April 4, 2024 Student Life Newspaper, Washington University in St. Louis

CELEBRATING CARNAVAL

WashU ALAS puts on 25th annual Carnaval.

(Scene, pg 3)

The chapters of both Kappa Sigma and Alpha Phi have been temporarily suspended at Washington University pending the results of a student conduct investigation into an incident involving students throwing eggs and potentially saying racial slurs at Bear’s Den (BD) dining hall, March 21, per Dean of Students Rob Wild.

The Washington University Police Department (WUPD) opened an investigation into the incident on March 22, before turning it over to the Office of Student Conduct on March 26. Both chapters were suspended on March 27.

Gilbert Grigsby, who supervises dining services for the South 40, said that he was present that night and saw students running around inside of the dining hall acting “loud and obnoxious,” with behavior including yelling, spitting, and jumping on top of tables.

“They were wrestling with one another, I was told students were spitting in one another’s faces,” Grigsby said. “As I was walking back and forth, a young man and a young lady came in and I heard them say ‘we’re going to do this right here.’”

Grigsby said that while he was unsure what they were referencing, he told them they needed to take it outside, and the male student tried to ignore him. At that point, Grigsby was informed that students had been throwing eggs outside.

“When I went outside to look, I saw that they had egged the front door,” Grigsby said.

NOT JUST A TREND

Weaponized incompetence is overly normalized in heterosexual couples on social media.

(Forum, pg 5)

A dining services worker, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions, said that they saw eggs that had been thrown onto the outside of BD when they were working that night around 9 or 10 p.m.

“A student herself said that she had been a victim of the egging, she had to go take a shower because they had egged and she got the eggs all over her,” they said.

They said that later in the night, they were about to go to work in Paws & Go when the students were running around, throwing things at each other, and being disruptive.

“One of the kids was like, ‘let’s prank the cashiers,’” they said.

WashU’s Association of Black

Students posted a statement to Instagram on April 2, in which they label the incident a hate crime and urge the Office of Student Conduct to “hold all individuals accountable to the fullest extent.”

The post alleges that, among other transgressions, the students involved were saying racial slurs, and calls for them to be expelled.

Dining services worker Hollee Brooks, who was working the night of the incident, said that she did not experience any harassment from students.

“They were more erratic with each other,” Brooks said. “[It was] just drunk behavior, adolescent drunk behavior.”

Brooks also said that she did hear

might have used a gun.

A Washington University student was the victim of a robbery when they were approached by an unknown man with a handgun near the intersection of Rosedale Avenue and Waterman Boulevard at 9:10 p.m. on March 30. The Washington University Police Department (WUPD) sent a security memo out on March 31 to inform the WashU community of the incident, noting that the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) is investigating the robbery.

Juniors Antoinette Manteau and Kira Jones heard parts of the robbery’s aftermath from their apartment on Waterman, which overlooks the intersection where it took place.

Jones said that she was in the living room watching television with the windows closed when the robbery occurred, and she paused it and opened the windows when she heard the victim screaming.

“It got to where I could see the person walking across the street,” Jones said. “I was debating if we should go down and see if they were ok or not, but then we saw them walk up to their friend’s apartment.”

She said that she saw the victim talking on the phone, and that

about 10 minutes later, the local police department showed up. Jones has been living on Waterman since this past June, and said that about a month after she moved in, her car was one of 11 on the street that were broken into. Before this incident, she said that car break-ins were the extent of her worries.

“In my mind, it was always little things like that,” Jones said. “I didn’t think anyone would ever target a person.”

While both Jones and Manteau said they were aware of basic safety precautions for walking alone at night, they said that being robbed while walking is now a bigger concern for them.

“There have been so many other incidents recently, with the grad student [Amarnath Ghosh] and everything else,” Jones said. “It’s just kind of insane. I don’t feel more scared, I just feel like I’m more actively conscious of it, but the fear was kind of always there.”

Just over a month before the robbery, MFA student Amarnath Ghosh was shot and killed on the Delmar Loop, near the Third Degree Glass Factory.

This security memo marks the fourth one that WUPD has sent to the WashU community this academic year, including property damage at Shepley House, an aggravated assault near campus, and a robbery on Pershing Avenue, in which the victim said the robber

WUPD Chief of Police Angela Coonce said that students should take note of the suggested precautions in the security memo, including information specific to robbery incidents.

“If you are confronted by a thief, give them what they want and don’t chase them as they leave,” Coonce wrote in

one student say the N-word but that it was not directed towards her and she was unsure if the individual who said it was part of the group that was behaving erratically, and she was unable to see the person who said it.

Grigsby said he did not hear any racial slurs being said that night.

“I was right there to make sure nobody got into our spaces,” Grigsby said. “I did not hear that.”

Though he was unable to see what students were responsible for throwing the eggs, Grigsby said that he was told that the students involved were in Greek Life organizations.

