December 5, 2024 Student Life newspaper, WashU in St. Louis

The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878

DECEMBER 5, 2024

ABS, WashU respond to racist text messages after election, discuss combating hate

ISAAC SEILER

ELIZABETH STUMP

STAFF WRITER NEWS EDITOR

The day after the 2024 presidential election, several WashU students, all of whom are Black, received explicitly racist text messages asking them to report to the “nearest plantation” from an unknown source.

The texts sent to members of the WashU community mirror those received by other St. Louisans and Black Americans across the nation. The FBI immediately opened an ongoing investigation into the texts.

For junior Da’juantay Wynter, president of WashU’s Association of Black Students (ABS), these texts, and the racism behind them, has sparked the organization to take further action.

“[ABS is] definitely thinking of ways to combat this hate, strategically and intentionally,” Wynter said. “Because I hate to say, this won’t be the last time.”

A member of the ABS executive board received one of these text messages, which said that a van would arrive the following day to bring them to the nearest plantation. The member who received the text declined to be interviewed by Student Life.

“Good afternoon, you have been selected to be a slave at your nearest plantation. Please be ready by 12 p.m. with all your necessary belongings,” the text read. “You will be picked up in a white van with a Trump representative from your area. You

are gonna be searched thoroughly once you have reached your destination.”

A spokesperson from the Trump campaign told CNN that they had “absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.”

Other university students across the country, including those at Missouri State University and University of Missouri–Columbia, reported receiving similar racist messages. According to an FBI statement, LGBTQ+ students may have also received texts about “re-education” camps.

National reports indicate this was a widespread phenomenon impacting Black people in over 30 states. The texts seem to primarily target a younger demographic including students as young as middle school. Some adults also reported receiving the messages as well.

“I’m not sure how many students at WashU directly got it,” Wynter said. “I only heard of a couple students, but just the fact that it’s happening nationwide is so shameful.”

It remains unclear who distributed these messages or how they obtained the contact and demographic information of those targeted. Initial news reports suggest the culprit used a popular mass texting platform called TextSpot and that they reside in the Philadelphia area.

Federal law enforcement authorities have not confirmed that TextSpot was the platform used to send the messages.

Geoff Ward, Director of the

WashU & Slavery Project and professor of African and African American Studies (AFAS), wrote in an email that there is a precedent for hate speech to take place via text.

“Racist hate speech in text messaging is hardly new,” Ward wrote. “Various investigations have exposed the exchanges of similar content, often in the form of racist jokes, among police, court officers, students, and others in recent years.”

Ward wrote that consolidated efforts to distribute racist messaging on a large scale is also nothing new. A three-year WashU research study published in 2023 that Ward co-authored with David Cunningham, a WashU professor of sociology, found that newspapers were historically used as a means to circulate racist sentiment and messaging.

“The N-word was printed in American newspapers nationwide millions of times between the 1830s and 1960s,” Ward wrote.

He drew a connection between historic and current racist messages sent via text and newspapers, saying that they appear to be of a similar spirit, although the texts are still being investigated.

Julie Flory, Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications, condemned all racism on WashU’s campus and promised to maintain anti-racist efforts in a written statement to Student Life.

“We were deeply troubled and saddened to learn about the hateful, anonymous text messages,” Flory wrote. “We’ve offered support to the students who reported

The FBI is investigating racist text messages that have been sent to a number of Black Americans after the 2024 election — including some WashU students.

to us that they had received these messages and want to assure our entire community that there is no place at WashU for this type of harassment or intimidation.”

Senior Paul Scott, ABS Political Chair, said that although ABS has been in contact with Student Union and upper-level administrators, conversations with administrators have not led to any specific actions taken to support students affected by this issue.

“Ideally, the administration would have made a more direct statement preemptively,” said Scott. “I think it’s powerful when the University shows up and lets students know they are

Rural students achieve better representation, build community on campus

ELIZABETH STUMP

ZACH TRABITZ

NEWS EDITOR

INVESTIGATIVE NEWS EDITOR

After a 2013 New York Times article identified WashU as having one of the least socioeconomically diverse student bodies among elite colleges, the University has launched several initiatives aimed at diversifying its overall student population. One such focus has been on rural student recruitment, which fully launched in 2023, and has led to a 34% increase in rural first-year enrollment between fall 2023 and fall 2024.

WashU’s rural students and dedicated outreach staff have worked to increase attempts to recruit heavily from rural locations, a demographic that is often overlooked when admissions officers look to diversify student populations. Just 19 percent of rural Americans hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with an average of 33 percent nationwide. These efforts to recruit students from all walks of life are especially pertinent to admissions officers in the wake of the abolishment of Affirmative Action, which led to a six percentage point drop in WashU’s enrollment of students of color this academic year.

In 2023, WashU and 31 other universities formed the Small Town and Rural Students (STARS) College Network to offer specialized support to rural students applying to college. STARS defines rural communities as those that have less than 50,000 people and are more than 25 miles from an urban center.

Senior Sierra Milligan said that the programs WashU has developed helped her give back to her rural community.

“My rural experience has given me the ability to help other people,”

Milligan said. “That’s just never something that occurred to me before this program. In my hometown, I think over half of the people didn’t attend college when I graduated, and I was the only one to go to a school like WashU. Kids from my hometown [could go to places like] WashU.”

WashU’s newly formed Heartland Initiative supports rural students by providing resources and equipping them with the skills they need to navigate a challenging college environment. The initiative was formed out of a donation made by alum and Emerita Trustee Joyce Buchheit in 2022, and the program began in 2023.

Associate Director for Rural Recruitment, Dacoda Scarlett, explained that the initiative was necessary because many rural students may feel unprepared when applying to more elite colleges such as WashU because their schools do not offer as much college preparatory curriculum.

“Due to staffing shortages and budget cuts in different states, a lot of rural high schools can’t offer AP or IB classes, and so a lot of rural students might have less access to the most rigorous courses,” Scarlett said. “Because of geographic isolation, a lot of rural students can’t do dual enrollment either, because there’s not a college near them they can go to.”

Junior Hailey Montgomery said rural students such as herself often meet roadblocks and face high pressure when completing college entrance exams such as the ACT or SAT.

“WashU was my dream school, I’ve wanted to come here for as long as I can remember, and I was always really intimidated coming here,” Montgomery said. “I only had one opportunity to take the SAT. I only had two AP classes, and

if I didn’t do perfectly in school, I felt like there was no way I was able to get in.”

Scarlett explained that recruitment in rural communities is often more difficult than in urban settings, owing to the fact that it is difficult to visit many rural high schools in a day.

“If you go to Chicago, you can visit multiple high schools in one day,” Scarlett said. “But if you’re doing rural recruitment [in rural] Illinois, the next town nearby might be 45 minutes away, and so it takes a lot longer to visit more high schools.”

The Heartland Initiative also founded a summer program that began in the summer of 2023. The program, WashU Rural Scholars Academy, brings rising high school juniors from rural backgrounds to campus for a week. The Academy focuses on acquainting students with the feel of a college campus and the process of taking a

college-level course, which is taught over the week by design faculty at WashU.

High school students from across the country can apply to the program, which is free of charge. The program is competitive, and Scarlett said that they generally offer 40 spots for around 200 applicants.

Scarlett clarified that the program is to help students become acclimated to college and is not a program that boosts or guarantees admission to WashU specifically.

Throughout the week, students learn how to physically navigate a college campus, how to craft a compelling application to elite universities, and more practical skills.

Current WashU students who come from rural backgrounds serve as Rural Peer Ambassadors (RPA) and support the students enrolled in the program.

supported in times like these … and obviously there has yet to be a statement or any actionable steps on this particular issue that we know of.”

Wynter affirmed that ABS plans to continue its mission of ensuring that Black students feel safe and included on campus, specifically by increasing collaboration with WashU administration during the following semester.

“ABS is always against hate [towards] anyone, but especially [hate] against our own Black students, and we will continue to work very hard to ensure that we are protected, heard, and felt on this campus,” he said.

SEE RURAL, PAGE 2 Native American Heritage Month event discusses Thanksgiving colonialism

NATALIA JAMULA STAFF WRITER

At an event called Decolonizing Thanksgiving, students learned about the different Native American perspectives and prominent myths surrounding the holiday, Nov. 22.

