February 3, 2022 newspaper, Student Life at Washington University in St. Louis

The independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis since 1878 VOLUME 143, NO. 13

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2022

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Response to Underpass vandalism Greek Life tensions heat up as spring recruitment kicks off

CYNTHIA CHONG AND TED MOSKAL STAFF REPORTER MANAGING EDITOR

HOLDEN HINDES | STUDENT LIFE

A WUPD officer bikes past the South 40 Underpass murals, which students and administrators repainted last week.

WUPD arrested a person in connection with Underpass vandalism in December MATTHEW FRIEDMAN AND TED MOSKAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MANAGING EDITOR The Washington University Police Department arrested a person in connection with the white supremacist vandalism of the South 40 Underpass Black history mural, University leadership

announced in an email to community members Jan. 27.

The arrest took place on Dec. 23, WUPD interim chief Dave Goodwin wrote in an email to Student Life Jan. 27, but administrators did not communicate that date in their email to the community.

“We’ve been planning to provide an update to our community

Students and administrators repaint vandalized panels TED MOSKAL MANAGING EDITOR Washington University students and administrators repainted panels on the South 40 Underpass Jan. 24., covering up the remnants of the white supremacist vandalism that had marked the Underpass since the middle of December.

The panel that previously contained John Lewis’ face now reads “Black Lives Matter,” while Chadwick Boseman’s and Geoge Poage’s panels contain painted flowers and handprints from the students and administrators who repainted the panel. Immediately after the vandalism, students used nail polish remover to remove the name of Patriot Front, the white supremacist organization whose logo was spray painted over the panels, but the white paint itself had remained there for over a month.

The idea to cover up the vandalism was one of many proposals brought up in a student feedback space hosted by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) in the weeks following the incident. Junior Aaliyah Allen attended the feedback space and had suggested painting over the vandalized portions.

“We were all a little bit uncomfortable with people coming back [to campus] and the graffiti still being up,” Allen said. “So I basically suggested that we cover it up with something nicer for now, while we figure out what exactly we want to do with the mural.”

However, in the long run, Allen said that covering up the mural is just one of many steps that the University should take towards confronting the white supremacy and hate that prompted the vandalism.

“Some type of permanent art installation, preferably done by local Black artists, I feel is kind of the only real path forward to addressing what

at least a lot of the Black students I’ve been talking to have said they want,” she said.

In addition to new art on campus, many students also want more substantive changes from the administration. Following the vandalism, the Association of Black Students, Students for Black and Palestinian Liberation and the Black Senior Alliance collaborated on a statement that called on the University to provide transparency into the vandalism investigation, reassess the role of the Washington University Police Department and pay the initial artists to restore the mural and for the vandalism damages.

“Right now, a big thing from the admin[istrative] side is transparency and like actual communication,” Allen said. “From my knowledge, they haven’t responded to the ABS community statement, and there haven’t been any updates on the investigation… Especially as we’re getting ready to come back in person, a real opportunity for Black students specifically to speak on this issue with administration and to actually get a response back would be nice.”

Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Dr. Anna Gonzalez said in a Jan. 25 interview with Student Life that as students return to campus next week, the University plans to create opportunities for reflection and dialogue about the vandalism.

“Some of our diversity thought leaders are really talking about a Day of Dialogue, so that’s been in the plans,” Gonzalez said. “I’ve heard through the grapevine that some students would like to have us do a program or a set of dialogue programs specific to what happened, but also [discussing] white supremacy and the history of white supremacy in its current standing in St. Louis.

SEE RESTORATION, PAGE 3

when the investigation allowed for us to do so, and also if and when we knew whether charges would be filed in the case,” Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications Julie Flory wrote in an email response to Student Life’s question as to why the University did not announce

SEE ARREST, PAGE 3

The status of Greek Life at Washington University is once again in the spotlight this week, with tensions high ahead of Friday’s beginning to spring recruitment.

According to the Women’s Panhellenic Association (WPA) and the Interfraternity Council (IFC), as of Jan. 24, 530 individuals have filled out this spring’s Greek Life interest form, nearly double the total of 300 new members who joined WPA and IFC organizations last spring.

Many students have called for the abolition of WPA and IFC organizations since the summer of 2020, when a wave of public accounts of racism, sexism, classism and other forms of exclusion within the Greek system prompted over 50% of members to deactivate. Since then, certain organizations such as Pi Beta Phi and Alpha Omicron Pi have disbanded and the Beta Theta Pi house was converted to transfer student housing. However, overall membership has gradually ticked up since the initial wave of deactivations.

Organizations including the Abolish Greek Life (AGL) movement, Student Union (SU), WPA and IFC have sent conflicting messages to students, particularly freshmen, on participating in spring rush activities.

SU President Ranen Miao and the

SU executive council sent a Jan. 21 email to the freshman class entitled “Don’t Rush IFC/WPA Greek Life,” prompting backlash. While Student Union has generally been in favor of abolition, passing a resolution for the dehousing of fraternities in the fall of 2020, some members have pushed back against the organization’s official position.

In an email to freshmen Jan. 24 and in an Instagram post, the IFC and WPA leadership characterized the SU email as “provocative,” while some SU legislators argued the email did not reflect the views of SU as a whole. Individual SU members declined to comment to Student Life.

Discourse surrounding Greek Life on social media has also escalated, with the Instagram account @wustlofficial, which often posts content critical of the University, including a racist characterization of WPA president sophomore Camilla Maionica in a Jan. 21. post. For Maionica, this post represented a trend of increasingly polarized online debate among students.

“I knew that WPA could get attacked, but I didn’t think they would bring in my race and my identity, something that I talk so much about and matters so much to me,” she said.

“They kind of tokenized me in the post and spotlighted me in a way that I did not want to be spotlighted.”

The next few weeks will be a

SEE GREEK, PAGE 2

‘We see him as a superhero’: Justin Hardy’s unlikely return to the basketball court CLARA RICHARDS SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR When former University Athletic Association Rookie of the Year Justin Hardy came to campus in September, he couldn’t jump 10 inches off the ground. The Washington University men’s basketball forward couldn’t run up and down the basketball court three times.

When he began shooting around with freshman Hayden Doyle for the first time, Hardy was far from his former explosive power.

None of his teammates were sure if Hardy would return to playing minutes at all after watching him undergo chemotherapy all summer. “He wasn’t in game shape, obviously,” Doyle said.

When Hardy first started practicing with the team in October, he couldn’t dunk — he couldn’t

get the ball over the rim. Still, he was doggedly persistent with his conditioning program, taking his time with the exercises that would have been his warmup six months prior. He got to the point where he was doing the same exercises as his teammates, and a month later, teammate David Windley looked over to see Hardy outlifting him.

Now, while still in treatment for his stage four stomach cancer, Hardy is back to scoring just under 11 points per game — the second highest on the team — and was an integral part of the No. 3 Bears’ early-season, 13-game winning streak. “The progress he’s made is mindblowing,” Doyle said. *** Hardy refuses to lose. He’ll

Justin Hardy directs traffic during a recent game against New York University.

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play tricks of the card game Hearts for hours, banding together with his friends to leave someone with the unlucky queen of spades. He graduated in December after just three and a half years, refusing to take a lighter load to accommodate the busy schedule of basketball.

And this fall, he’s fought against every odd to return to WashU beside his teammates to compete at the upper tier of Division III basketball.

Back in March, when teammate David Windley looked up the street to an ambulance whizzing past him, he hoped that the loud sirens were a bad coincidence. Sure, he knew that his roommate and teammate Justin Hardy wasn’t feeling well, but he dismissed it as just strange

SEE HARDY, PAGE 8

CURRAN NEENAN | STUDENT LIFE

TED MOSKAL | SENIOR NEWS EDITOR | NEWS@STUDLIFE.COM

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EVENT CALENDAR THURSDAY 3 Clocks Gone Wild: Circadian Rhythms in St. Louis Virtual Event, 4 p.m.

This event is a Living Earth Collaborative/Evolution, Ecology & Population Biology Seminar and will feature Washington University Viktor Hamburger Professor Erik Herzog.