Michael Kors. A staple and iconic name in the fashion industry. Even if you don’t own a Michael Kors piece yourself, you have definitely heard his name before. Over the years, Michael Kors has expanded to include menswear, accessories, handbags, and fragrances, generating a total revenue of $3.88 billion for the fiscal year of 2023.

As part of the Saint Louis Fashion Fund (SLFF) collaborating with Washington University, Kors came to talk at the Graham Memorial Chapel as guest speaker on April 1. Susan Sherman, the co-founder of SLFF, explained the process of how selecting Kors came to fruition.

“Every year, we meet together with WashU to decide what the students will like and if there is a takeaway the audience can leave with. I mean, Kors is iconic, no?”

Moderating the talk with Kors was Derek Blasberg, YouTube’s Head of Fashion and Beauty, who is also well recognized for several works in Vogue, Vanity Fair, Gagosian Gallery, as well as CNN Style.

When asked what fashion means to him, Blasberg said, “Fashion is a language. It is a way of communicating, and it says a lot about who you are as a person.”

Blasberg began the conversation by asking Kors his first memory of being interested in fashion. “I was one of those kids who was glued to the TV 24/7 or sketching endlessly. I would sketch houses and cars, but fashion came up over and over again. My family was not only supportive of my passion, but excited. I grew up with a lot of sisters, so they were always happy with more clothes,” he said.

These sketches soon turned into profit. “I sold my first sketches to a friend’s father who manufactured jeans. He bought three sketches, each for 200 dollars.” In 1981, Kors established the brand Michael Kors. In 1984, Kors had his first show at New York City’s Bergdorf Goodman. In 1998, Kors partnered with Celine and created his first ready-to-wear women’s clothing line. As Kors continued to climb higher and higher in his fashion career, he had a steady mindset and goal of what he wanted to accomplish.

“Today there is such an impatience. A lot of people want to jump right into it. On the other hand, I wanted to take it slow, making sure I built my clientele and had reasoning behind [each project],” Kors said. Delving into the design process, Kors also highlighted his time as a judge on the Emmy-nominated show

“Project Runway.” While hesitant at first, Kors ultimately decided to join the show and ended up staying for over 10 seasons, from 2004 to 2012. “Fashion is like a cake. When you look at the dry ingredients, you think how do you make a cake out of this? That’s why the show was such a success.”

When asked how his own design process has changed, Kors replied simply. “I am more decisive. I know if I like a white t-shirt or not, instead of mulling over it for several hours.”

Chancellor Martin and USC Law Professor Teach Free Speech Course

maintaining the WashU community.

Chancellor Andrew Martin and Lee Epstein, Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Southern California, jointly taught a two-day lecture class that focused on the history and significance of freedom of expression on college campuses, March 29 and 30.

The course was first taught in 2020 and is now an 100-seat 1-credit class with 68 enrolled students at time of publication.

In an interview with Student Life, Chancellor Martin said he plans to write a book about the class in years to come and has submitted the idea to a publisher.

“We can scale this course at Washington University only so much with me teaching,” Martin said. “But if we write a book and then make the teaching materials available to other instructors around on our campus and around the country, we’re really hoping we can touch many more students.”

In 2023, Washington University dropped from 99th to 135th in College Pulse’s Free Speech rankings, which are dependent on student perceptions of how open their college communities are to free expression.

Martin hopes the course will inform students how to balance free speech while

The course “Free Speech on Campus” is available to all undergraduate students, regardless of major and class. Each year, the instructors for the course select recent real-world cases of First Amendment issues on college campuses that students analyze at the end of the class.

“We update those cases and controversies every year,” Martin said. “For each of [the cases], we provide a set of questions, sometimes defend this particular action, sometimes condemn a particular action.”

The course not only focused on free speech on campuses as a whole but also specifically at Washington University. Ella Scott, a sophomore who took the course and also serves as a senator in Student Union, said she appreciated that the course shed light on how and why the University operates the way it does.

“I think it’s been really helpful just to better understand the federal regulations, and what the University is doing as a separate entity,” said Scott. Scott took the class to further understand how to respect free speech in her role as a senator.

“Free speech has been something that we’ve been talking about over the last couple of months, such as what is Senate’s role in...deciding whether or not to make

controversial statements,” Scott said.

First-year and political science student Aratrika Ghosh took the class based on her interests.

“I decided to do this class because I’m really interested in law and political science so this was a really good intersection of those two interests,” said Ghosh.

In a written statement to Student Life, Professor Lee Epstein said an important aspect of the class is that students are given the freedom to form their own perspectives.

“Rather than tell students what to think on the question of free speech, we believe a better approach—and one far more compatible with the University’s educative mission—is to equip students with the tools that, as free and independent thinkers, they will need to make informed judgments about campus controversies for themselves,” Epstein said.

Epstein hopes this class will bolster critical thinking and help students further understand the ramifications of their actions on the WashU community and beyond.

“Buoyed by this new-found critical thinking, members of the community, we hope, will become less reactive and more reflective in their awareness of the nuances of free speech problems, and thus more sensitive to their profound implications for democracy itself.”