Thirty-five people attended the event, which was held by the Office for International Student Engagement (OISE) along with the Association of Latin American Students (ALAS), the Association of Black Students (ABS), and the American Indian Student Association (AISA). The event started with a land acknowledgment — Director of the OISE, Evelyn Real, said that WashU is on the land of Osage, Missouria, Illinois Confederacy, and many other tribes.

Each group that helped put on the event had speakers, starting with Victoria Meza, a member of AISA and a graduate student in the Brown School, who spoke about the importance of understanding Thanksgiving’s deeply colonial history.

“When the pilgrims arrived to what we now refer to as Massachusetts in 1620, they formed a mutually beneficial alliance with the Wampanoag,” she said. “Initially, this worked out, but as is the case with settler colonialism, it wasn’t long before the pilgrims contributed to the genocide of indigenous peoples on North American continents.”

Paul Scott, a senior and member of ABS, spoke about the Black perspective on Thanksgiving and reminded the audience of the holiday’s ties to slavery.

SEE NAHM, PAGE 2

ANNA DORSEY | STAFF ILLUSTRATOR

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ASSOCIATION OF BLACK STUDENTS

RURAL

from page 1

Montgomery, who is an RPA, explained that the summer academy is important to rural students for forming communities and meeting people who have similar experiences.

“There is a specific bond [between] people that are from rural towns,” Montgomery said. “We’d be like, ‘Oh, were you in FFA (Future Farmers of America) in your high school?’ ‘Oh, yeah, I was in FFA.’ Or, ‘What do you prefer, the county fair or Friday night football games?’”

Sam Fox School design professors Audra Hubbell and Amy Auman teach the design course as part of the summer academy. Hubbell and Auman explained that students are given a project to envision an addition to campus to make it more engaging.

“The students are tasked

with a week-long project of designing a playful intervention,” Hubbell said. “We talk about how across our campus, you need moments that elicit a pause and a break from the daily grind, and so they design an intervention that thinks about all those things.”

Auman said rural students take away meaningful experiences from design thinking and the artistic process, subjects which some of them haven’t been exposed to before.

“We had a few students after the program talk to us about how they hadn’t taken art classes or design classes,” Auman said. “I think they’re really excited by it. Some folks were expressing a desire to go in that area, or at least implement this kind of work into what they’re thinking about for their own majors and careers.”

Rural students at WashU have also organized to create a new club on campus. Milligan, who is also

the president of the Rural Students Collective, formed the group because she saw a lack of support networks for rural students.

“A lot of us were the only person from our school [to attend WashU] in over five years,” Milligan said. “The transition from rural, versus a suburb area or the city is just such a stark difference, so it’s really nice to have other people who have kind of the same experiences we had when growing up.”

Milligan said that a challenge that rural students are often faced with is that they go from schools in their rural community, which are often very tight-knit, to a larger college campus with thousands of people.

“My town was on the larger side, but it was still really tight-knit where everyone knew each other,” Milligan said. “So switching to college, where it just wasn’t a class of like 40 people anymore, was a very weird adjustment.”

Major adjustments, such as a larger campus, public transit access, or the sheer quantity of things to do in a city, can be difficult for students who are used to rural areas to navigate.

Milligan mentioned another challenge that rural students face when applying to colleges is a resource gap in understanding the admissions process. She said one of her friends from her hometown threw away a letter from QuestBridge since she didn’t know about the program, which helps low-income students access elite colleges.

Miligan said the Collective hosts events where rural students can get to know each other and find connections between themselves.

“Something we did was a Friendsgiving [where] everyone did presentations on their hometown,” she said. “It was this moment where we all got to kind of laugh and joke together and see pictures of each other’s hometown. It was questions like, ‘How

many stoplights does your town have?’ ‘Mine has one, yours has three.’”

Scarlett said these recruitment strategies are critical not only for supporting rural students, but also as a way to diversify the student body and capture a range of experiences. Scarlett explained that while many may view rural students as a homogenous body, they are in fact very diverse.

“Rural recruitment is a very new method that a lot of universities are using to continue to recruit and enroll diverse students,” Scarlett said. “Throughout the country, there are dynamic and thriving communities of color that are in rural communities.

For instance, the only Latinxmajority community in Iowa is West Liberty, not somewhere like Iowa City.”

Montgomery explained that after getting into WashU, having the opportunity to give back to her rural peers by serving as an peer advisor was something she was

excited to do. “Coming here, getting in, and knowing that there were other high school students that wanted to come to WashU, I was immediately on board if there was any way that I could help them,” Montgomery said. “[Being a peer advisor] was something I was really excited about.” Milligan, too, is optimistic about rural students and their place at WashU. She shared that many traits that rural students have, such as a proclivity for tight-knight communities, prepare them for college.

“I was always worried that my rural background didn’t prepare me for [college],” Milligan said. “I think the rural student collective and being a rural peer ambassador has given me the opportunity to tell other students that their rural backgrounds aren’t a problem or something to hide, but it’s actually one of their strongest qualities.”

All You Care To Eat Pilot Program extended until the end of academic year

NINA LASER NEWS EDITOR

After piloting the All You Care To Eat (AYCTE) program for three weeks at the Bear’s Den (BD) dining hall, Washington University Dining Services decided to extend the initiative through the end of the academic year. However, during a Student Union (SU) Senate meeting, some senators called for Dining Services to decrease the cost of AYCTE or provide more affordable to-go options during AYCTE hours, Nov 19.

Raven Lumpkins, the Director of Marketing and Communication with University Services, wrote in an email to Student Life that the program was extended due to “overwhelmingly positive feedback” in the student satisfaction survey. She said that the average student rating of the AYCTE program was a 4 out of 5 stars.

Dining Services said the AYCTE Pilot Program was initially launched with two goals: to enhance community engagement at BD and to reduce food waste.

Beatrice Augustine is a firstyear student who eats at BD for dinner two or three times

NAHM

from page 1

per week. According to her, community engagement at BD is notably higher.

“Now with All You [Care To] Eat, it’s like everyone is down here at the same time,” Augustine said. “It’s so hard to find a table, and you see everyone.”

However, there is a flip side to having more students at BD during dinner hours. Kaitlyn Torack is another first-year student who is a regular at BD, but she usually gets frozen dinners from Paws & Go instead of the main dining area because it is “less stressful.”

In the first few days of the pilot program, some students said that they were able to eat larger, more diverse meals with the AYCTE meal structure.

One major concern about AYCTE that students expressed was that the price of a meal is higher on average than BD meals prior to AYCTE.

“I don’t think it’s reasonable to pay $14. Before I would be paying [an] average of $10 for the same amount of food, I would argue,” Augustine said.

“If I don’t go back for a second plate, I’m like, ‘Wow, I just lost money.’”

Torack echoed this sentiment, explaining how the price

He explained that enslaved people working in the fields would catch animals for family and friends, adding that many foods commonly

affects the amount of food she takes.

“I feel like it makes sense that [AYCTE] is more expensive, but also it’s circular — I go in knowing that it’s expensive, so I just take a bunch of stuff, because, might as well,” Torack said.

Based on student feedback so far, Dining Services has also already implemented small changes to the AYCTE program, including changing up

normal BD hours, she used to take half of her dinner home in a to-go box to eat the next day.

At the SU Senate meeting, sophomore senators Ian Gomez and Emaan Sayied noted that many students opt for to-go options from Paws & Go because AYCTE is structured in a way that mostly benefits students who dine in.

“I personally have felt like, ‘I’m not waiting in this line

“If I don’t go back for a second plate, I’m like, ‘Wow, I just lost money.’”

the menu options. Augustine said that she appreciated some of these changes.

“I’m vegetarian, so normally on weekends I just eat the [Incogmeato] chicken tenders or pasta, and it gets so old.” Augustine said.

Students also now have the option to go through the main dining area only one time with a to-go box instead of dining in and making two trips.

“I don’t think that’s worth it for me, especially because I usually have like 30 minutes to sit in BD and get [my] money’s worth,” Augustine said.

Augustine said that during

associated with Thanksgiving in the Black community came from enslaved people having to make do with leftover food.

“They would take the

right now. I’m just going to go to Paws & Go instead and grab my dinner and food,’ which limits my food options that evening,” Gomez said. “I think it’s a good program that has its merits, certainly, but I think it also needs a lot of work.”