FRIDAY 4 Skandalaris Center Open House Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation, 2 p.m. - 4 p.m.

The Skandalaris Center is open after being closed for winter break and is excited to welcome back students, faculty, staff and alumni. There will be free drinks, snacks, and a “fun make-it-take it” in the Skandalaris Center, located in the lower level of Mallinckrodt Center. You must register online to attend this event.

SATURDAY 5 Slow and Not So Steady: Glaciers, Ice Sheets, and Sea Level Rise Virtual Event, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Part of the MLA lecture series presented by University College, Doug Wiens will use his research on Antarctica and glacial movement to discuss climate change. To attend the lecture, you must register for the Zoom link.

TUESDAY 8 COVID-19 Variants & Vaccinations - Where Are We Now? Virtual Event, 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Brown School Associate Dean Rodrigo Reis will moderate a conversation with leading voices in the St. Louis area as they provide an update and analysis regarding our current position in the pandemic. New developments, research and testing as well as citizen action, support and policies will be discussed. This discussion is part of the Brown School’s Black History Month programming. Register online to receive the Zoom information to attend the event; you can also join the live stream.

GREEK from page 1

crucial period for groups on all sides of the Greek Life debate.

For the Abolish Greek Life movement, this spring represents an opportunity to pick up momentum and push back against the small rebound in membership that some Greek organizations have experienced.

“In order to combat membership numbers this year, we are working hard on first-year outreach as a movement and in close collaboration with SU,” AGL leadership wrote in a group statement to Student Life. “However, the goals and priorities of AGL are the same, no matter how many Greek Life members there are today or tomorrow.”

In addition to highlighting the negative elements of Greek Life, AGL and SU are making efforts to build alternative social organizations at the University, one of which, the Women and Non-Binary Multicultural Organization, launched last year.

“It is clear that Greek Life continues to exist on campus because WashU students want an opportunity to find community and a social outlet,” AGL leaders wrote. “AGL acknowledges this need for socializing, but does not see Greek Life as a system to fill this need.”

For many Greek organizations, meanwhile, spring recruitment is a chance for them to showcase reforms aimed at making the system more diverse and equitable while also rebuilding depleted membership. Maionica told Student Life that WPA and IFC leadership sees these reforms as essential to restoring trust among the student body and making sure that fraternities and sororities have a future on campus.

“I’m not saying this is easy,” Maionica said. “I’m not saying that I can just say ‘Hey, WPA mandates this,’ and every chapter will do it. But what I am saying is that there [are leaders] here in the forefront, and I know it’s the same with [IFC President] Adam [Marcus], that are willing to spend days and hours to make that change happen, because I

want any other person to feel the same safety net that I did [as a sorority member].”

Some reforms include new scholarship and endowment funds, mandatory inclusive training workshops for all members, the addition of a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) chair to each organization’s chapter council and a calendar for cultural events that represent the identities of different sorority and fraternity members. During rush, all participants will be required to display their pronouns in their Zoom names, and Potential New Members (PNMs) will be able to give feedback through an anonymous survey after each day.

Maionica also said that a confidential reporting survey will aim to ensure accountability for members who experience discrimination or harm within their organizations.

“We are making every effort to make sure that [members] know that they are supported and this is highly confidential, and this will not be looked at by their sorority or fraternity if they don’t want to,” Maionica said. “Even with WPA, the survey will have the option of going straight to the [Campus Life] advisors, so students can be very honest.”

AGL leadership has dismissed such reforms as “performative” and “ineffective,” arguing that abolition is the only way forward.

“The emphasis placed on these reforms takes the focus away from the harms still present in our community – the superspreader fraternity parties, the continued interpersonal violence and insignificant ‘scholarships’ that give the pretense of economic equity when in reality, it’s not enough to cover all financial burdens associated with Greek Life,” their statement to Student Life read. “A calendar, bylaw or ‘programming’ won’t fix these harms, but abolition will.”

The omicron variant has further complicated the rush process, pushing the start date back to Feb. 4, since, under the spring plan, many students

A look at WU’s Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization NINA GIRALDO STAFF REPORTER

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were away from campus during the first two weeks of the semester. Maionica said that even with the later start date, certain rush events like the PNM welcome and open houses will still take place on Zoom, and that the maximum size for an in-person event would be around 30 people.

“The days that we have kept in person… are smaller groups, everyone will be wearing a mask, and they will still be mostly outdoors depending on the weather,” she said.

“If for some reason you can’t continue those last few days in person, we will have a virtual option for students as well.”

According to the University’s guidelines for registered student groups that host social events, no food or drink will be served at rush events, Maionica said.

Still, AGL leadership expressed doubt that fraternities and sororities would be able to host rush events safely.

“Rush has historically been made up of large group gatherings in small rooms/spaces, and many rush events have served food and drinks (frats have even served alcoholic drinks to their underage rushees),” AGL leaders wrote.

“Due to rush events resembling ‘party’ environments,” AGL expressed concerns with in-person rush becoming “a COVID superspreader event across campus.”

AGL and the organization @whyidroppedwashu hosted a Zoom panel Wednesday night with speakers including former fraternity and sorority members discussing the negative and harmful elements of Greek Life, while highlighting other ways to find community on campus.

“The University should be actively contributing to these efforts [to create alternatives to Greek Life] and supporting students,” AGL leaders wrote.

“One tangible way that the University can show a commitment to creating equitable social life is by dehousing fraternities... Students already have robust communities on campus and the University can help facilitate social life in a safe and equitable manner.”

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2022

Washington University’s Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization (CCCU) describes itself as a research center on the cutting edge of climate solutions. However, the consortium’s support for the continued use of fossil fuels and its focus on carbon capture and sequestration has faced scrutiny as scientists and activists sound alarms about the urgency of addressing climate change.

Consortium leaders suggest that limiting emissions from coal power production is a key tool in the fight against climate change, while critics argue that carbon capture and other technologies distract from the need for a quicker transition away from fossil fuels.

Established in 2008, the CCCU focuses its research on carbon capture and sequestration, advocating for the use of fossil fuels alongside solar and wind power. The consortium receives funding from coal companies Ameren, Peabody and Arch Coal in addition to the federal government, but Director of the CCCU and Professor in Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering Richard Axelbaum says the University retains research decision-making power.

Recently the CCCU developed pressurized oxycombustion technology that Axelbaum said is “one of the top contenders in the world” for carbon capture technology and effectively dealing with the unreliability of renewable sources. The research resulted in a $6 million project with the U.S. Department of Energy, Axelbaum said.

However, anthropology professor Bret Gustafson referred to the CCCU as “a bit like a farce,” arguing that “corrupt coal industries” want to keep burning fossil fuels to maintain a militaristic economy and satisfy corporate interests.

“It’s simply their way of using the University to improve the image of coal,” Gustafson said. “That’s a problem when the University starts participating in corporate propaganda.”

Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications Julie Flory declined to comment on critiques of the consortium and Gustafson’s comments about the University.

Axelbaum acknowledged fossil fuel companies’ self-interest in funding the consortium’s research but said their agendas do not affect the consortium’s decisionmaking. He added that the consortium’s eventual goal is to develop technologies that can attract more funding from the federal government instead.

“The decision-making is dictated by the University, but the funding comes from the companies, and for obvious reasons, they would like to see technologies develop that have a path forward for coal,” Axelbaum said. “What we’re doing with these funds [from fossil fuel companies] is leveraging them to be able to get government funding.

So the real goal is not to utilize consortium funds, but to seed the opportunities so you can develop approaches to things that will lead to federal funding.”

Beyond the emission of carbon dioxide, Gustafson said that coal’s status as a toxic pollutant in every stage of its extraction, transportation and conversion to energy necessitates the end of its use. He described the phrase “clean coal” as a branding strategy of the coal industry to improve its public image and compared the expression to the “clean tobacco” propaganda of the tobacco industry.

“From the very moment that workers remove coal from the earth, it is dirty and it is toxic,” Gustafson said.