Sophomore and SU senator Ashton Lee, who took the course, said this class shows that the University cares for student voices.

“It’s pretty cool to know that our administration is dedicated to teaching students about free speech and what that means for students who want to be vocal and active about the changes in our country or changes on our campus.”

EGGING from page 1

“One of the kids was saying it was fraternities and sororities,” Grigsby said.

While Wild confirmed that the two Greek organizations were being investigated for the incident, posts on Sidechat have alleged that it was for a scavenger hunt as part of the pledging process.

The anonymous worker said that they also heard it was in connection with a fraternity event.

“From what I’ve heard from other people it was something to do with a frat week,” they said.

Wild said that the University has a policy requiring groups to report their new member onboarding plans.

“The new member process is very traditional for sororities and fraternities,” Wild said. “Sometimes things happen that are not on the list that’s submitted to us, and if those are violations, we’ll address them with the groups.”

Wild also stated that the University has a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of employees and that the Office of Student Affairs has been in regular contact with Dining Services regarding the incident. While the Campus Life website is updated to reflect the current standings

Andrew Martin lectures to students during his twoday course on free speech in college campuses.

BRI NITSBERG | STUDENT LIFE

WashU ALAS puts on 25th Annual Carnaval

SCENE KORS

For the past several months, Washington University’s Association of Latin American Students (ALAS), has been preparing for its Carnaval celebration. Under two talented directors, a cast of dedicated performers, and the expertise of Edison Theatre’s production crew, the 25th anniversary of this show does not disappoint. Carnaval is a multi-day festival to celebrate Latin American culture and marks the beginning of Lent, the period of 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. The word for Lent in Spanish is Cuaresma, which comes from the word cuarenta, meaning forty, because Lent lasts for forty days (plus six Sundays, which are not counted). It is celebrated across the world, but holds special significance in Latin American countries. The celebration includes

elaborate, glittery costumes, music, and dancing. It is a bright and joyous spectacle that WashU ALAS succeeds at emulating on stage in Edison Theatre.

Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter: Yee-haw

or Yee-naw?

On March 29, Beyoncé released her ninth studio album, “Cowboy Carter,” the second act of her ninth studio album, “Renaissance.” The album’s aesthetics promised a fullblown country album, with cowboy hats, horses, and American flags galore. Beyoncé’s Texas roots were also suspected to come to fruition within this album. And yet, on Instagram, ten days prior to the album’s release, the singer wrote, “This ain’t a Country album. This is a ‘Beyoncé’ album.” And that it is. The album is artfully genre-bending, weaving between country, R&B, rap, gospel, and pop. Historically, country music is a genre with little diversity. According to the study “Redlining in Country Music” by Dr. Jada Watson, an investigator for SongData, of the 411 artists who signed to the top three Nashville labels from 2000–2020, 1% were Black and 3.2% were Black, Indigenous, or People of Color. The genre of country music is also one that has previously been unwelcome to Beyoncé. At the 50th

annual Country Music Awards in 2016, the singer performed her song “Daddy Issues’’ with the Chicks. In the aftermath, many country fans were horrified and declared that Beyoncé had no place in the genre, much less at a ceremony celebrating country’s biggest achievements of the year, due to her outspoken support for Black Lives Matter. But now, Beyoncé proudly and deliberately reclaims her place in the genre that has been unwelcoming to her and her peers, demanding a voice: “It’s a lot of talkin’ goin’ on/While I sing my song/Can you hear me?/I

said, ‘Do you hear me?’” she cries in the opening track, “AMERICAN REQUIEM.”

Throughout the album, Beyoncé weaves in powerful moments of reflection of what it means to be a Black woman in country music and in America as a whole. “Blackbird,” a Beatles song that Beyoncé covers on the album, was originally written by Paul McCartney about the struggles of Black girls and women during the American Civil Rights Movement. With back-up vocals by Black country artists Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, and

Reyna Roberts, Beyoncé’s heartbreakingly beautiful cover further pushes the message that it is the time for Black women to rise into spaces where they are and have not been welcome in due to racist attitudes. “All your life/You were only waiting for this moment to

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Opening up about his friendship with Kors in an interview, Blasberg chuckled and said, “I’ve known Kors for a very long time and our biggest hurdle is to stay on topic and keep it short.” Thus, towards the end of the talk, Blasberg redirected the conversation to highlight some of Kors’ philanthropic endeavors. In 2012, Kors received the Golden Heart Lifetime Achievement Award by God’s Love We Deliver, a non-profit organization that distributes fresh meals to people living with HIV/ AIDS and other diagnoses, which he has been involved with for over 20 years.

“I had an incredible gift of knowing what I wanted to do. I feel very blessed and at the peak of the AIDs crisis, I didn’t have money, but I wanted to work with them. With a global business, I understand that hunger is a global problem. Together, with the help of social media, we have served over 30 million meals.”