At the meeting, Executive Director of University Dining Services Greg Minner said that they may add hot meal options at Cherry Tree and some to-go a la carte options during AYCTE hours. Vice Chancellor for University Business Services James Dwyer also said to expect

leftovers from slave owners’ houses and make meals. This [was also] the main source of soul food; personally, my favorite is cornbread,” Scott said.

changes to AYCTE during the spring semester.

WashU Assistant Director of Sustainability Cassie Hage is the lead coordinator of the AYCTE food waste assessment.

“Sustainability staff, interns, and volunteers monitor the dish return area, providing education on composting and clean waste separation,” Hage wrote in an email to Student Life. “Food waste is weighed weekly to identify trends and areas for improvement.”

Hage said that prior to AYCTE, tracking food waste was difficult because students took more food to-go and disposed of it elsewhere. However, she said that dining in usually has environmental benefits.

Lumpkins explained how Dining Services will evaluate AYCTE’s success with reducing food waste.

“Though it’s still early to conclude on food waste reduction, students can control portions by taking only what they need and returning for more if desired,” Lumkpins wrote. “We’re monitoring food left on plates, the number of returned dishes, and utensil usage. The extension will help us gather comprehensive data

Chavez made a point on how providing a day off for the holiday is an example of institutional assimilation.

on food waste impacts.”

Dining and Sustainability are both still in the process of collecting data through observations of food waste and ongoing student feedback from the satisfaction survey. Lumpkins said that at the end of the pilot program, Dining Services will decide whether or not to implement AYCTE permanently, including at other dining locations on campus.

“The Bear’s Den has the optimal setup to offer diverse, allergen-friendly, and culturally-specific menus, supported by suitable facilities for this pilot,” Lumpkins wrote. “We’ll use the results from this trial to assess the feasibility of expanding AYCTE elsewhere on campus.” Augustine said that she has filled out the dining survey and appreciates that Dining Services is adapting to student’s feedback.

“The student body and parents asked for there to be a change made to the dining plan, and they did,” she said.

“And they sent out that survey, so hopefully it’s gonna get even better next semester.”

Additional reporting contributed by Tanvi Gorre, Odessa Buell, and Kritika Maheshwari.

themselves from the outside, but they are very much still here.”

Next, Natalia León Díaz and Lupita Chavez, the Social Justice Lead and Advocacy Co-Chair of ALAS, spoke on the Latin American perspective on Thanksgiving. León Díaz touched on the implications of colonialism for Puerto Ricans like herself — an issue she says is not typically acknowledged.

She went on to say that her family celebrates Thanksgiving — which they call San Given — because of the pressure to assimilate, even though other Latin American countries do not. She also acknowledged that Puerto Ricans have a complicated relationship with the holiday.

“It’s a moment to gather with family and extend grace for the difficulties of being a Latino person,” she said. “However, for some Latinas, the celebrations bring anger, because of the displacement of Native [American] people, but also that extends to [other parts] the Americas.”

“You get to the United States and you have to practice the cultural holiday, which in turn might be an erasure of our own culture. Thanksgiving is kind of imposed on you, because they give it to you as a holiday,” said Chavez.

Real explained that even if students are not having conversations with their family about the history of Thanksgiving, they can practice a decolonial mindset by understanding that not everyone views the holiday as a joyful event.

“Some Indigenous folks don’t celebrate, but knowing why they don’t celebrate, and then going into it consciously is all we’re asking,” Real said.

For students and community members in the audience, Real pointed out that the St. Louis area is rich with Indigenous culture, highlighting the Cahokia Mounds right across the border in Illinois.

“There are still about 183,400 native Indigenous people [in] this area,” Real said. “They might not identify

Real established the need for students to speak up and actively oppose cultural appropriation wherever it pops up, from team mascots to the fashion industry, artists, and school plays.

“Challenge cultural appropriation. Here in Missouri, we have the Kansas City Chiefs,” she said. “People are taking something that does not belong to them, and they are making it their own and using it as props. They’re using it as a costume, and that is not the point of a headdress,” Real said.

She ended the event by talking about how the origins of Thanksgiving still affect Native American communities today, including exploitation projects that take resources away from reservations.

“All of this seems like it happened many, many years ago, but it is still constantly happening,” Real said. “Just because it’s not in the news doesn’t mean it is not happening.”

SCENE

Riding the Mystery Bus: I let SPB kidnap me for the day

SARA GELRUD

JUNIOR SCENE EDITOR

I sat on a schoolbus with just a notebook, a pen, and $20 in my pocket for lunch, alongside roughly 25 other WashU students whom I had never met before. I had no idea where we were going, only that I was supposed to look “picture ready” (per the organizer’s instructions) and would be back on campus by 4 p.m.

I was being (voluntarily) kidnapped for the day!

I got to the Alumni Parking Lot at 12:30 p.m., ready to embark on WashU’s first-ever Mystery Bus Tour, organized by the Social Programming Board (SPB). A group of students were already there; the front steps of the Alumni House were vibrating with anxious chatter and nervous excitement. After making a few new friends, we started speculating about where we would be spending the day. The Arch? Can’t be! Our destination is supposedly indoors.

Laser tag? Probably not. We were told to be “picture ready.”

Maybe it’s The Selfie Room downtown? I would Uber back early!

We all get on the bus, still going over the various places we could be heading to. From the Alumni Lot, it takes 12 minutes to get there. We head down Forsyth, take a right on Skinker, and get on the highway. Any guesses yet?

We arrive at the Foundry. Getting off the bus, I receive a paper ticket. I scan it over quickly — too quickly — because I miss the dead giveaway on the top-right corner of where we are going. Once I see it, I know where we’re heading: the Museum of Illusions!

It’s exactly what you’d expect: forced-perspective photo ops, optical illusions in every corner, mirror tricks everywhere.

I walked through it with the friends I had met just half an hour ago, having gone completely alone. The good thing

is, these kinds of activities accelerate the bonding process, because who else would say “Yes” to a mystery bus tour?

With my new “yes” friends, we took pictures with nearly every illusion: We fell upwards in a barbeque restaurant, walked into a giant kaleidoscope, fell off a high balcony, played a game of cards with four other versions of myself, and entered an infinite room full of floating plants and disco balls. Some illusions definitely made me think twice and second-guess my steps.

It took us an hour to walk through the museum. After our mind-bending visit, we still had two hours before the bus left, so everyone split up into their own small groups to walk around the rest of the Foundry.

We entered various boutiques — one of my favorites being Golden Gems, a great store to find gifts for friends while walking around their completely pink interior — and eventually ventured to the expansive Food Hall. Made up of 17 restaurants, the main indoor area of the Foundry was bustling with people. I got one of the best sandwiches I’ve had in St. Louis, and two of my friends got tacos stacked high with fillings. We ended our lunch with pumpkin soft serve and Earl Grey popsicles that were so good, I’d go back to the Foundry just for them. The $20 in my pocket was definitely well-spent, and kidnapping didn’t seem like such a bad thing anymore.

What I learned from this daytime adventure was that if you’re doubting whether or not to do something — even if you’re on a solo adventure — do it anyway, knowing that others are in the same boat as you. Take every opportunity to try something new, something out of your comfort zone, especially when it takes you out of the campus bubble and into the city of St. Louis. You never know what you may find and who you might befriend along the way!

Illustrating community: Meet WashU Picture Book Club

WILL ROSENBLUM

SENIOR SCENE EDITOR

WashU’s MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture (IVC) program houses a group of talented, innovative, and accomplished artists. You might be surprised, then, walking into their “Roxy” studio late on a Friday afternoon. Every other week, 15-20 of them, along with WashU undergraduates, independent authors, and more, listen intently as a picture book is read to them.

Your surprise would quickly be replaced by a feeling of curiosity, nostalgia, and affability as WashU’s Picture Book Club welcomes any and all.

“It’s inner-child healing,” said club snack gatherer Tommy Attwood, a secondyear IVC student.

The club meets biweekly, reading 5-6 books a year, often themed to the current holiday or season. It’s led by a group known internally as “the committee”: Five MFAIVC students who possess a mutual love for picture books and, to the club, act similarly to a president’s cabinet, a captain’s crew — or an executive board.

At their helm is President Cleonique Hilsaca, a second-year IVC student and published picture book illustrator of “Sleep, Little Dozer” and “Dream Submarine.”

“I can’t go into a bookstore, or I will buy books. So I have to measure myself,” she said.

Napoleon famously said that an army marches on its stomach. So too does a picture book club. Attwood, the self-titled “forager” for the club, crucially ensures members don’t go hungry.