“The use of the phrase ‘clean coal’ distorts the public understanding and distorts students’ understandings of what the research actually is.”

Axelbaum pushed back against critiques of the consortium, arguing that fossil fuels are necessary in order to continue raising the standard of living for a growing population.

“Fossil fuels have brought us life,” Axelbaum said. “It’s made us live longer and has brought our standard of living to where we’re living like kings and queens.”

Environmental groups have long raised concerns about the messaging surrounding carbon capture technology, especially as President Donald Trump often focused on the idea of “clean coal” during his administration. Critics cite that producing electricity through natural gas, solar, wind or nuclear plants is still far cleaner than coal plants that emit less carbon dioxide.

Axelbaum critiqued the idea of a transition to 100% renewable energy, arguing that continued fossil fuel use is necessary to stabilize energy supply given seasonal and daily variations of wind and solar power and that the closure of coal plants would eliminate the stability that fossil fuels provide.

Wind and solar sources of energy are both highly weather-dependent, leading some experts to deem them unreliable. California’s August 2020 blackouts were in part driven by the state’s reliance on wind and solar energy sources, highlighting the challenges of an unstable energy supply.

“In an effort to argue we don’t want fossil fuels, that

one thing… that could help wind and solar be successful is being villainized and removed,” Axelbaum said.

While wind and solar are more susceptible to variation than fossil fuels, some natural gas powered-plants have also experienced weather-related shutdowns in recent years.

Israel Institute Teaching Fellow in Israeli and Environmental Studies Elai Rettig said that the advantages of coal make it a difficult resource to overlook.

He described the CCCU’s work as a pragmatic way to use fossil fuels in a cleaner, more efficient manner.

“That’s where the carbon capture comes into place because we need to accept one truth, and it’s a truth that’s hard to settle: coal is fantastic,” Rettig said. “It’s very safe. It’s very concentrated, and it’s very, very abundant.”

Still, Rettig said that, as the effects of carbon dioxide emissions outweigh the benefits of fossil fuels, coal consumption must be reduced. He said that fossil fuels should continue to act as a “support system” for renewable energy until storage capacity batteries become sufficient.

“Even in the most ideal net zero emission scenario, we’re still using fossil fuels,” Rettig said, “but we’re doing it much more efficiently.”

Suzanne Loui, lecturer in environmental studies, further emphasized the importance of “keeping everything on the table” in order to find solutions that meet a variety of human needs.

“I don’t think we should stop looking at any of our energy technologies, I think we should get better at all of them,” Loui said. “Then we can gradually start improving our use of renewables and other non-carbon-emitting sources. But until we can do that, I think we have to keep exploring ways to improve what we already know how to do with even fossil fuels.”

However, Gustafson remained committed to achieving total renewable energy. He cited the Solutions Project at Stanford University as a roadmap to 100% renewable energy, arguing that there should be greater focus on implementing battery storage at scale rather than developing carbon capture technologies, which he emphasized have possible deadly effects.

Gustafson opposed plans where companies profit from the collection of carbon dioxide by selling it to oil and gas industries, which would in turn be used to force more oil and gas out from wells.

“The cheapest way to achieve energy security and reliability is with clean, renewable, local energy,” he said. “Anything they do to try to delay that? I see that as criminal. The planet doesn’t have time.”

MEGAN MAGRAY | STUDENT LIFE

Workers place the finishing touches on the space for Urbauer Hall’s lab-sized pressurized oxycombustor in 2015. The CCCU has been around since 2008.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2022

ARREST from page 1 the arrest information sooner. “We’ve been careful not to share information that could compromise the investigation as it’s been underway. In the past few days we began to feel that we were in a place where we could provide an update and we did so today.”

The arrested person is not a member of the University community, administrators wrote. The University has requested that charges be filed through the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office, but the person, whom the University did not publicly identify, is no longer in custody.

While students and administrators repainted the vandalized mural panels earlier this week, the University had not provided an update on the

NEWS TED MOSKAL | SENIOR NEWS EDITOR | NEWS@STUDLIFE.COM

vandalism since Chancellor Andrew Martin and other leaders sent an email to the community the day after the vandalism.

Student Life had inquired over winter break about updates regarding the University’s investigation into the mural vandalism, but Flory wrote in a Dec. 27 email that there were “no updates to report.”

In response to Student Life’s Jan. 23 request for an interview with Goodwin about the vandalism investigation, Flory wrote in an email Jan. 26 that University leadership could not discuss the case since the investigation was still ongoing. When Student Life followed up the morning of Jan. 27 to inquire about a “suspect arrested,” according to an entry in the Washington University

RESTORATION from page 1 So we’re moving forward on that.”

Beyond the immediate mural repainting, Campus Life and Student Union are still in the process of deciding what exactly the underpass panels will look like for the rest of the spring. They were originally intended to revert back to student group advertising spaces in the spring, but in light of the vandalism, Gonzalez said that this may not be the case depending on Campus Life and SU’s decision.

“Initially, before all of this happened, [student groups] wanted to have the underpass to start promoting their events,” Gonzalez said. “Now because of what happened… I think many groups will be supportive and sensitive to moving

that timeline to the fall. There are so many hard parts about this, and one is [that] we’re being forced into a timeline by white supremacists.”

Organizers of Monday’s repainting event chose not to widely publicize it to students, due to concerns that a large gathering could potentially spread COVID-19. Allen said that it would have been nice if larger groups like the Association of Black Students had been asked to participate in the process, but said she understands the need to keep the group size down. Slightly over a dozen people attended the repainting.

“As far as the actual restoration, I think what they chose [in terms of the number of people involved] makes sense,

Police Department’s crime log, Flory replied that she was not aware of an arrest before following up that the University would provide information to the community later in the day.

Goodwin wrote in his Jan. 27 email to Student Life that Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) was “instrumental in this investigation,” and the email from administrators said that footage from cameras near the underpass had helped identify the person of interest.

Leaks from the Discord servers of Patriot Front, the white supremacist group whose logo was spray-painted over the murals and whose flyers were seen on campus this fall, have exposed members of the organization committing similar acts

just because they’re really aware of covid,” Allen said.

“But I guess I do wish that more people had been invited to the CDI conversation, especially because some people who were there weren’t necessarily like key stakeholders in the Black community.”

Gonzalez added that students had taken the lead throughout the process of responding to the vandalism.

“Our students have stepped up,” she said. “Even before this, they reported the incident, they cleaned up what they could with those hateful images and messages, they advocated for diversity, equity [and] inclusion and they’re trying to make the school be better.”

of vandalism around the country. Goodwin said that the leaks did not factor into this arrest, but that WUPD was aware of them and would “continue to pursue all relevant leads.”

Some of the leaked Patriot Front documents appear to shed light on how members of the group planned the mural’s vandalism.

A document that contains what appear to be notes from a Dec. 12 meeting mentions the University by name. “Randolph_IL, Sam_MN, Kyle MO, and Clarke IL will stencil at Wash U,” a bullet point reads, using aliases to describe members, with a second bullet point adding “Randy will plan, Kyle will photograph.”

According to the leaked documents, on

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one messaging platform, RocketChat, Patriot Front members discussed plans for an upcoming vandalism. “Yeah. Saturday is probably best. I need to scout out the dorms to the south of the tunnel,” Randolph_IL wrote in a direct message to Kyle_ MO on Dec. 15. “That’s the best place to park if it isn’t riddled with cameras.”

“Planning on late Saturday night for stenciling,” Randolph_IL wrote the next day in a message to Carter_MO. “Most students will probably be gone for break.”

Many students have decried the University’s response to the vandalism, with a coalition of Black students writing in December that “Black students at Washington University are disillusioned

by the vandalism and reaction from campus authorities.” The coalition, which included the Association of Black Students, Students for Black and Palestinian Liberation and the Black Senior Alliance, called for the University to be transparent about the vandalism investigation and to reassess the role of WUPD on campus.

Going forward, Goodwin said that information from WUPD’s investigation has been presented to the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s Office, which will determine whether to issue charges.