Concluding the event, Saint Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones came on stage and announced that April 1 would now be officially recognized as Michael Kors Day. The day not only celebrates the achievements of a fashion icon, but also his contributions towards supporting initiatives that address world hunger, education, and LGBTQ+ rights. “It’s wonderful when your fantasy becomes reality,” Kors said.

ILLUSTRATION BY JAIME HEBEL

Dancers smile brightly as the pose in the end.

Musicians plays violin during flamenco performance.

Dancers celebrate baile folklórico.

ISABELLA DIAZ-MIRA | STUDENT LIFE

ISABELLA DIAZ-MIRA | STUDENT LIFE

ISABELLA DIAZ-MIRA | STUDENT LIFE

FORUM

SU recall petition needs transparency

On March 26, an anonymous petition was filed on WUGO calling for the removal of Student Union Speaker of the Senate Sonal Churiwal. Churiwal was accused of, among other things, breaking two SU conditional provisions regarding the ability for the Speaker to comment on active debates.

The petition was filed shortly after SU voted voted in favor of a resolution Churiwal co-sponsored, which called on the University to divest from Boeing. Because of this, Churiwal has claimed that the petition was politically motivated. The petition garnered the required 5% of signatures from the student

body, and a recall election will take place on April 9. A majority of voters would need to vote in favor of recall to remove Churiwal from office.

As we approach this upcoming vote, the Student Life Editorial Board expresses concerns over the petition’s anonymous filing and resulting potential for the exploitation of the recall process. The merits of the petition aside, we believe that anonymity should not have been an option for this petition. As we alluded to in our last staff editorial, anonymity in the political process fuels political divisiveness, limits future dialogue, and erodes accountability.

Anonymous petitions can lead to misdirected scrutiny or persecution of individuals rather than uprooting corruption and problematic behavior. It is nearly impossible for voters to accurately verify the claims made in this petition because its anonymity makes any attempt to follow up on these accusations nearly impossible. This petition asks individuals uninformed about this situation — which regards events that took place in SU meetings, settings in which the vast majority of the student body are not involved — to decide on something they likely know little about. In turn, voters may be pushed to rely on their

political motivations instead of evaluating the merits of the petition.

This is not to say that the petition is purely

My first ever smartphone was a Windows 8 Nokia — yes, a Windows phone. It came housed in a soft, mushy plastic shell, paired with a crusty slide-out keyboard. Its battery flew out when you dropped it, and it didn’t even have Snapchat or Instagram. It was a sacrilegious device made for the sacrilegious hipster, one dumb enough to trust the Office software company to make

something not intended for a cubicle jungle. In other words, it was an abject failure, a tarnish on Microsoft’s then-34-year history. CEOs have been fired for much less. Through a string of failed acquisitions and such missed opportunities, the once-lauded Microsoft crawled through the 2010s in a barrage of criticism and doubt. What followed was more than a lost decade; this was a Goliath of unforced errors. Yet, as the calendar swung

to the 2020s, Microsoft came out stronger than ever, and now prospers again as the world’s most valuable company. But their better health was not earned through riding on Bill Gates’ coattails. It was a series of bloody wounds formed into iron scars, from negligence into perseverance — and indeed, a lot of regulation.

TikTok reminds me of the beginnings of Microsoft, one of a scrappy, culturally revolutionary firm entering a hostile

market just to disrupt and revolutionize it all. TikTok, and their Chinese parent company ByteDance, should be congratulated for this seismic shift that has taken the historicallydominant U.S. tech industry by storm. Today, you would be challenged to not find major social media players like Reddit, X, and Meta touting a “video-first” content agenda, a desperate entry into a largely-decided battle. TikTok represents a significant upending of U.S. cultural dominance, and as many TikTok users will attest to, a win for our ever-connecting world.

However, on March 7, 2024, TikTok users were greeted with a message that can best be described as divisive, and to many government representatives, a naked threat on U.S. democracy. In response to growing fears of geopolitical interference by Chinese state actors, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a measure to ban the app on grounds of national security. This was swiftly followed by a full screen declaration of war on the video platform, claiming that users must “speak up now” before “your government strips 170 million Americans of their constitutional right of freedom expression.”

On the bottom of this unavoidable popup was a plea to call your local representatives, paired with a convenient field to enter your ZIP code. This backfired. Congress overwhelmingly lambasted ByteDance’s actions as politically inflammatory as a flood of threats were sent to aides and representatives. Now, and perhaps more than ever, Washington is energized to ban the sole platform that beat the West’s grip on our social networks. Forget an iron curtain — we are being cut off by a federallyfunded firewall, from sea to shining sea.

promote underrepresented political ideology.

Despite this, it should be emphasized that saving TikTok is not saving democracy. This ban is but a symptom of an increasingly hostile American media culture that helps cause mass shootings and gets authoritarians elected. It is a repetitive, vicious cycle, and one that threatens our democratic principles as we know them.