“They tell us, ‘How do we get people to do stuff?’ And we’re always like, ‘Food!’ Food brings people to places,” Hilsaca said. “And beer if you can,” Atwood added.

Amy Selstad, first-year IVC student and self-published author and illustrator of “Shores of Gold,” sits at the reader’s flank, handling the role of picture book projection. She scans and presents the book digitally on a large screen behind the reader, allowing even those sitting farther away to clearly see the visuals.

“I read a lot of picture books, my desk is like half picture books,” she said.

Rounding out the committee are two first-year IVC students; Shivani Shenoy handles communications, while Subhadra Sridharan

is the Poster Specialist. For her role, Sridharan mixes art from each month’s book with her own graphics to create a poster for each meeting.

“Who is a picture book for? It’s traditionally made for children, but can be for anyone. We read and immensely enjoy it,” Sridharan said.

In its two years of operation, the club has matured and expanded rapidly. It began simply with readings, but has grown to include educational events as well, hosting lectures from acclaimed and local picture book authors such as New York Times bestselling author Valorie Schaefer. Through these events, the club aims to fill a gap in education in Sam Fox School.

“There is a lot of academic work being done with picture books, but for illustration

practice, there isn’t,” Hilsaca said. “It’s such a big industry, and it’s so complex that it merits more classes.”

For now, Picture Book Club takes on some of that responsibility, connecting members to the wider illustration community.

“I joined because I really enjoy picture books, and I want to learn how to get into traditional publishing,” Selstad added, “so learning from illustrators who won awards and have really successful careers, but also really amazing art styles, is really interesting to learn from. This picture book club has been a great exposure in that way.”

There is no better example of high regard for picture books than the Roxy studio library. Here, picture books sit with thesis projects, critical essays from past graduating

classes, graphic novels, and books of all kinds.

To get into picture books yourself, Hilsaca recommends looking at the special collections in Olin library, like the Hochschild collection of children’s books.

Ultimately, though, the club is about reading picture books. And the committee works to keep that experience welcoming and rewarding.

“A lot of students are here after hours, hungry after a whole day of class. We want the Picture Book Club to be a place of rest and of nourishment, not just intellectually, but also emotionally,” Hilsaca said. “We want it to be a nice time where we are talking about art and writing and picture books, where we can share our love for the medium and have a nice time together.”

ANAELDA RAMOS | ILLUSTRATION EDITOR

Juniors Alec Anderson, Christopher Heron, Ellie Shapiro, and Caroline Kitt attend a Picture Book Club meeting.

COURTESY OF MARY TRAN

“We have come so far:” Inside Ella Scott’s term as Speaker of SU Senate

AVI HOLZMAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

For her entire life Ella Scott has been obsessed with pink. Growing up it was just a favorite color, but after she watched “Legally Blonde” in high school for the first time, the hue “revolutionized” her life. A couple years later she walked across the stage at high school graduation with Elle Woods’ iconic line, “What?

Like it’s hard?” on her cap.

In the movie, Woods wins a tough case despite being underestimated by numerous other characters. Like Woods, Scott, the current Speaker of the Senate, is not someone to underestimate. She has earned her peers’ respect over the course of the semester.

On Nov. 19, during a bonding activity that closed the final Student Union (SU) Senate meeting of the semester, sophomore senator Maya Santhanam highlighted Scott’s insistence on being herself.

of “family dynasties,” in her words, with a population of about 1,200 located an hour west of WashU’s campus.

There she lived on 100 acres of mostly wooded land and attended the same elementary school as her grandma had decades before.

During high school, Scott served as the student representative to the Warren County Board of Education, where she was first exposed to civic engagement and a rancorous political culture.

At her first meeting, citizens flooded the auditorium to voice discontent with mask mandates and other COVID19 policies impacting the schools.

Scott recalls a moment when an older woman was scolding the board and they turned off her microphone.

“She turned around to face the audience with the rest of her speech, and the whole room erupted [in support].”

Scott, who is a first-

He thinks Scott chose to run because she is optimistic about what student government can be.

Lee and Scott are part of a group chat with two other senators, juniors Natalia LeónDíaz and Beni Bisimwa. All four are first-generation, lowincome students, hence the chat’s name: “economically disadvantaged.”

For Lee, the group is his “safe space within SU” and a place to collaborate on new resolutions and ideas. It was with this group, during debriefs in the dining hall after late night Senate sessions, where Scott felt most affirmed in her decision to dedicate so much time to SU.

At the end of her sophomore year, Scott ran for speaker, and lost, against thenjunior Lauren Fulghum, who stepped down for personal reasons a few weeks later.

After hearing her ideas for Senate, Bisimwa spoke in support of Scott when she ran a

“You’re so everything and I respect your badassery so much. You find a beautiful way to be gentle and assertive,” Santhanam read from a letter to Scott as part of the exercise. “I love how you command a room without ever being rude or overpowering … I am so proud of you and all that you have accomplished.”

When Santhanam finished reading, the room erupted in cheers.

The meeting, in a Seigle Hall classroom, had run well into its third hour. Everyone could have been doing homework and cramming for exams that night. Instead, the 21 senators present chose to stay and participate because of the culture Scott rebuilt in Senate. The toxic atmosphere and intense political discussion had pushed the body to the brink early in the semester, causing multiple senators to resign and even more to reconsider their involvement.

Junior Omar Abdelmoity acknowledged that Scott “took on probably one of the hardest climates within Senate,” but still made this his best semester in SU Senate since joining his first year.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say we were hanging on by a thread at that point,” Scott said, looking back at the start of her term.

Scott ran for SU Senate during the spring of her freshman year in an election where there were not enough candidates to fill all the open seats. She says that joining SU has been “one of the best things I’ve done since coming to WashU” and the place where she has met her closest friends.

Scott’s mom, Sarah Scott, says she could have seen the decision to join student government “coming from a mile away … It’s right up her alley.”

Ella, her mother says, loves participating in “idea exchanges” where she can question, learn, and expand upon the ideas of peers around her while simultaneously developing as a thinker and leader herself.

Ella grew up in Marthasville, Missouri, a town

generation, low income student, barely ate during Bear Beginnings, because she was so overwhelmed by the “elite university culture.” After a few days, however, she started hanging out with the other students on her floor.

That week she met junior Evan Becker, who lived on the same floor and is from St. Charles, Missouri. The duo hit it off, clashing enjoyably on political matters when they joined the debate club. At the end of the day, they were always able to find common ground.

“That’s one of the things I love about Ella,” Becker said.

Scott’s experience on the County School Board helped prepare her for the intensity of some Senate meetings, especially one last March regarding a resolution for WashU to divest from Boeing.

Scott chose not to speak during the meeting, instead stepping back and reflecting on what she was hearing and what would be the best decision for the WashU community.

“I didn’t want to be virtue signaling or anything,” Scott said. “I wanted to understand what these people were saying.”

Junior Ashton Lee, who sat next to Scott during the Boeing meeting, thinks she was “crazy to want to be speaker” given the explosive climate on campus and in SU.

second time, and was elected in the fall.

“She’s the type of person to give her all,” Bisimwa said.

Scott’s tenure was immediately tested in her first meeting as speaker. It focused on a resolution to drop suspensions for students arrested during the pro-Palestinian encampment the previous April, but also included demands for WUPD to disarm, for Chancellor Andrew D. Martin to resign, and for the creation of an Indigenous Studies department, among other things.

Scott was jarred by the intensely polarized atmosphere. When senators came and told her they were considering resigning, the need for a culture reset became clear.

“Everybody was miserable, everybody was having a really difficult time in that session and was very stressed and could not engage with one another,” she recalled.

In the following two weeks, three senators would resign and others would complain that being in Senate was becoming increasingly toxic.

Right after the resolution to drop suspensions, Scott shifted her focus. She told senators during the following session that in the next two weeks they would have a discussion about interfaith dialogue and a TRUTH facilitation — a session designed to help student groups have honest conversations about race, power, and

privilege.

Both helped create a space where senators could feel comfortable talking, questioning, and challenging each other’s beliefs while maintaining healthy personal relationships. The sessions were closed to the public, allowing senators to fully share their thoughts with each other.

Scott also began working on a set of community agreements for Senate discussions. After finalizing them with other senators, she made sure each one had a copy and she displayed them for the entirety of the TRUTH session.