“We will defer to the prosecutor and the judicial system in determining the appropriate charges and penalties,” Goodwin wrote.

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THURSDAY, FEBUARY 3, 2022

After virtual practices, LNYF is back on track for an in-person performance

CURRAN NEENAN | STUDENT LIFE

Students perform the tinikling partner dance during the Lunar New Year show in 2020. Until Jan. 31, LNYF was unsure if audiences would be allowed for their 2022 performance.

ISABELLA NEUBAUER MANAGING EDITOR The Lunar New Year of 2022 takes place next Tuesday, Feb. 1.

Washington University’s Lunar New Year Festival (LNYF), one of the University’s cultural shows, generally performs close to this date. This year’s performance was scheduled for Feb. 11-12.

Then the omicron variant spread, and school went virtual. Again.

With the majority of underclassmen not allowed back and rehearsal spaces closed, LNYF has had to change the way they prepare for the show.

Executive Director Jessica Huang spoke about the

group’s current plans, saying that right now, they are planning for every eventuality.

“It’s just a lot of work to be planning for either outcome,” Huang said, referring to the possibilities of an in-person or virtual performance. “And it will be a pretty last minute switch, because I think we won’t be able to confirm this until like January 31.”

Jan. 31 was, indeed, when they announced their decision. In an Instagram post, LNYF informed the campus community that tickets are available for their in-person performances on Feb. 11 and 12.

For those first two weeks of the semester, however,

LNYF acts had to host Zoom practices. This format works better for some acts than for others. Huang cited tinikling, a partner dance which involves an additional two people rhythmically clapping 10-foot-long bamboo sticks around the dancers’ feet, and the lion dance as acts that are having a hard time with virtual rehearsals.

“These dance forms are very difficult if not almost impossible to do with Zoom practice, at least long-term,” she said.

Of course, the Zoom practices were only for the short-term.

The University reopened the Danforth Campus on Jan. 31, shortly after the underclassmen are allowed to

return to their dorms. This week, LNYF has gone back to practicing as normal — in person — and planning to perform on the Edison Theatre stage for an audience.

Huang said that for a typical year, LNYF sees around 1,700 audience members. That is a lot of people to fit into the Edison over the course of only three performances, but even before campus reopened, she said she was optimistic, trying to “focus on the process” rather than the performance itself.

“I think it would be very tough on ourselves to only focus on what the outcome looks like when we’ve been working on this show for… a year,” Huang said. “And

no matter what the outcome looks like, I don’t think anyone can say that that hard work was for nothing.”

LNYF is not the only performance in this situation. Black Anthology, which was scheduled to perform over the first week of February, and Carnaval, which is scheduled for mid-March, were also hit hard by the virtual start to the semester. During the first week of the semester, Black Anthology said they could not comment due to how much was still uncertain.

All three groups have been in communication. Huang spoke about an email she and the other directors of LNYF

received from the directors of Carnaval shortly after the University announced the campus closure, and said that inspired her to reach out to Black Anthology.

“That was very reassuring to see that cultural shows — so many people on campus are involved in these large cultural shows that we have, and they mean a lot to a lot of people, and [it’s reassuring] that a lot of people are in a similar situation as us and that we’re all just figuring it out together,” Huang said.

Editor’s note: This story was edited on Feb. 2 to reflect LNYF’s decision to hold their show in person.

WashU pop artist Luke Markinson releases new single ‘Tie Me Down’ GRACIE HIME SENIOR CADENZA EDITOR Luke Markinson is a junior studying Psychology, Marketing and Writing, but his creativity goes beyond that of his academic interests.

As a Los Angeles native, Markinson has been surrounded by creatives and those passionate about music and entertainment,

inspiring him to get involved in music production and performance.

Most recently, Markinson released a single on Dec. 3 called “Tie Me Down” about the burden of internalized homophobia and a toxic relationship that he experienced about a year ago.

“For a while, I didn’t feel like my voice mattered at all. I was super insecure

about my sexuality and constantly felt weighed down. So, I stopped the docility and self-pitying and made a change for myself. This song encapsulates this change, and I’m seriously so proud of it.”

With a hyperpop and dance feel, Markinson takes great inspiration from artists like Charlie XCX, Troye Sivan, Kim

COURTESY OF LUKE MARKINSON

Petras, 100 gecs and Slayyyter. Notably, one of his greatest idols added Markinson’s first song to her playlist.

“Charli actually added my first song ‘Never Alone’ to her official playlist, so that was incredibly fulfilling for me.”

Markinson’s music career isn’t newfound, and he can reminisce on the years he spent writing pop songs about driving fast and partying when he was nine.

“I obviously had no idea what I was talking about, but it sounded like something that would be on the radio, so I went for it.”

Over the years, his childish passion for music turned into something greater. Markinson began writing more consistently and eventually turned to Vine to post covers and original songs.

He was even scouted for America’s Got Talent at a young age but decided not to go through with it.

It was clear that music was more than just a hobby for Markinson, and he proved his talent and passion by stepping into the LA pop music scene eager to collaborate and take risks with his work.

When asked about his creative process, Markinson described how writing and producing

songs was more of an emotional outlet than a task or project. He has no set routine for writing songs, but working with a producer allows for the art to happen right before his eyes.

“Often, I’m sent a rough instrumental from a producer I’m collaborating with. I’ll create some sort of melody with lyrics, and me and the producer will go back and forth, exchanging ideas and notes. My favorite way to make songs though is when I’m doing a session with a producer in person. There’s something so euphoric about writing while the production is being fleshed out in front of my eyes. I think, in this way, I can really

communicate my vision and the final track sounds the best.”

Music can naturally transpire in an environment that facilitates creativity while having the means to do so, and Markinson appreciates that LA provided him the opportunity to do this.

After a year of working on his newest track, “Tie Me Down,” it is finally available to the public.

“Everyone should get ready to cry in the club with this track. I’m so excited for it to be out after working on it for a year.”

You can listen to Luke’s new release on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and Soundcloud.

Read our thoughts on the best music of 2021 and let us know your opinions

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2022

SCENE

OLIVIA POOLOS & JULIA ROBBINS | SENIOR SCENE EDITORS | SCENE@STUDLIFE.COM

STUDENT LIFE 5

Ten days on a ghost campus OLIVIA POOLOS SENIOR SCENE EDITOR My alarm – “I’m Born to Run” by American Authors – wakes me up at 8:33 a.m. Instead of the pale yellow walls of my childhood bedroom, I’m startled by the view of my desk, adorned with a dead succulent and empty tea mugs, inches from my nose. Oh right. I’m back in St. Louis, in my dorm, on my Tempur-Pedic™ mattress. I have come 10 days early – the length of an old CDC-recommended COVID-19 isolation period, if you will. While I’ve always loved walking around campus, there’s something eerie about the lack of humanity.

I’ve taken to setting up in empty classrooms, Zoom blaring out loud to a sea of quiet chairs. From my perch by the windows on the third floor of Seigle, Mudd Field, usually dotted with frisbee throwers and spikeballers, is desolate. I’m suddenly filled with a rush of loneliness as I stare out at the skeletal trees.

These days, the one place that I can always find people is the Athletic Complex. Feelings of normalcy return as I fight to commandeer a bench, or grab the 15-pound dumbbells. I bump into friendly faces, usually upperclassmen with off-campus apartments and the privilege of not having to rely

on Residential Life swipe access. Though it seems as if no one is here, people slowly stream in from all directions towards the gym’s glass doors at the start of every two-to four-hour block it’s open – 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 4 p.m.

Masked, we line up in an orderly mob, self-screenings at the ready.

Back outside, however, everything returns to silence. Bear’s Den is halfopen. Ms. Dorothy gently scolds me – like my mother would have – when I show up without a hat. I eat the same chickpea-and-quinoa wrap for lunch five days in a row. On Friday night, no Ubers stall at the South 40. No dressed-up students gather in bunches by the Clocktower. Instead, a friend and I watch two hour-long episodes of a French drama and retire at midnight, congratulating ourselves for staying up that late. I meet another friend for coffee in the DUC. We sip tea for an hour and a half and laugh at how the usually-bustling Tisch Commons has become a private meeting room. After, I return to the same Seigle classroom, which I’ve come to think of as my private castle.