I deeply empathize with those who may grieve losing such a revolutionary online platform, especially one as effective at disseminating ideas as TikTok. In many ways, TikTok has been an agent of democracy through its ability to

The history of authoritarian nations meddling with democracy is well known. Russia infamously poisoned the 2016 election. Iran incited chaos in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel. China continues to post

How the normalization of weaponized incompetence upholds outdated gender norms

NATALIA JAMULA STAFF WRITER

In early 2024, the Ketchup Challenge went viral on Tiktok, a “relationship test” where the woman in a heterosexual relationship spills ketchup on her kitchen counter and has her boyfriend or husband clean it up. That is the entire challenge. Viewers watch as the man often uses an excessive number of paper towels, smears the ketchup around in circles, and creates an even bigger mess.

This trend demonstrates weaponized incompetence, the phenomenon where someone will present themselves as incapable of completing a task to avoid the responsibility of doing it. When a man in a heterosexual relationship avoids household duties, this not only places more responsibility on their wife but also reaffirms traditional gender roles that limit women to homemakers and childbearers.

In the film “The Break-Up,” Jennifer Aniston plays the character Brooke alongside her male partner Gary played by Vince Vaughn. After guests leave from a party, Brooke cleans and indirectly asks Gary to do the dishes. However, he continues sitting on the couch playing video games and says he is exhausted and will do the dishes tomorrow. Brooke

does not like messes and won’t wake up to a dirty kitchen, so Gary knows that his response means Brooke will end up doing the dishes.

Jennifer Aniston showcases her pain and frustration with the famous line, “I want you to want to do the dishes.” She desperately wants her boyfriend to want to help her, but he cannot understand this and goes on to say she’s “acting crazy.”

Another famous and clear example of this comes from a scene in “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” Rodrick’s secrets to an easy life. Rodrick teaches his younger brother Greg to appear incapable of washing a car and completing his homework so that their dad will do it for them.

However, this humor does not accurately depict the damage that this concept can do to a relationship and a child if evoked by a parent.

smeared ketchup.

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In a world where these authoritarian powers have their own firewalls while the shores of U.S. media lay bare, I can only empathize with the legislative agenda of protecting ourselves against a nation with great — and already established — need to interfere with our most basic democratic practices.

=Yet, and perhaps most disappointingly, it must be acknowledged that American tech companies have done much of the same. Our online world is rife with hateful content, propagated by nearly every one of our American tech platforms. I cannot stand going on many of them, X and Instagram especially, as divisive content is purposefully promoted.

When a mother goes out, she often faces the question, “Where are the kids?” When she responds that they’re at home with their dad, she’s met with great admiration — an “Awww” or “What a great dad!” Or worst of all, “Is dad babysitting?” How can a dad babysit his own kids? The problem begins with social expectations. On social media, fathers are applauded for vlogs where they go to the grocery store and clean their house, seemingly monotonous tasks expected of any mother.

There are countless memes like, “When you open your gift at Christmas and Dad is just as surprised to see what’s inside as you are.” Likewise, on social media, we see social experiments where parents are put on the spot to name their children’s birthdays and the names of their teachers, doctors, and friends. In each clip, the mother performs better than the father by a landslide. These mothers take on a disproportionate amount of their children’s

extracurricular and academic responsibilities, while simultaneously being more invested in their kids’ personal lives. Traditional gender dynamics lead to fathers missing out on key milestones and connections with their children.

Social media teaches us to laugh at these moments, however, as kids get older, parental incompetence is extremely damaging. It feels neglectful when your dad does not know your school or sports schedule. These basic care tasks should not be automatically diverted to the mother, especially when she also needs to clean up

Social media should not glamorize a man cleaning or buying groceries. This glorification enables male incompetence and fortifies gender stereotypes. By normalizing weaponized incompetence in the media, we lower our expectations for men and place more responsibility on women.

It’s not about the ketchup; it’s about the gendered performance of ineptitude and the harms we perpetuate if we leave weaponized incompetence unchallenged and unquestioned.

To b e clear, I am not in favor of a ban against TikTok — free, global trade should be celebrated, not punished. Yet when our biggest adversary has a legal right to spy through their social platforms, including TikTok, the question of regulation becomes less of efficiency and more of national security.

It is necessary to acknowledge the damage foreign meddling can do, and has done, to our relationship with this nation, a house now divided and crumbling. It is even worse to know that those causing the destruction are profiting so heavily from it, whether domestic or abroad. Regulating TikTok should be encouraged. The current state of social media should not.

ILLUSTRATION BY MANUEL LOPEZ

SPORTS

Track wins WashU Invite, notches 17 Top 15 finishes at Distance Carnival

The Washington University men’s and women’s track and field teams hosted the WashU Distance Carnival and WashU Invite on March 28-30. The men’s and women’s teams won the WashU Invite with 166.50 and 216.75 points respectively, defeating eight teams, including University Athletic Association (UAA) rival University of Chicago.