Scott attributes these dialogue skills to her current involvement as an Interfaith Fellow at WashU, where she practiced how to adhere to community agreements, actively listen, and have conversations with those who hold different beliefs.

She also decided to enforce Senate’s attendance policies this semester. Currently, they state that after two unexcused absences a member may be removed. Absences do not include missing sessions for health or academic reasons. She believes that despite how awful a removal may feel, enforcing procedure ensures that only those who are fully committed to the body can participate.

During her term, Scott has removed two senators because they violated the policy. Rather than decide on her own, Scott consulted Senate’s committee leaders to ensure they were all on the same page.

“These are also our peers … It’s not like it’s an employeeemployer situation.”

While adding the workshops to Senate’s agenda and enforcing the attendance policy helped turn around the culture, so did Scott’s overall willingness to support her peers in SU.

Multiple senators talked about how she is always available in the SU office or willing to help them late at night with a technicality. She does not interfere with someone else’s project, but is never hesitant to jump in and help brainstorm how to overcome an obstacle. She also brings candy and snacks to every meeting, and on rare occasions sings Whitney Houston songs in the SU office during late-night work sessions.

Jacob Goedde, Campus Life Coordinator for Diverse Communities and Group Development and Scott’s former admissions counselor,

was in student government as an undergrad and has attended a majority of Senate sessions since starting their job last November.

“Scott is someone who works very, very hard and is good at what she does and takes the time to step back and reflect on those community pieces,” Goedde said, adding that Scott is able to “have fun whenever the time calls for it.”

Another key part of Scott’s term has been biweekly meetings with Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, Rob Wild. Even though those meetings are a chance for her to strengthen her relationship with a key administrator, Scott frequently brought other senators so they could ask questions for their projects.

“Ella doesn’t really have much of an ego. She’s more about empowering people and not empowering herself,” Wild said.

He watched with admiration as she constructed a “spirit of togetherness” among a group of students who seemed destined for fallout at the beginning of the semester.

Scott wants all of Senate’s work to be shareable with the whole University community. That includes encouraging senators to prioritize reports, which present data and recommendations, over resolutions, which do not have to include either.

Wild said that reports are “a slightly softer approach” for Senate to take but are much easier for administrators to work with and respond to.

This semester Senate released reports on WUPD mental health response, the add/drop deadline, and getting communal fridges in Sam Fox buildings.

Of the reports SU has released this fall, Scott is proudest of the report on WashU’s dining services because of the issue’s importance to the student body, and the work Senate is doing for the creation of a potential Native American Studies department, which is highlighting an extremely underrepresented population on campus.

Sarah Edmondson, Associate Director for Student Involvement in Campus Life and the primary SU advisor, said Scott is a leader who commands respect because of her work and reputation

rather than her title as speaker. Edmondson believes the TRUTH work and attention to detail have made a tremendous difference in Senate’s success, and she attributes that progress to Scott’s leadership.

“She’s first-gen, limitedincome, and very much comes from a working background, and she works as well, and she juggles all that on top of the purely volunteer labor that is Student Union,” Edmondson said.

Next semester, Scott will be studying in France and unable to serve as speaker. Between other senators going abroad and the usual turnover from fall elections, only one person currently serving in a Senate leadership role will be involved this spring.

Scott is willing to serve in a mentorship role for the next speaker, who will be determined via internal elections later this semester, but is looking forward to her future adventures abroad.

This past summer, Scott interned at a law firm. Her plan for after college has always been to go to law school, just like Elle Woods, but now, in part because of her SU experience, she is considering going into public policy instead.

Scott’s time in student government has taught her to navigate bureaucracy, difficult dynamics, and what it is like to be a real politician, even if only on a campus scale.

Senior and SU president Hussein Amuri served for two years in the Senate and was speaker for the spring 2023 semester. He was at the final Senate session on Nov. 19 and highlighted the work Scott did building community while sticking to her values of integrity, honor, compassion, and empathy.

“She leads with people, she doesn’t lead people,” he said. After the final session was adjourned, multiple senators went up to Scott to give her hugs and say thanks for an amazing semester. At first she accepted the gratitude, but soon became overwhelmed and started to cry.

“My cup is very full,” Scott said.

“We have come so far,” she said a week after the final session, “and I can’t wait to see what happens next … I think everybody did put so much care and so much work into [Senate], and everyone genuinely wants to be there now.

Junior Ella Scott leads a weekly SU Senate meeting in Seigle Hall.

ANNA CALVO | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Scott, gathered with all of the SU senators and advisors after their final meeting. Scott is second row fifth-from-left in the green blouse.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ELLA SCOTT

SU Senate meeting on the resolution to divest from Boeing. With backs to camera, left to right: junior Ashton Lee, Scott, and junior Natalia León Díaz.

BRI NITSBERG | MANAGING PHOTO EDITOR

FORUM

To Care or Not to Care: Navigating nonchalance in college

SOPHIA HELLMAN JUNIOR SCENE EDITOR

This one is for my “chalant” community — if you think you might be an idealist, hopeless romantic, or, in general, a chalant character, I hope my words resonate with you. Don’t get me wrong, meticulously crafting four playlists a month is a good habit, notes app soliloquies can be masterpieces, and monologuing to friends about your favorite class shows passion and commitment. I believe that feeling strongly about something is admirable; we are just stuck in a time where being unbothered can be far more appealing. College life breeds nonchalance, or a lack of meaning in many aspects of life. Although we are more emotionally intelligent than we were in high

school, there is something numbing about existing in yet another liminal period of your life — like we are continually waiting for the day all of our hard work will pay off. Everything — our city, our friends, and even our jobs — could so easily be situational. This atmosphere of dispassion is only exacerbated by the resurgence of skewed interpretations of stoicism, such as those shared by the hustle culture community, where some advocate for complete emotional detachment. So, how does one balance being chalant in a world that imposes skaterboy aloofness?

I’m certainly guilty of using nonchalance to cope with an extensive to-do list. Again and again, I found myself questioning if one class was truly worth taking. Later, I realized this was a mechanism

here, that is not the case.

I never thought I would be the type of student who struggles with transitioning to the college environment.

I viewed WashU as my soulmate in a way, my perfect match. This past summer, I fantasized about going above and beyond with every assignment and how my professors would praise me for my productivity and talent. Well, I think it’s safe to say that after a semester

I struggled at the start of the year with managing the amount of readings my humanities classes assigned, and I didn’t know how to keep up. I then suffered through midterms where my anxiety controlled my life.

I remember sitting down for the first Intro to Psychology exam, unable to control my pounding heartbeat or shaking hands. It continued for the rest of the day, bringing my anxiety beyond the exam room.

I couldn’t sleep through the

PUZZLE PUZZLE Mania

to console myself after a bad grade or to make sense of the burnout I felt, even though I had enrolled out of genuine interest. A hard class or not, the time I could have devoted to engaging myself was instead spent rolling my eyes at the thought of actually having to try, especially when everyone around me made it look so effortless.

In college, the many decisions we must make out of necessity can make us feel detached. We have requirements to fulfill and resumés to bolster. But don’t let it break your enthusiasm. What is the point of achieving some goal if we dislike the entire process? Isn’t pursuing our dreams the reason we’re all here? This is WashU, not purgatory. Despite arbitrary hurdles, we’re still here to learn and to get something meaningful out of it. So

night and woke up multiple times in a sweat and was unable to return to sleep.

When I got my exam back and saw I got a C, I felt like I failed the version of me who was so desperate to prove herself to this school. More overwhelming was the fear that I wouldn’t be successful in my future if I didn’t achieve an A in the class.

From the second we enter the education system, we are taught that the better you are at school the more successful you’ll become, and GPA serves as the tyrant dictating

why dull ourselves down? If you feel you are starting to lose that elusive first-year spark, remember that college might be your last chance to learn (for example, a language) in a setting surrounded by experts and fellow students. This situation calls for chalance — embrace it!

Although it sounds contradictory, relationships are another breeding ground for emotional detachment. Whether it’s the choosy club, the flaky friend, or the whatcould-have-been, doors will close and continue to. As someone who cares, it can feel incredibly isolating when this happens. We might get caught up in feelings of loss or rejection when we should really focus on people who are happy to give us their time and enthusiasm. But don’t take it personally. One piece of advice

it. The further we see ourselves sliding away from the 4.0, the more we feel we’re falling behind in society.