I know that I will think of these weeks when everything returns to chaos and noise and texted last-minute plans.

While I miss the friends that are not on campus, in-person class, late-night

CURRAN NEENAN | STUDENT LIFE

Two students walk through an empty campus last month. Students returned to in-person classes Monday.

philosophy debates and the pasta station in BD, I appreciate the peace and can notice little moments of joy in the stillness.

The sun on my face in

20-degree weather, saying good morning to my one returned roommate and getting ready each morning to go to campus for Zoom class have become

my cherished rituals. Being alone has never been my strong suit, but being here this early has forced me to come to terms with myself. As I watch the

sun’s reflection disappear, casting pink clouds above Mudd Field, I take a deep breath and descend from my classroom on the third floor of Seigle.

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2022

Master Minds: A podcast grown amidst quarantine ANNABEL SHEN SENIOR CADENZA EDITOR During the beginning of quarantine — a period of uncertainty and medical unknowns — two Washington University sophomores, Mishka Narasimhan and Will Leidig, started the podcast Master Minds to spotlight leading medical professionals and scientists.

The name Master Minds describes not only the podcast’s “candid hour-long conversations with these brilliant scientists,’’ as Narasimhan said, but also could accurately describe the two founders.

Narasimhan is studying biology and bioinformatics. She juggles a demanding school schedule with other extracurriculars that actively

outreach to other St. Louis communities. She is a Student Union Treasury representative, a member of Synapse and a researcher in a developmental biology lab on the medical campus.

Leidig, who is studying neuroscience and minoring in jazz studies, is passionate in combining “the two loves of my life: music and medicine, specifically neurology,” he said. Leidig is a saxophonist in WashU’s jazz band and also does brain tumor research at the medical center.

Two such brilliant minds did not meet by accident; Narasimhan and Leidig were a part of WashU’s Ampersand Program, “The Hallmarks of Cancer.”

They decided to start the podcast to showcase rising medical professionals and

spark student interest and knowledge across healthcare fields.

During their time working on Master Minds, both Narasimhan and Leidig have grown as interviewers and researchers in the medical field, expanding their knowledge and perspectives.

“I have personally really learned how to interact with faculty. At first it seems daunting to go up to these professionals, but at the end of the day, they are just people who love to talk about their work,” Narasimhan said.

Leidig agreed with Narasimhan, noting how “they are all very funny and nice to us. It is wonderful to see the personal side of these people and to be able to tell a story behind a name.”

In particular, Mishka highlighted a funny exchange in one episode with one interviewee.

“We had a wonderful interview with him, however, it seemed like he was distracted the entire time,” she said. “Come to find out later that his dog was biting his leg the entire time!”

The process of releasing a podcast episode from start to finish is certainly no easy feat. Reaching out to professors often takes the least amount of time and the professionals are usually very receptive.

Leidig stated that they can get this done in a week.

On the other hand, editing is certainly where a team of masterminds is more powerful than just one.

“We have to find the right music, write the

narration, record the narration, sometimes reformat the podcast to flow better — this can take anywhere from a week to a couple of weeks,” Narasimhan said.

However, mishaps are bound to happen. On one occasion, they conducted an interview over Zoom, only to be unable to find the recording afterwards.

This certainly put them behind schedule, not to mention lacking a valuable interview.

“Will magically found this interview months later in his Zoom account,” Narasimhan recalled with a laugh.

In the future, both undergraduates plan to continue educating students on current medical news and professionals through their podcast. They understand that their efforts are vital

to undergraduates as they transition from students to adults, many of whom are undereducated or misinformed about current healthcare policies.

They are aiming high with their hopes for future guests.

“Rochelle Walensky is another big name we hope to one day join us on Master Minds: she is both the director of the Center for Disease Control, or CDC, and a WashU alumni,” Narasimhan said.

Although Narasimhan and Leidig both refer to Master Minds as a “homegrown podcast,” it has now expanded to a large team that includes content leads, production leads, marketing leads and nine more masterminds.

Rooted in St. Louis: ‘Dirt’ is a dirty word

THOMAS HUMPHREY STAFF WRITER

The quality of being rooted, or “rootedness,” is a particular strength of the kingdom Plantae. While we animals are always moving, uprooted and transplanted daily, trees remain in their birthplace for a lifetime. A plant does not exist without its soil.

I have covered many plants in this series, but rarely have I mentioned their planting medium. Soil, known to some farmers as black gold, is as much a necessity as water, but is nowhere near as simple. Beneath your feet lives a complex chemical stew of geologic and organic components, of swimming microbes and rhizomatic networks.

This diverse microparticulate gumbo is the crossroads of many sciences, as Washington University Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Jeff Catalano explained.

“There’s a lot more plant inputs in soils than geologists normally think about, and a lot of fungi that geologists don’t think about,” Catalano said. “There are burrowing animals, like worms. As a geologist, though, working on

problems associated with our surface, I had to be trained in an interdisciplinary way.”

Catalano is not a soil scientist by training, but knew the topic well enough to offer a course after coming to WashU in 2007. While studying in graduate school, he saw soil science had the potential to connect students of diverse academic backgrounds. Soil is not a common curriculum outside of agricultural schools, so initiates of the loamy mysteries enter with misperceptions and anti-soil biases.

“We have a rule in my class that soil is not dirt, and you can’t call it dirt,” Catalano said. “Dirt is the stuff you sweep up and put in a dustpan, while soil is…the skin of the earth. When you go outside, it’s the stuff we think of as dirt, below the long grass or in the forest, but soil is really a complex, active, dynamic system.”

The development of that dynamic system extends across millennia; take, for example, our own St. Louis soil, the formation of which began roughly 15,000 years ago. Glaciers then still extended to northern Illinois and as they receded, they crushed up rocks into

a “loess” (pronounced low-us) the consistency of flour, which blew down into Missouri.

This non-organic loess base was then colonized by small plants laying down the soil’s first roots, anchoring it and exuding organic compounds. As those plants died, their leaves and twigs became food for a burgeoning population of soil microorganisms.

These organics and microbes alter the nonorganic base, and the soil becomes layered and structured, varying across depth ever-deepening through root penetration.

Yet 15,000 is nothing in soil years; soils in the Southeast U.S. are hundreds of thousands of years old and those in the Amazon are over a million.

Soil is a non-renewable resource, at least on a human timescale, which makes it all the more important to protect.

“Soil sustainability,” Catalano said, “doesn’t get talked about much.”

Extensive industrial agriculture, he explained, depletes soil resources at an unhealthy rate. “When we do that sort of agriculture, no matter how we do it, we cause soil to erode off. We lose some of it, and we lose it faster

than it naturally regenerates. When we look at those rates they suggest that in the future we’re going to have a problem.”

Soil-degrading farm practices have caused major crises in the past.

“The Dust Bowl was a human-made disaster,” Catalano said. “We were plowing lands we shouldn’t have touched.”

Native plants of the arid Midwest, especially deep-rooted prairie grass, had previously prevented such catastrophes, “but when you plow it, there’s nothing to hold the soil in place, and when you have a drought, nothing grows and so you have bare soil that just blows away.” While irrigation has prevented another Dust Bowl so far, intensive farming continues to erode and degrade soils.

Protecting the soil is not only important for agricultural systems, but also for preventing climate change.

Healthy soils are carbon sequesters which reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide.

“Soil itself holds more carbon than all of the atmosphere and all land vegetation,” Catalano said. Much of the carbon is in the form of dead plants, fungi and

microorganisms, while some is held in air pockets. Yet soil’s climatological implications go far beyond carbon dioxide.

Wetland soils, as a major source of the greenhouse gas methane, are of particular concern. Catalano himself researches this topic, as it relates to his expertise in heavy metals. Low-oxygen wetland soils are inhabited by ancient microorganisms called Archaea, which intake heavy metals like nickel and cobalt to construct enzymes.