The Distance Carnival, which attracts some of the most talented collegiate runners from Divisions I, II, and III in the Midwest, saw 17

Top 15 finishes for the Bears across the 10-event meet. Throughout the Distance Carnival, mid-distance events were a strength for the Bears. Across both the Distance Carnival and WashU Invite, the women’s team notched 17

Top 10 performances in program history, and the men’s team notched four. At the WashU Invite, senior Emma Kelley, who set the Division III national record in the 800 meter during the indoor track championships on March 8 and 9, broke the school record in the 400 meter run with a time of 54.68 seconds and was named the UAA’s Women’s Track Athlete of the Week.

WashU Distance Carnival

In the women’s 5,000meter run at the Distance Carnival, fellow senior

Alexandra Blake also posted a 14th-place finish with a time of 16:58.03, the fifth-fastest mark this season in DIII. In the men’s event, senior Cullen Capuano, who finished as an All-American in cross country, ran a time of 14:12.02. Capuano’s run was the second-fastest time in program history.

Capuano’s result in the 5,000 meter was made extra special due to the fact he missed part of the indoor season due to issues with his achilles, delaying his training. However, with these issues behind him, he is back in the swing of training.

“I’d say I have been doing more volume and intensity in our main workouts, which has helped me be able to get back into really good shape and get that fitness back to where I know it can be,” he said.

Kelley won the 800-meter run with a time of 2:05.07, the fastest time in DIII so far this outdoor season. Behind Kelley, seniors Danielle Schultz and Ally Sarussi placed second and fifth respectively with times of 2:10.75 and 2:11.79, which are currently the secondand sixth-fastest 800-meter times in DIII. In the men’s 800-meter run, senior Will Houser placed fifth with a time of 1:51.76, and senior William Dehmler and firstyear William Frohling placed eighth and ninth respectively.

For Sarussi, who also won the 1,500 meter at the WashU Invite, her two results give her

confidence going into the rest of the season.

“I know that our season is really long. So just starting there is great, and we’re all looking to improve as we continue training and get towards the championship meets,” she said.

In the 1,500-meter run at the Distance Carnival, sophomore Katie Rector, senior Helena Teixeira-Dasilva, and junior Virginia Pridgen all placed in the women’s Top 15. Rector’s time of 4:34.52 is the ninth-fastest in DIII this season.

In the men’s 1500 meter, senior Drew Sidamon-Eristoff placed sixth, running a time of 3:52.52. Sophomore James Corbett finished just behind him in seventh place with a time of 3:52.66, beating his personal record by almost eight seconds.

“It was awesome,” Corbett said about running in the Distance Carnival. “It’s just such a good environment — the energy is so high that you’re going to perform well. And I was lucky enough to have my teammate in the race — Drew Eristoff — and we really pushed each other. That was the biggest help that I had, was my teammate, [who] really forced me to compete.”

WashU Invite

Following his performance in the 1,500-meter run, Corbett won the 800 meter at the WashU Invite with a time of 1:54.26, a personal best by over one second.

At the WashU Invite, middistance and long sprints continued to be one of the Bears’ strengths. Both the men’s and women’s teams swept the Top 4 in the 400meter run, and the men’s team, led by Frohling, claimed second through fifth in the same event. The Bears’ depth also showed through in relays, where the team made seven Top 3 finishes.

In the women’s 4x400meter relay, Kelley, Schultz, sophomore Kylie Spytek, and first-year Cate Christopher finished in first place with a time of 3:46.13, currently the fastest time in Division III. On the men’s side, WashU placed first with a time of 3:17.40, the eighth-fastest in DIII.

The women’s 4x100-meter relay placed first with a time of 46.35 seconds. The time, set by first-year Maya Davis, junior Lauren Gay, junior Nicole Stewart, and sophomore Jasmine Wright is currently the fastest mark in DIII. Field events were also a strength for WashU, with senior Seif Elkhashab finishing second in the men’s shot-put and fourth in the discus. Sophomore Jenae xBothe finished first in the women’s shot-put with a throw of 13.75m, the sixth-furthest in DIII so far. With a jump of 12.18m, senior Ebun Opata placed first in the triple jump, earning her the third-highest mark in DIII so far this season.

In the pole vault, junior Yasmin Ruff, who was named UAA Women’s Field Athlete of the Week, finished first with the third-highest vault in the nation at 3.85m, and senior Tommaso Maiocco finished second on the men’s side with a jump of 4.70m, tied for 14th-best in the nation. The Bears swept the high jump, with first-year Olivia Theisen and sophomore Jalen Dural both taking home top honors in the event.

The Bears will compete at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois on April 6. The meet is the first in a series of four meets for the Bears leading up to the UAA Championships on April 27 and 28.

Baseball wins three out of four against NYU to open conference play Softball searching for “consistent energy” after back-and-forth split with Brandeis

After last weekend’s tough losses to the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, the Washington University baseball team bounced back for a dominant 3-1 series win over the New York University Violets to start conference play on March 29-31.