But I will say, as many have said before, that our grades do not determine our success in life. GPA does not show grit, it does not show character, it does not reflect who you are as a person.

Even though it is easy to write this, it is hard to implement the mindset within the life and culture here at WashU.

To actively escape from grade fixation and its

I have is to remember this: college students are looking out for themselves and doing their best to accomplish their own dreams and goals, just like you are. Having the time to work on ourselves is a privilege, and if you need to hear it, you should be a little selfish sometimes, too.

In other words, relationships require a balance. As a chalant individual, you likely find it easy to express your emotions to others. However, if you find yourself constantly caring more, be wary of a situation that lacks reciprocation. You might have felt valued only for what you can offer someone, rather than your own qualities. In cases like this, instead of letting go of your emotions, feel them through, and then think of where your energy might be put to better use. Even the stoics would

dangers, we must find our motive by asking ourselves why we are in a class and what value it brings to our future.

My reflection on Intro to Psych was an interesting process. I took the class because I thought it would be like “Criminal Minds,” and even though the class let me down in that aspect, I can still implement things I’ve learned to my other studies and writing. This is worth more than an A or not having taken the class at all.

agree — they never believed in repressing emotions entirely, but sought instead to understand and manage them wisely. Anyways, in order to better understand our emotions, don’t we have to feel them first? Don’t get too surprised when I quote “Tuesdays With Morrie” — you already knew I was a comrade of chalance. But one line that stuck with me was this: “Detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.” College pressures us to be nonchalant as a way to deal with its trivialities and brace ourselves for change. But that doesn’t mean sitting with our emotions is bad. Actually, it means we can better understand them. And it shows we care.

If we take the time to push past the anxiety and stress from a difficult class by pinning down what it means to us and our future, we may find that it’s a little less serious than we originally thought. So, with the semester coming to an end and grades soon becoming official, take a deep breath. Grab a coffee with a friend, journal, watch your favorite movie — do whatever self-care looks like for you, and remember your worth is far beyond the grade report.

SPONSORED BY:

Learning beyond ourselves: The importance of cultural studies for all students

Education has always been political. Still, in the past few years, debates about education, including what we have the right to learn and who we can learn about, have been in the spotlight. Throughout history, people have not only had to fight for the right to be in school but also for the right to learn about their own histories. This struggle was present at WashU as students and professors fought to have educational programs like Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and African and African American Studies (AFAS), which included an eight-day sit-in in Brookings Hall in 1968.

People have fought for the right to learn about marginalized and minority identities, their cultures, and their histories at WashU. People are also actively fighting against that same right. It is imperative that students from all backgrounds take classes that involve identities other than their own. Unfortunately, this is not nearly as common as it should be.

While speaking with professors teaching in and students majoring in cultural departments — AFAS, Latin American Studies (LAS), and Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies (JIMES) — we learned that these courses, especially higher level ones, are often composed solely or mostly

“Structures

societies shield white people from engaging in difficult conversations about race and white privilege — is a key reason why cultural classes are important in the first place. It is especially important that white students at WashU take these classes because they compose the majority of the student body, often without even a diverse social circle.

According to LAS Professor Ignacio Sánchez Prado, a highly regarded professor who has historically encouraged students to take classes in LAS regardless of their cultural background, understands this fragility to be a matter of perceived danger: “To be a foreigner is a very valuable experience, and to be an outsider is a very valuable experience. There is this concept of mistaking safety for always being inside your comfort zone. And I think it is really important to learn to be uncomfortable, and learning outside your culture is a way of having productive discomfort that is not going to make you unsafe at all.”

Students often do not register for cultural studies classes in these departments because they feel like they are inserting themselves in a space that does not belong to them. Junior Maya Rodriguez-Clark, a Latin American Studies major, attributes this discomfort to a broader notion: “We have this view where culture is to be owned and to be protected.”

In today’s political climate,

build solidarity with one another, the people that need to learn about these things most are currently rarely in the classroom, and they need to be.

Students often feel like certain classroom spaces and conversations do not belong to them when they are not about them. Yet, the reality is that students from minority backgrounds have had to learn about cultures other than their own for their entire academic careers. When we allow this kind of fragility to influence our decisions, we give fragility the power to crystallize, while some of these courses would work to break it down.

“It

rarely cross-lists except in some cases where the professor has a PhD in Political Science (which is rarely the case for classes home-based in the department). This lack of cross-listing is especially apparent because there are so many classes about politics across cultural departments.

Daniel Butler, the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Political Science, explained that the reason for this is the brevity of the major, which in theory would allow students to finish it more quickly and take classes outside the department afterward. However, at a school like WashU, where students are often pursu-

while expanding our understanding of our disciplines from diverse perspectives.

Obviously, existing cultural classes cannot be cross-listed to fit the needs of every department. Every department, especially those that do not have applicable classes in cultural studies and those that are insistent on keeping strict policies, like Political Science, should make a concerted effort to hire more professors with research related to marginalized communities and countries other than the U.S.

It is also these students pursuing multiple programs that may have significant contributions, certainly

from learning in diverse classrooms.

“I believe that diversity is good for education, I think that it enhances curiosity, that it brings in more voices to the conversation, that it limits group thinking, and that it requires many skills of working and engaging across differences,” Hendin said. We urge you to step outside of your comfort zone and take classes in cultural departments, particularly those that are unfamiliar to you. In conducting these interviews, we received a slew of glowing recommendations for courses offered this spring, including Intro to Africana Studies;

is imperative that students from all backgrounds take classes that involve identities other than their own. Unfortunately, this is not nearly as common as it should be.”

While there is a clear issue with students not taking these classes, the University is also not encouraging them to do so — or at least not all of them. Cultural diversity requirements vary drastically between schools, with ArtSci carrying the most robust cultural diversity requirements and Sam Fox the least. Whether a student is going into business or law should not determine the importance of understanding different cultures.

Moreover, strict major and minor requirements make it difficult for students to

as complex as systemic racism and as simple as course requirements all contribute to why students, especially white students, don’t take classes outside of their own identity.”

of students with ties to the culture being studied. While there is inherent value in creating a space for students of one culture to learn about that culture together, it is the role of a liberal arts institution to ensure that students of all cultural backgrounds are learning about cultures other than their own.

We'd argue that this is not a conscious decision for most WashU students. Structures as complex as systemic racism and as simple as course requirements all contribute to why students, especially white students, don’t take classes outside of their own identity.

One of the reasons white students often don’t take these classes is that they are uncomfortable talking about race, whether subconsciously or not. White fragility — the idea that deeply segregated

where many people in power don’t want cultural studies departments to exist at all, it makes complete sense that people feel defensive of their cultures in these classes. On the other hand, the students opting to take classes outside of their identities are usually not trying to tear those minority cultures down.

In a structurally discriminatory society, spaces for people who share one identity are important for safety and organizing. The classroom should be safe and foster organizing, but also must expand people’s perspectives and understandings of the world. Something we repeatedly heard from interviewees was that minority students know discrimination; they know how racial differences manifest socially. While it is important that they are able to relate and

12/5 WINNERS

take classes that won’t count toward their programs, as many students are fulfilling their academic requirements through their senior year. In order to remedy this issue, departments should make concerted efforts to cross-list cultural classes in their areas. When a class is cross-listed, it appears in the Course Listings under multiple departments, and it is made clear from the start that the course can satisfy requirements for different areas of study.

Humanities departments like American Culture Studies and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies are very good at this, allowing students to take a wide variety of classes home-based in other departments. However, others are not. The Political Science department, for example,

ing two majors and a minor or a major and two minors, maybe even with a concentration or two, this optimistic view is not the case for many students.

Additionally, the onus is often on individual professors and students to request cross-listing with other departments. This causes a large number of classes to go un-cross-listed despite being applicable to different departments. Putting the onus on individual professors and students to make these requests means that only people already highly motivated to take classes in cultural departments, or, for professors, to diversify their classes, end up in them. Departments should instead actively seek out classes in cultural departments to cross-list in their discipline. This could be as easy as searching for every class with the word “politics” in it and reading through the syllabi to see if it is a good fit. While our experiences as students are different, they have been greatly enriched by classes focused on identities other than our own. Classes cross-listed between our majors and cultural departments such as “Women and Crime in the Evolution of American History” in AFAS and Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies; “Freedom, Resistance, and African American Political Thought” in AFAS and Political Science; and “James Baldwin Now” in English and AFAS have been especially impactful and some of our favorite courses we have taken for our majors. Because these classes were cross-listed, we were able to approach them with a base knowledge of our majors and ultimately felt more comfortable about what we could bring to the class,

First Place: At least if I get eaten I won’t have to take my calc final

Imaan Ali, Current WashU Student

Second Place: Seeing someone every day doesn’t mean you know them

Darren Jacobs, WashU Parent

Third Place: The crucially important mission of college to exchange ideas can be life altering Darren Jacobs, WashU Parent

more than they think they do, to conversations in cultural classes. Ayala Hendin, a teaching fellow in the JIMES department, says that her classroom conversations are always enriched by students coming from other departments.