In laboratory settings, they have been found to “grow best in concentrations of nickel that are so high, we would consider them contaminated drinking water,” Catalano said. This led him to hypothesize that wetlands subject to industrial runoff might produce more methane. His ongoing field research has revealed this to be a rich and complex topic.

Catalano also advises the St. Louis City Parks Department on soil contamination by lead, another heavy metal. Decades of lead accumulation from paint and gasoline have accumulated in the loose topsoil of city parks, now a primary vector of lead exposure for urban children.

The solution, it turns out, is

as simple as burying the old soil with some new, preventing lead particles in soil from entering food and airways.

In soil science, the deeper you dig, the more you find.

“Not all soils are the same,” Catalano said. “Just because it’s brown stuff scooped from the ground doesn’t mean it works well.”

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2022

FORUM

STAFF EDITORIAL

Mandate the booster

Over three weeks into 2022 and nearly two years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoom classes were an unwelcome sight for students yearning for a return to normalcy. But two weeks of online classes were a small concession to make for the health and safety of the Washington University community, especially amidst the surge of the omicron variant.

The decision to transition classes online for the first two weeks implies the University’s commitment to COVID-19 safety, and it stands to reason that if further steps could be taken to ensure that safety, the University would take action.

However, WashU leadership has proven otherwise in their decision not to mandate a booster for students, faculty and staff returning to campus.

University leadership stated in their plans for the spring semester that while “All students, faculty and staff are strongly encouraged to receive a COVID-19 booster shot if they are eligible to receive one,” they “are not requiring the booster at this time, but may do so in the future.” The decision is a striking departure from their vaccination policy announced in spring 2021 as well as the standard set by nearly all other major private universities in the country, who have mandated the booster for those returning to campus.

The University provided somewhat of an explanation for their decision on their spring semester FAQ page, stating, “We have set the expectation that all of our students, faculty and staff who are eligible to receive a COVID-19 booster will get one. At this time, we are relying on the members of our community to take personal responsibility for taking this step and do not feel that we need to have a mandate at this time.” Executive director of the Habif Health and Wellness Center Cheri LeBlanc also stated that, due to the booster’s more limited suppression of transmission as compared to the first doses of the vaccine, “the need to respect individual and physical autonomy” outweighed the potential benefits of a fully boosted campus.

It is well-known at this point that a booster shot is safe and very effective in reducing the spread and severity of

COVID-19 and its variants. A booster reduces the chance of hospitalization by 90% compared to the unvaccinated, as well as reduces the likelihood of a trip to the emergency room by 82%. The CDC released its recommendation that all individuals 18 years or older get an additional dose nearly two months ago, and the FDA similarly has supported the use of boosters to protect against new variants.

University leadership even praised the effectiveness of the booster in their “Updates to the Danforth Campus spring plan” message on Dec. 30: “Boosters reduce the risk of severe COVID illness, likely reduce the risk of acquiring COVID infection and prevent the need to quarantine after exposure to COVID.” Furthermore, in an effort to encourage getting boosted, the University will host vaccination clinics at the Athletic Complex starting Jan. 31.

Every indication suggests that the University realizes the benefits of a fully boosted campus, making their decision not to mandate it all the more disconcerting.

LeBlanc stated that the University expects around 70-75% of people to get the booster with a strong recommendation, while a mandate would garner a 95% booster rate. This disparity leaves nearly a quarter of the community — more than 1,500 students, along with faculty and staff — at a greater risk of transmission and severe COVID. Those at higher vulnerability, such as immunocompromised individuals, may not feel safe on campus anymore. The potential for an outbreak that could threaten in-person activities — at this point, every student’s nightmare — also increases as a result of this decision.

While the University has heavily emphasized the importance of some COVID19 protocols such as entry testing for students, vaccination (booster shots included) remains far and away the most potent line of defense against COVID-19. The University agrees with this and asserts the need for students to constantly take precautions and respect COVID-19 protocols; in the same breath, however, they appeal to an indistinct right to personal autonomy as

justification for not adequately protecting the community.

After already requiring vaccination in the spring of 2021 and strongly recommending the booster, a mandate is a small, easy step with huge potential benefits for the WashU community.

This is not even an issue outside of WashU: nearly every other university we consider our peer has demonstrated their devotion to health and safety by mandating the booster (Vanderbilt is the only other top-20 school without a booster mandate, and unboosted students there are required to do regular testing). As a research institution with a prominent national reputation, WashU should be leading the charge for COVID-19 response. Instead, the University has made a harrowing statement about its values — a medically-oriented research institution that chooses to follow neither medicine nor research when making public health decisions.

The clear upside and utter lack of drawback for mandating a booster, especially as students return amidst the surge of omicron, makes University leadership’s decision even more confusing and begs the question: What unique issue separates WashU from its peers such that the University feels it must break from the standard and not mandate the booster? What information do we have that every other university is lacking? The decision is confounding at best and troubling at worst, and with silence on this and many other issues surrounding the student body’s return to campus, one is left to ponder the motivation behind this decision. With overwhelming evidence supporting the booster and other universities’ decision to mandate, the University’s resistance pits WashU squarely against progress, science and the safety of the community.

The University has decided to deflect the responsibility of ensuring community safety onto its students, faculty and staff. This means that whatever pressure has been placed on the University to not require the booster, we as a student body must match. In that spirit, the opinion of this board will be clear and concise: Mandate the booster.

OUR VOICE: EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief: Matthew Friedman Managing Editor: Isabella Neubauer Senior Forum Editors: Jamila Dawkins, Reilly Brady Junior Forum Editor: Serin Koh

STUDENT LIFE 7

REILLY BRADY & JAMILA DAWKINS | SENIOR FORUM EDITORS | FORUM@STUDLIFE.COM

Senior Sports Editor: Grady Nance Senior Cadenza Editor: Gracie Hime Senior Scene Editor: Via Poolos Senior Copy Editor: Grady Nance Multimedia Editor: Jaden Satenstein

STAFF EDITORIAL

WashU, don’t raise tuition Every year when February rolls around, Washington University students open their inboxes to be greeted by the same dreaded news from the administration: a tuition increase. Last year, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, tuition rose by $1,450, an increase of 2.6%. And even that was the lowest increase in more than 50 years. The year before that it went up by $2,050, a 3.8% increase following 5 consecutive increases of 3.5%.

WashU now charges $57,750 for tuition. That’s not including room, board and other fees, which bring the total price tag up to more than $76,700 and make WashU one of the most expensive college educations in the country.

Looking at that shocking number as we continue to face the challenges of the pandemic, we ask the University: Don’t raise tuition this year.

The administration has not made any announcements about next year’s tuition yet, and we call on them to break the cycle of massive cost increases and freeze tuition this year. The University has made some great strides in creating a more equitable, inclusive campus.

Adopting a need-blind admissions policy was a major advancement toward increasing socioeconomic diversity, and programs like the WashU

Pledge and the “no-loan” policy for those with family incomes of $75,000 or less also make a WashU education more attainable.

However, raising tuition once again in the midst of a national conversation on student loan debt and the affordability of college would signal that WashU is not fully committed to improving access to college education, countering the mission of its recent programs.

The pandemic has caused incredible financial hardship for many students and their families.

And even with the return of in-person learning, the WashU experience looks very different from the full pre-COVID version, yet it’s become thousands of dollars more expensive.

We acknowledge that the University is grappling with pandemic challenges, such as supply chain issues or rising costs for certain services.

Still, these unprecedented obstacles also come at a time of unprecedented growth. WashU made national headlines this past September when Chancellor Andrew Martin announced that the Washington University managed endowment pool grew by 65% during the 2020-2021 fiscal year.

Out of the top 15 largest institutional endowments, WashU saw the secondbest change in market value. To increase tuition just a few months after

such a massive financial development would be a slap in the face of the many WashU families who, in contrast to the University’s growth throughout the last couple years, have only dealt with loss.

While we hope the University shares our stance and announces a freeze, we know a tuition increase is far more likely.