In their three wins, the Bears put on an offensive clinic, stacking up 26 hits and 22 runs alone in their double header on Saturday. Between the first three games, the Bears amassed 37 hits, while also giving up 30 hits to NYU. Things came crashing down for WashU with a 12-0 loss on Sunday, however, where they were outhit 12-3. With the three wins and one loss, WashU moves to 17-9 on the season and is tied for first in the University Athletic Association (UAA) with Case Western Reserve University. In the conference opener on Friday afternoon, the Bears got off to a hot start, leading the Violets 6-0 through the end of the second inning. But this massive lead was short-lived, as NYU cut the deficit to just two in the third inning after the visiting team picked up four runs off of a combined two singles, two doubles, and a walk. WashU rebounded in the fourth, scoring three runs, beginning with senior Clayton Miller stealing home on a wild pitch. The Violets mounted a comeback, scoring two runs in the sixth and a single run in the ninth inning, before WashU locked in the final out, catching a flyball to right field to secure a 9-7 victory.

In the Saturday doubleheader, the Bears’ offense came out firing on all cylinders to pick up the next two wins. The Violets held a 3-0 lead early in the second game of the series. After the two teams combined for 12 runs in the third, fourth, and fifth innings, NYU went into the sixth with an 8-7 lead but couldn’t maintain it. The Bears went on a tear, putting up seven runs in the sixth inning alone to take a 14-8 lead. Miller wvould relieve the final innings of the game, closing it out without giving up a single run to preserve the victory for the Bears. Firstyear Carson Cleage also had a standout game, batting three for four while also picking up four RBIs. Saturday’s second game proved to be a relatively closer contest. The Bears snatched an early 3-0 lead, when Cleage boomed a three-run homer over the left field fence.

After the strong start, WashU led throughout the rest of the game, scoring another combined five runs in the fifth and sixth. The Bears would hold on to win the game 8-7 after the visiting team attempted a rally, scoring six runs in the final four innings. Coming in to relieve in the eighth, first-year Zach Pearl allowed just one hit in two innings to secure the win and gain his first collegiate save.

In the final game of the series, the Bears’ high-powered offense was nowhere to be found, as NYU avoided a sweep of the four-game series. The Violets had a productive first inning, scoring three runs. The Bears’ hitting woes continued throughout the game, as WashU just could not get their bats going, with only three players managing to generate a hit. The visiting team would go on to score nine more runs in the top of the seventh before the game

ended 12-0 in favor of the Violets. NYU’s pitcher Aaron Reid won UAA Conference Player of the Week for his effort on Sunday’s game. The Bears will look to continue the positive momentum of this weekend into Wednesday’s match against their rival across Wydown, Fontbonne University, with the first pitch happening at 3 p.m. on April 3 at WashU’s Kelley Field. The matchup against the Griffins will be the penultimate non-conference game for the Bears, who also host Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology on Wednesday, April 10. After dropping two of three games in the most recent series with Fontbonne in 2022, the Bears will look to triumph in this rematch, which will be one of the last games between the two universities before Fontbonne plans to close in the summer of 2025.

The Washington University softball team went 2-2 in its first four games of University Athletic Association (UAA) play, splitting its weekend series against the Brandeis University Judges on March 29-31.

WashU had an up-anddown weekend, losing 4-2 on Friday, winning 8-4 and losing 8-5 in a Saturday doubleheader, then wrapping up the series with a 9-1 win via mercy rule on Sunday. The Bears came into this weekend having also split their last weekend series, making them 4-4 in their last eight games. “Splitting with someone is the worst feeling in the entire world because you’re not sure who’s the better team,” head coach Casey Cromwell said after the weekend set. In the Friday game,

No. 10 women’s tennis dominates No. 9 Trinity and No. 29 Southwestern

The No. 10 Washington University women’s tennis team came out on top over two Top-30-ranked teams on March 29 and 30. The Bears defeated No. 9 Trinity University (Texas) 6-3 and swept No. 29 Southwestern University 9-0 to improve their season record to 10-2.

Friday’s win against Trinity was particularly momentous for the Bears, as it was their first time beating

a Top 10 team since 2019, when they beat the then-No. 9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The win also snapped a three-game losing streak against Trinity, who the Bears hadn’t beaten since 2018.

Going into Friday’s Top 10 matchup, sophomore Eliana Hanna was aware of the stakes.

“I felt pretty nervous going into our match with Trinity because it was a big match for us, knowing that they are also a Top 10 team,” she wrote to Student Life.

Despite the nerves, Hanna, who competes in number three singles and number one doubles with fellow sophomore Amber Edmonds, was victorious in both of her matches against Trinity. Hanna was named the University Athletic Association (UAA) Women’s Tennis Athlete of the Week for her performance.

After the matches, she expressed immense pride for how her teammates competed, particularly when

first-year Eleanor Archer, number two singles, won her match 7-5, 5-7, 6-1 to clinch the Bears’ win. “We were all eagerly waiting to support and celebrate as a team,” Hanna wrote.

First-year Emily Chiasson also commented on the energy of the team.

“During the match, it was pretty close, but as a team, we brought a lot of energy and positivity to support each other throughout the match. After we won, we were all super happy and excited because we beat

Trinity on their home courts and we all played well.”