Even beyond academic study, everyone brings something valuable to the classroom. For example, Dr. Hendin described a British student who took her course on Arabs in Israel, where colonialism and settler colonialism are discussed in-depth. She explained how the student’s British identity and upbringing in the context of extreme colonialism added to the experience of everyone else in the course. Similarly, STEM courses teach a particular kind of critical thinking that may be absent in humanities classes without STEM students, and this adds another layer of perspective to everyone’s academic experience.

According to Hendin, this experience was a reminder of the kind of questions we should be asking when we enter these spaces: “What are our identity traits that are maybe more public: ethnicity, race, gender, things like that? What are some of our lived experiences? What is the knowledge that we are coming in with? What are the skills that we are coming in with, and how do all of these interact with what it is that we are learning and the ways that we are forming our opinions?”

In addition to the benefit of cultural education on understanding different communities’ histories and experiences in the current day, as well as how our own identities converge and diverge from one another, Hendin also described the critical skills students gain

Blackness in Brazil; Islam, Culture, and Society in West Africa; Wolof Language and Culture; and Survey of Mexican Cultures.

The barriers we have discussed are far from the only ones that limit the diversity of students taking cultural classes. There are many structural obstacles related to these departments including how the school prioritizes cultural departments (of which creating a building partially dedicated to AFAS is a great step), hiring faculty from and who teach about marginalized communities, and funding research that focuses on minorities.

Education will always be political and, therefore, will likely always carry some level of discomfort. However, discomfort with politics and with discussions of race and ethnicity are exactly what we should be confronting as part of our college education. We have a responsibility to take classes about identities other than our own, especially those of us not from historically marginalized communities. At the same time, this responsibility should not be the sole reason you take these courses. Nor should you take them because you want to put on a facade as an ally to minority communities. (These classes can be an important first step, but allyship requires more than sitting in a classroom or performative support — it requires action.) You should take them because these classes are interesting and engaging; each student brings a new perspective that enriches the conversation, and because of diversity in the classroom, everyone will walk away with a broader worldview and a more robust learning experience.

Caption this! Enter this week’s contest

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

VIVA LAS VEGAS:

Women’s soccer journeys to the Final Four

At the start of each season, the WashU women’s soccer team creates a goal pyramid, starting with small goals that set the building blocks for their larger aspirations. This season, the No. 1 ranked Bears have ticked many of their goals off the list: have an undefeated season at home, win the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championship, and make the Final Four.

Now, the Bears have their “top goal” left to achieve: to win the national championship.

According to sophomore midfielder Sophie Viscovich, the Bears approach the postseason as “three two-game tournaments.” After scoring late winners to beat Colby College and the University of Chicago and earn a spot in the Final Four, WashU has just one two-game tournament left.

“We know we start zeroand-zero; the rest of the season doesn’t matter. It’s a new tournament,” Viscovich said ahead of their Sweet 16 matchup against Colby.

“Getting to that Final Four, it’s three two-game tournaments, so just winning it game by game. We go one game at a time.”

In 2016, after finishing the previous year as runners-up,

the Bears defeated Messiah University for the program’s only national title. The 2024 WashU squad is looking to repeat history. One year after losing to California Lutheran University in the 2023 National Championship game, the Bears are making a second-ever repeat Final Four appearance ever and are looking to duplicate the 2016 squad’s success.

Standing in their way, however, is another Division III soccer heavyweight: No. 2 Christopher Newport University who the Bears will play in the Final Four on Dec. 6 at 4:30 p.m. CST.

The Captains entered the tournament as the top seed in their region, only having lost to the University of California–Santa Cruz in the Coast-To-Coast (C2C) Athletic Conference Championship on Nov. 10. Christopher Newport made an early statement, blowing past John Jay College in the first round of the NCAA tournament with a 12-0 victory, the largest win by any team in this year’s tournament. The Captains beat Vassar College, No. 6 Misericordia University, and No. 18 Johns Hopkins University to set up the firstever matchup against WashU in the Final Four.

Christopher Newport is led by C2C Offensive Player of the Year junior Hanna Heaton, who has racked up 13 goals and a programrecord 17 assists, and graduate student Corinne Kulik, who

has 10 goals and four assists.

Senior All-American defender

Reanna Slater and sophomore goalkeeper Amy Sidaway lead a talented backline that has allowed just 0.4 goals per game.

WashU’s journey to the NCAA Tournament has been a fairly linear one. The Bears recorded their first unbeaten season since 2018, claimed their second-straight conference title, and hosted the first two rounds of the tournament before a home crowd at Francis Field. Like Christopher Newport, the Bears cruised through the opening rounds of the tournament — defeating DePauw University 2-0 and Simpson College 5-1 to find themselves in their eighth consecutive Sweet 16.

One week later, junior Grace Ehlert danced past Colby College defenders to send WashU to the Elite Eight, and the next day, first-year Olivia Clemons ran through the University Chicago backline to score the game-winning tally against the Maroons.

Clemons and Ehlert — both of whom were named First-Team All-UAA players — will have to keep up their good form against Christopher Newport, after combining for 33 goals on the season.

The Bears’ rock-solid defense has given up just seven goals all season and kept backto-back clean sheets when they needed them most. All

season long, the Bears’ backline has consistently limited opponents.

“Our team is so deep,” senior Emma Riley McGahan said after their second-round win over Simpson. “Every single girl is so talented, so I don’t have any doubt in my mind. No matter who’s on the field, we’re gonna take care of business.”

The Bears are one of two UAA teams left in the

tournament. On the other side of the bracket, No. 23 Emory University and No. 11 William Smith College are set to face off Friday night. If WashU and Emory both win their semifinal matchups, it would mark the first time that two UAA teams faced each other in the national championship game. WashU opened their conference season against Emory in Atlanta in October, defeating the Eagles

2-1. The Bears will travel to the University of Nevada–Las Vegas to take on Christopher Newport on Friday, Dec. 6 at 4:30 p.m. CST. Should WashU advance, they will play either William Smith or Emory in the national championship game on Sunday, Dec. 8 at 2:00 p.m. CST. Both games will be livestreamed on the NCAA website.

WashU proposes new athletic fields for Concordia Seminary despite local opposition

Concordia for the western portion of the land. The St. Louis Business Journal reported that the new development would cost the university an estimated $45 million.

WashU is proposing to relocate its baseball, softball, intramural, and club sports facilities to the land it is leasing from Concordia Seminary, as part of an effort to expand and modernize its athletic facilities. However, the plans are facing scrutiny from Clayton residents, who worry that the new facilities will create too much noise and traffic.

WashU, Concordia, and the city of Clayton have published tentative planning documents to Clayton’s Planning and Development Services website, the first of which were released in May 2023. Despite publishing these proposals online, WashU has not officially confirmed any specific plans for the site. Many residents also believe that WashU has not been clear enough with its plan for the new development.

“There’s a lot of distrust in our communities because there’s a lot of blue sky,” John Hutkin, a resident of the Hillcrest neighborhood, said at a Clayton Board of Aldermen meeting on Nov. 12. “WashU doesn’t know what it’s doing, or when it plans to do it.”

In June 2023, Concordia Seminary announced that it would redevelop its campus, downsizing its footprint by nearly half. Concordia’s campus spans from the DeMun shopping district to Big Bend Boulevard, and students live in single-family homes on the western portion of the campus. In the proposal, Concordia expressed its desire to build new, townhouse-style apartments on the east side of campus. WashU, then, would enter an 80-year lease with

The parcel of land, located near the intersection of Big Bend Boulevard and Clayton Road, is known as the Big Bend Overlay. It would primarily house new baseball and softball fields and tennis courts for WashU varsity teams. The proposals also include plans for a new soccer-specific field for varsity soccer practices, a new student gym, and a new Field House with a capacity of 500 spectators. Club and intramural sports that use the South Campus or South 40 Intramural Field would move to new, dedicated fields on the overlay upon its completion.