If that is the case, we call on WashU to provide better transparency regarding the need for the hike. We refuse to remain complacent and accept tuition increases as normal simply because they happen every year. When does it end? It may seem reasonable that increases should continue along with inflation, but can the University commit to matching that rate?

And, if so, shouldn’t campus worker wages rise along at that same pace?

We also request more hard data on where exactly this money would go. Students still need more support from the University as they attempt to navigate an ongoing crisis, especially considering the uncertainty and disruptions this recent surge has caused. Needblind admissions and the WashU Pledge have been tremendous steps, but we need to see how the University will continue to use its funds to address the issues that students and local community members have long raised.

GRAPHIC BY HN HOFFMANN

OUR VOICE: EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief: Matthew Friedman Managing Editor: Isabella Neubauer Senior Forum Editors: Jamila Dawkins, Reilly Brady Junior Forum Editor: Serin Koh Senior Sports Editors: Grady Nance, Clara Richards

Senior Cadenza Editor: Gracie Hime Senior Scene Editors: Via Poolos, Julia Robbins Multimedia Editors: Jaden Satenstein, HN Hoffmann Senior Copy Editor: Grady Nance

During Black History Month, consider what you take for granted JAMILA DAWKINS SENIOR FORUM EDITOR Every February, I find myself trying to answer the question: What is Black history, really? For me, growing up in predominantly-white spaces, Black history was homeschool. It was the things I learned when I got off the school bus; I met Malcolm X curled up on my living room couch with my brother, watching the documentaries that my father put on. Black history was the collection of hand-me-down books in the living room bookcase; it was folk tale, the oral history of our conversations at the dining room table, where I’d eagerly share what I’d learned in class only to be stunned by a new perspective. It was there that I realized that my

founding fathers were slave owners, that I learned what Juneteenth was and what the 13th Amendment wasn’t.

The purpose of my “homeschooling” was educational, sure, but it was also more — it was preservation. It was a means of piecing together a record out of what we knew and what we were willing to learn. It was a way of training our eyes and ears to recognize where we’d been omitted, and to fill that silence. This fractured attempt to make sense of American history was our way of excavating our own legacy, and in a way, reminding ourselves that we existed.

We were missing from the history we learned about, so we had to go looking for ourselves. We knew the onus was on us because oftentimes, no one else even noticed we

weren’t there.

I was reminded of this childhood impulse when I learned that our own African and African-American Studies (AFAS) department, born of protests, demanded by the Association of Black Collegians, was established not only for the sake of Black students’ education, “but for our very survival.” That department — the youngest at our school, having only gained full department status in 2016 — is only one place to start to find this preservation of Black history in practice. The English Literature department has had courses on James Baldwin and Toni Morrison; from American Culture Studies, courses that explore Blackness and the history of medicine; from Film and Media Studies, courses

on Black digital resistance to white femininity (particularly, “Karen” behavior); and from Sociology, there have been courses breaking down sociological function of the term “Black” and its connection to the city of St. Louis. Past members of our university community also have created Black history — Robert Williams, James McLeod, Brittany Packnett Cunningham and so many more — and current members are still creating it through the production of research, the creation of art, the leading of protests and more.

My “homeschooling” was a matter of making do. Now, I have the absolute privilege of access — to courses, to professors, to painstakingly-kept archives and to a city rife with history. Every student on this

campus does.

I imagine that Black history month feels, for some, rarer than it should — like 28 days of visibility within 365 of business as usual. The month is often a reminder of what many of us have never had the luxury of forgetting.

The categorization of “Black history” is born of necessity; it does not, however, exist to reassure you when you dissociate it from American history.

Nor does Black history month exist to fill a quota of confrontation with a more truthful historical record.

The American urge — or should I say privilege — to compartmentalize history is unsettling and all the more unforgivable in the face of all the information we have access to. Faced, as I presume nearly all of us were, with an

experienced whitewashing of history, it’s our responsibility to participate in an active and ongoing process of learning, unlearning and relearning. Let this month be a reminder, as it is for me, to continue this process — or, let it be the catalyst that convinces you to start.

The term “Black history” doesn’t indicate possession, either. It’s history that is mine, but it’s also yours. Make a plan to enroll in a class. Go to a lecture — the Brown school is offering several across the next few weeks. Celebrate Black art: Go see what the Kemper museum has to offer this month, or support the Black Anthology show.

Introduce yourself to the people who built this history, the events that shaped it, the places that it flourished in. It cannot be done passively.

8 STUDENT LIFE

SPORTS GRADY NANCE & CLARA RICHARDS | SENIOR SPORTS EDITORS | SPORTS@STUDLIFE.COM

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2022

Emma Kelley: The undefeated triplet leading Division III CLARA RICHARDS SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR Sophomore Emma Kelley has not lost this season, winning eight consecutive track heats in races ranging from 400 to 800 meters. She has set a personal record at the last meets, running 2:10 in her season opener in the 800 meter. She currently leads Division III in the 800 and is third in the 400. The triplet sat down with Student Life to discuss her winning streak, her introduction to track and watching Euphoria.

This interview has been edited slightly for length and clarity.

SL: First, tell me about your introduction to running. Did you start with another sport, or did you always prioritize track?

EK: So I started running freshman year of high school with cross country. I was really not very good at it at all — I was actually pretty bad. But then I got better throughout the season, and then in track in the spring, I found out that I was actually pretty good at it. It became my main sport, and I just ran cross country to stay in shape

throughout high school.

SL: So what made WashU stand out?

EK: I live in St. Louis, and I didn’t think that I wanted to stay here. But I reached out to the head coach, and once I realized that I could run here, I got a bit more interested. I went on a visit, and I realized that I actually really liked it.

I decided that if I got in, I might go here!

SL: Talk to me about your first track season — WashU just has such a strong middistance contingent right now. So talk to me about how helpful it is to have your teammates pushing you along in practice.

EK: Yeah, it’s actually been really great because in high school, I was our only varsity 800 meter runner. So coming here and being with two other girls all of last season, we practically always went 1-2-3 in every race. It was great to be able to push each other in workouts and then in meets; one of us would be first one week, and then the other would be first the next. That was fun, just switching back and forth, and definitely helpful.

SL: And you got to attend your first NCAA Outdoor

Nationals, where you competed in the 800 and 4x400 relay. So how was that experience for you?

EK: It was definitely very exciting. I had already run at that track in high school for my club team in the summer, and I wasn’t very happy with that performance there, so it was definitely nice to be able to go again. It was a super exciting experience, and I was definitely very nervous for my first college nationals. It was definitely a good learning experience. It didn’t go exactly how we’d hoped — we were super close in the 4x400 and similarly in the 800, but we were also definitely excited, learned a lot, and can apply it to this season next year.

SL: So you don’t run cross country in the fall.

What does the fall look like for you in terms of training?

EK: We do fall training, and basically it looks very similar to our training right now except less intense.

We’ll do Saturday morning workouts, which are usually our hardest ones and kick our butts. Everyone comes in at different stages from summer, so it’s also getting used to a new team. We practice

JUSTIN HARDY’S COMEBACK and by the time he got home, Hardy was being ushered into the ambulance.

At that point, no one knew what was wrong.

Hardy wasn’t a stranger to waking up a little sore after workouts. He’d come back from injuries and maxed out reps enough to know the tiredness that comes from pushing his body to its limits. But one day in late March, he opened his eyes from a nap and felt shooting stomach pains. After an unproductive trip to urgent care and eventually the hospital — where they told him that he was just dehydrated — he returned to the hospital with worsened symptoms. After days of pain, doctors found a perforated ulcer in his stomach and performed emergency surgery to repair it. Then, Hardy woke up after surgery to more bad news. The doctors had found a sizable tumor in his stomach. They ran a biopsy and pathology on the mass, and after days in the hospital, Justin Hardy was diagnosed with stomach cancer.

The first person Hardy called from the hospital was his dad. Then he broke the news of his diagnosis to his closest friends on the team over Facetime. All of Hardy’s roommates huddled around one phone, and they initially didn’t know anything except for that something was seriously wrong. His three best friends on the women’s soccer team sat in silence even after he hung up, tears streaming down their faces. “It just took my breath away, it was so unbelievable,” said Kally Wendler, one of Hardy’s closest friends.