On Saturday, the Bears kept up the momentum, dominating Southwestern 9-0.

Many of the matches against Southwestern included blowout results. Both Archer and Chiasson had at least one set where they won 6-0.

“I felt good about my match against Southwestern, and as a team, we were happy with how we competed,” Chiasson wrote. After losing to No. 1

Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on March 11, the Bears have now rattled off five straight wins, all of which have come away from home against teams ranked in the Top 32 of the nation. The Bears shot up from No. 17 to No. 10 in the national rankings released March 27, and are likely to keep rising after two more impressive

No. 7 men’s tennis loses to No. 1 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and No. 9 Trinity, wins against Skidmore

In a weekend that spotlighted incredible doubles performances, the No. 7 Washington University men’s tennis team was unable to fully recover from some difficulties in its singles game, losing to No. 1 ClaremontMudd-Scripps (CMS) and No. 9 Trinity University (Texas), with a win against Skidmore’s unranked program on March 29-30.

Following the weekend, the Bears move to 9-7 on the season with four more matches to go before the University Athletic Association (UAA) and NCAA championships.

The two losses over the weekend continue a tough stretch that the team has experienced to start the outdoor season. When they closed out their indoor season at the national tournament in late February, the Bears were able to beat a long-time rival before securing a second-place national finish to earn the No. 2 ranking in the nation. But since the team has moved outdoors, they’ve struggled to find their footing, with a spring-break trip seeing two wins and three losses to drop them to No. 7 entering the weekend. After losing two out of three over the weekend, the Bears have now lost five out of their last eight matches.

“They were the numberone team of the country, but this year is a little bit different than the previous years where there were really teams that were that much better than everybody else,” Fakouri said.

“It’s been pretty even — I’d say almost anyone ranked one through 15 can beat anybody — so we were feeling pretty good.”

Sophomore Eric Kuo said that the team had been upping its fitness training recently to adjust to the differences between indoor and outdoor tennis. “It’s definitely a different game,” Kuo said. “Outdoors, you just want to grind a bit more, you can play a bit more janky tennis. We’ve been working with the wind, the sun, the heat, the humidity, everything.”

Against CMS, Fakouri said the team was putting their emphasis on securing the available doubles point — an arena they had been struggling in recently. The Bears rose to the occasion, winning two of their three doubles matches, but their doubles focus may have been misplaced: The team lost five of their six singles matches.

“We weren’t exactly ready to stay on court long enough

Despite entering the match against top-ranked CMS in the midst of a difficult period, junior John Fakouri said the team was feeling ready to fight.

and just kind of fight and compete. In terms of tennis level, we were even in almost every spot,” he said. “It was just who wanted it more, who’s willing to stay on the court longer, and I think not everybody really brought it that day.”

Fakouri was the only WashU player to pull off a singles win, against CMS’s Warren Pham, after three sets of 2-6, 7-5, and 10-3. Despite the fact that he lost his first set and found himself down 5-2 in the second, he attributes the win to his consistent positivity.

“It was a little demoralizing at times to look up and see that other guys aren’t doing well, but you gotta try and focus on your match as much as you can to help the team,” Fakouri said. “I did a good job of not going away, not showing that I was down, and eventually it started to flip things.”

Despite the overall loss, the team pulled the energy they needed to take a decisive 5-2 win against Skidmore later that afternoon. Continuing to excel in doubles, they took all three doubles matches. Senior Guarav Singh and sophomore Colin Fox won 7-6, juniors Stefan Hester and Scott Yamamoto won 7-5, and junior Pato Garcia Muriel and senior Jared Phillips won 6-3.

The team also improved its singles game, taking four matches and dropping two.

Phillips won in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3; Scruggs won 6-1, 6-3; sophomore Case Fagan won 6-0, 6-1; and graduate student Sergiu Celebidachi won 6-3, 6-3.

However, the momentum did not carry on to the final game against Trinity. The pattern established during the first game against CMS returned, with a clean sweep in doubles matches not being enough to compensate for the Bears dropping four of their six singles matches.

Phillips and Kuo were able to secure their matches, each

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winning by decisive margins in straight sets. Phillips took the win 6-1, 7-5, and Kuo won 6-0, 6-1.

“Going into the match, I was just thinking about things I could do, focusing on being consistent,” Kuo said. “The plan was to just try to move him around the court as much as possible, and I knew he had a big serve, so I was prepared for that, and the combined efforts of everything I did worked.”

Reflecting on the game, Fakouri says that the team knows what areas it needs to

improve. “That was a very tough loss. I think that we thought we were going to beat Trinity,” Fakouri said. “The effort was better in singles, but we needed to close the door.”

wins. This upcoming weekend, the Bears will put their win streak on the line when they travel to Wisconsin to play at the Madison Invitational on April 6.

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ALAN ZHOU | STUDENT LIFE Senior Jared Phillips chased down a shot over the weekend.

ELIZA STULMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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