The Big Bend Overlay development plans are separate from the University’s recent purchase of the Fontbonne campus, announced by WashU in March. No plans have been announced for the development of the Fontbonne campus, which lies between South 40 and the overlay.

According to Anna Krane, the Director of Planning and Development Services for the City of Clayton, neither WashU nor Concordia have proposed a timeline for the project. However, Krane noted that WashU would not be able to start construction until the new Concordia housing is built.

The city believes that an overlay allows the city the most control over what they can do with the land, specifically limiting WashU to certain city-defined regulations. But some residents fear that the overlay district would allow WashU to have more authority over what they do with the

land, in turn leaving Clayton’s government and residents with less control. Hutkin, alongside many other community members, argued that the city should issue a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) instead of an overlay zone. CUPs are subject to the scrutiny of the Board of Aldermen and the community and must follow existing zoning guidelines. An overlay zone would supersede the existing zoning of the area.

“The overlay process only exacerbates the worries and fears of the neighborhood residents,” community member Larry Mooney said in his testimony.

At the beginning of the Nov. 12 meeting, Clayton Mayor Michelle Harris remarked that she “hadn’t seen the chamber this full in years.” Nearly every attendee was in opposition to WashU’s plan for the overlay.

“I look at [Clayton’s] relationship with WashU like I look at my relationship with my kids. I love my kids, and I love WashU,” Clayton resident Andrew Lieberman said at the Nov. 12 meeting. “But in my household, me and my wife pay the bills. We, the taxpayers of Clayton, also pay the bills. Like with my kids, sometimes you’ve got to say no.” Clayton’s government has already added additional restrictions to the overlay from

the initial proposal. WashU originally wanted the fields to have a maximum capacity of 5,000 spectators; the government has since amended that number to 600. The city proposed a provision banning future Division I or II competitions from taking place within the overlay after residents objected to a potential WashU athletic expansion.

As part of the renovations, WashU’s varsity baseball and softball fields would permanently be moved to the overlay. As part of the proposed plans, both the WashU Softball Field and Kelly Baseball Field, which are currently located on the northern edge of the South 40 and were recently renovated, would be razed to make way for student dorms. Plans for the University’s usage of this land have yet to be officially announced.

Some residents are concerned that moving the fields to the overlay would create a traffic disruption on Big Bend Boulevard.

“The speed limit by my house is 35 miles per hour, because Clayton police couldn’t enforce it if it were any lower,” community member David Edison said at the meeting. “What are the police going to do when we bring in 2,000 screaming sports fans?”

On Nov. 22, Associate Vice

WashU’s proposal includes plans to build new athletic fields on the land it is leasing from Concordia Seminary, located south of WashU’s Danforth Campus.

Chancellor for Real Estate

Mary Campbell responded to some of the community’s concerns and amendments in a letter to the Clayton community. The University expressed its interest in allowing athletic practices on the overlay to begin as early as 7 a.m., and revising provisions in the text about wildlife conservation.

Most notably, the University pushed back against the amendment banning D-I and D-II athletic use of the land.

At a meeting of the Board of Aldermen on Nov. 26, representatives from WashU and Concordia answered questions from community members. The Board of Alderman will next meet on Dec. 10, where they would potentially vote on the matter.

Sophomore Sophie Viscovich (left) and junior Grace Ehlert (top) celebrate with first-year Olivia Clemons (right) after her game-winning goal in the 80th minute against UChicago.

ANNA CALVO | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

COURTESY OF THE CITY OF CLAYTON

Caleb Durbin reflects on WashU journey, Yankees future

.312/.427/.548 line.

When Student Life asked Caleb Durbin, then a standout junior on the WashU baseball team, about his professional baseball aspirations in April of 2021, he mentioned the New York Yankees as one of his dream destinations.

“[The] Yankees have so much history, so it’d be sick to play for them,” Durbin, Class of 2022, said.

Three and a half years after playing his final game for the Bears, Durbin is on the cusp of turning his dream into a reality. On Monday, Nov. 18, the infielder was added to the Yankees’ 40-man roster. Now one call away from the big leagues, Durbin has a strong chance of making the active roster when the season begins in April and could play a big role for the Yankees next year.

“I think in the spring, it’s the mindset, at least, from what they’ve told me, is get ready to compete for the second-base job, and if not, then some type of utility role, and then go from there,” Durbin said in an interview with Student Life in November 2024.

Never touted as a top prospect, Durbin has consistently risen through the ranks of the minor leagues. The 24-year-old is coming off a historic performance in the Arizona Fall League (AFL), where he took home the AFL’s Breakout Prospect of the Year Award. Playing against some of the top prospects in baseball, Durbin smashed the AFL stolen base record, swiping 29 bags in 24 games, while slashing an impressive

Durbin’s performance in the Fall League sets him up to compete for a starting role next year, something Yankees manager Aaron Boone expressed in an interview earlier this month.

“This guy’s gonna be a big league player,” Boone said. “I think he’s going to play a big role for us this upcoming season.”

The Lake Forest, Illinois native has always had high expectations for himself. Yet despite having pro ball aspirations from high school, the 5’6’’ infielder faced little interest from Division I programs.

Before getting a call from then-assistant coach Adam Rosen, Durbin knew very little about WashU and its baseball program.

“I wasn’t getting a whole lot of [Division I] interest at the time, and I didn’t even know what WashU was … I didn’t even pick it up at first,” Durbin said. “I called him back, and the first thing he said was, ‘Yeah, if you want to play here, you’re gonna have to get your ACT score up to a 32.’”

Fortunately for the Bears, Durbin was able to improve his score, and in 2018, he committed to WashU. He was an instant contributor at WashU, starting all 40 games at shortstop his first year.

After COVID-19 shortened his sophomore season, Durbin led the Bears to the Division III College World Series in his junior year. In 93 games with the Bears throughout three years, Durbin recorded as many home runs (10) as he did strikeouts.

After three years at WashU, Durbin was drafted in the 14th round of the 2021 MLB Draft by

the Atlanta Braves.

“Getting drafted was probably the best day of my life,” Durbin said.

“Having the opportunity to play pro ball was my dream my entire life. So to get that call was probably one of the biggest things that’s happened.”

Durbin has played himself into promotions at each level of Minor League ball. He swiped 12 bases in his 17 games of rookie ball in 2021. While playing Minor League ball for the Braves Low A affiliate in Augusta, Durbin finished his WashU education online on the Braves’ dime.

“I would basically do my schoolwork in the mornings, and then I’d go play a professional baseball game for the Braves Low-A team at night,” Durbin said. “I was a WashU student by day, and a Braves minor leaguer by night.”

Since being traded to the Yankees franchise before the 2022 season, Durbin

“I was a WashU student by day, and a minor leaguer by night.”

has shined across different positions on the field. Almost solely a shortstop at WashU, Durbin has spent time all over the diamond in the minors, with a majority of his innings coming at second and third base. Last season, he logged games at second base, third base, shortstop, center field, and left field, in both the Fall League and with Triple-A Scranton.

“I always say my favorite position is the position I’m playing that day. Wherever they put me in the lineup is my favorite position,” Durbin said.

But the utility man has his sights set on second base, a position of need for the Yankees next year and beyond. “[I’m] ready to hone in on the second base job, but also be ready for the other positions as well.”

If he steps on a bigleague diamond, Durbin would join Ryan Loutos as the second member of the Bears’ 2021 College World Series team to play in the MLB. Loutos, who debuted for the Cardinals

since we were super young, and we’ve basically had the same journey,” Durbin said. “Seeing him jump to Triple-A within his first full season was one of the biggest things that I could look at and get inspiration from.”

The second baseman has been overlooked throughout his entire career — by D-I baseball programs, by the Braves, and even by

media outlets that have yet to rank Durbin as a top-30 prospect in the Yankees’ system. Durbin is now on the cusp of proving everybody wrong.

“I want to reach my full potential in this sport and in this game, and I think that I’m on a really good path, [but] I’m not able to do that until I play in the big leagues,” Durbin said.

Since leading WashU to the College World Series in 2021, Caleb Durbin has risen through the ranks of Minor League baseball and was promoted to the New York Yankees’ 40-man roster in November.

CLARA RICHARDS | STUDENT LIFE