which was a significant PR for the season — it was awesome to watch.

Leighty: When Ally really started closing on the girl in front of her, it really hit me: we have a shot to win this.

Sarussi: You know, it’s a little tough because it kind of turns all into a blur. Like, I just finished and then suddenly, like, it’s Aoife for that last crazy mile.

Dunne: Ally ran the perfect race. She ran so confident and made up an incredible amount of ground, which put me right behind the SUNY miler.

Leg 4

Sarussi hands off the baton to Dunne for the eight-lap anchor leg in second place. She’s made up a lot of ground towards the runner from SUNY-Geneseo. It’s up to the 800M specialist to find — and keep — the lead.

Stiles: Our hope — and this may sound weird — but our hope was to get the stick not leading. Close. But it’s easier to sit on someone and kick.

Konkus: She can tap into any gear.

Stiles: It was picture-perfect. She waited, waited, waited. It takes confidence to be patient. It’s easy to get impatient and take the lead too soon.

Dunne: Luckily, my teammates put me in the perfect position to be able to sit on SUNY, who was in first and then pass them with 300M to go.

Sarussi: It was really crazy on the sidelines, because we just knew Maddie Kelly had a really good kick. So I was confident Aoife could beat everybody out there, but Maddie Kelly was definitely going to put up a fight.

Stiles: It takes a lot of confidence to run well from the lead. So her last 400 meters was just pure willpower.

Dunne: The entire last 400M, I knew there was a chance [the UChicago miler]. It would just have to be a challenge of grit.

Sarussi: It was very stressful. We were going crazy.

Dunne crosses the line, fending off of a late challenge from the University of Chicago. She goes to join her teammates on the side of the track, surrounded by cheers from WashU fans crowded around the finish line.

Leighty: I was just so happy for Aoife. I knew going into it too, she was kind of nervous as the anchor leg. There’s a lot of pressure with that.

Konkus: Honestly, it was one of the most perfect races I’ve watched. Being the leadoff leg, I could watch the whole race and enjoy it. It was an incredible effort all around.

Stiles: Ally battled injury and the other ladies doing something they hadn’t done — an example of just really, really tough, young people. Gosh, I’m not surprised that they pulled it off. But it was really, really rewarding.

Leighty: I think that all four of us on that team did the absolute best that we were capable of doing on that day. And so I think, for me, being a national champion means that I showed up for my team on that day. And so I can’t really ask for anything more than that.