Hardy went back to Chicago to figure out a plan for treatment at University of Chicago’s oncology center. Surrounded by his family, he went through test after test, talked to doctors, and explored his options.

His first day of treatment “was a bittersweet day of ‘Oh, we’re really starting this,’” Hardy recalled. His

distraction that day was WashU baseball’s trip to the College World Series.

“Baseball was my entire existence last spring,” Hardy said. “The only thing getting me through that day was that I had [the baseball team’s] game against St. Thomas.”

Hardy wasn’t even considering the possibility of returning to the court until his oncologist brought it up during a routine check-in in late July. Over the Zoom screen, Hardy paused as he thought about it. At the time, he had a port in his chest and treatment was still a biweekly battle — “Is that even an option?” he questioned. Sure, his doctor said.

Granted, he added, there was no way Hardy could return to a high competitive level, but there was no harm in shooting around.

The most the senior had done since March was walk his dog around the block.

Still, under the hot Chicago sun in the weeks after the late July appointment, he went from power walks to unweighted squats, in constant pain with every exercise. His muscles had morphed into something that he didn’t recognize, and the first two weeks returning to conditioning were the hardest mentally. But slowly, he started to lift. He transitioned from walks around the block to runs around the neighborhood. His high school coach opened up the gym and let him shoot around with the younger players. In mid-August, he didn’t have enough power to get the ball from the three point line to the rim.

At first, Hardy wasn’t sure if he wanted to return to the court competitively. “The biggest fear you have is that ‘I’m going to try this and I’m going to fail, right? I’m never going to get back to the point where I’m capable of playing,’” Hardy said. “I had to get over the fact that, yeah, that’s a very real possibility.”

As the senior started to feel more physically capable, his first step once he

returned to St. Louis in September was to go to head coach Pat Juckem to suggest the possibility of returning in some facet for the team. Maybe, he proposed, he could be the best scout team guy in Division III. Maybe he could compete for a rotation spot. Juckem hadn’t considered the possibility, but still, the news didn’t really surprise him.

“For those of us who know Justin, we weren’t really that surprised with his will, his toughness and determination,” Juckem said. “If there’s anyone built to beat this, it’s Hardy.”

Hardy came to the Athletic Complex on Oct. 15, the first day of practice, with his jersey on. His doctors performed a small surgery that bought him five weeks without treatment at the beginning of the season, and then he reverted to IV chemotherapy. He then balanced his last semester of school with treatment, in the doctor’s office every Monday and then back on the court on Wednesdays with two days of practice before weekend games.

Once he stepped on court for the Bears, Hardy slowly began to regain some of his former strength. Simple skills that once were second nature were initially still a struggle — the senior was tricking wide open layups. It was growing pains for him, but by the fourth game of the season, he had a mental switch flip. Against Dubuque, he scored 28 points, matching his career high from freshman year. Two months after Hardy couldn’t reach the rim, the team played Illinois Wesleyan and Hardy took possession of the ball at the top of the key. With a dribble and a yell, he dunked against Wesleyan’s all-American center.

“I was so emotional about it all. He just continued to amaze in so many ways — what Justin has already done this year is a miracle,” teammate Jack Nolan said. “I was in tears after the game,

five, six days a week, so similar to what we’re doing now, it’s just less intense.

SL: Moving from that to the indoor season, you haven’t lost a race so far, running to [personal records] in the last two weeks. So what’s changed this season for you?

EK: Definitely a huge thing is that last year we didn’t really get an indoor season, and there aren’t really any indoor tracks around St. Louis, so I didn’t have a high school indoor season ever.

One of the biggest things is that over the summer, I trained really hard. Over the breaks too, I was definitely more serious. And then last year, we got put on pause a lot because of COVID. One person would get COVID, and then we had to pause the whole team for a couple days, so it was definitely hard to go back and forth between practicing with the team versus having to practice on your own. This year, we’ve just had more consistent training, and being able to race this winter definitely helped. I think it’ll also help a lot for outdoors, but yeah, I was not expecting to run 2:10 in my opener — that’s

definitely really exciting.

SL: Do you have a favorite workout, or does it rotate depending on how you’re feeling each week?

EK: It rotates; we definitely have a lot of ones that repeat every so often.

They’re all really good workouts, but in the moment, they don’t feel so great. One of my favorites is probably when our coach does ones simulating our race, like the 800 but in little parts. That lets us run on the numbers, which means keeping our pace every 50 meters and things like that. That’s definitely really helpful to put us in a racing perspective and just be able to be confident in running our race and not getting distracted. Some people take it out way too fast; at Nationals last year, a girl was in my heat in the 800, and she was crazy fast. She just took it out slow because she knew she could just do whatever to win that heat to make it to the final, so that messed with our pacing because I looked next to me and I thought, ‘I’m probably going too fast.’ It ended up being a little off with the pacing, so these types of workouts help a lot and make us more

confident.

SL: And off the track, what are you majoring in right now?

EK: I’m majoring in psych, and then I am on the pre-physical-therapy track, which technically isn’t an official thing, but I’m taking all the classes required for PT school.

SL: What about outside of all that, in your limited free time — are you watching any fun TV shows right now?

EK: Yeah, I’m rewatching Gilmore Girls right now.

SL: Amazing. Any fun facts that your teammates might not know about you?

EK: This is my cop-out, and I think my teammates do know at this point, but I’m a triplet. One of them ran in high school; she ran cross country with me and then she did high jump.

SL: My last question for you is one we ask in all of our Athlete of the Week interviews. Would you rather have fish for hands or adopt a child every time you hear Bohemian Rhapsody?

EK: Probably adopt a child — I don’t know though, because it’s not great either way.

three and a half years at WashU. He’s still living with his best friends and bringing out his competitiveness in games of Hearts. He’s relentlessly supportive of his friends in their successes — like his former roommate Caleb Durbin getting drafted for Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves — while also supporting them in their struggles. “I look up to him in a million ways, but mainly because despite his circumstances, he’s just been so unrelenting in our friendship,” Wendler said.

Hardy has been so externally strong that in September, a freshman on the basketball team asked Windley, “Wait, Justin has cancer?” Windley had to explain that his teammate had been doing chemotherapy and treatment all summer.

Even during the summer, his closest friends struggled to get a sense of Hardy’s physical and mental obstacles because his optimism Aelse. Through his compassion for his friends, he redirected attention away from himself. “He has just never once made anything about himself. He is the most compassionate person in the sense that he is constantly investing in everyone else,” Wendler said.

At the beginning of the season, Hardy’s teammates thought that best-case scenario, he might practice with the team. But he defied their expectations by returning to the starting lineup; his competitiveness for the Bears was completely unprecedented.

Hardy described himself as the most unreliable player in the country right now, but those around him see him differently. Juckem described him as the most reliable person he knows, while Doyle sees him as an older brother.

“Everyone on the team, regardless of age — we all see him as just a superhero,” Windley said.

Basketball has always been a passion for Hardy, but as he’s come back this season, it’s become a refuge.

He’s been able to express his love for the game with contagious energy that has impacted the whole team’s outlook; it’s given them perspective on what it means to have the privilege of stepping on the court every day.

His team feels that they’ve received ten times what they’ve given him.

“Justin Hardy has changed my life like six different times since the diagnosis,” Nolan said.

“There’s a lot we can take from how he’s lived, and how he’s living — the courage and the strength he’s had throughout all of this.”

At the end of the day, Hardy argues that this WashU Basketball season — with the team 14-3 so far — isn’t about the adversity he’s overcome. It’s not about the incredible journey from a hospital bed to the basketball court. “I don’t want this to be the Justin Hardy show.

It’s not about me: that’s our team motto this year,” said Hardy. “It’s not about any one of us, but together we can do something really special.”

from page 1 hugging that kid. That game, that moment — I’ll never forget that.” *** Right now, Hardy can only look ahead two weeks at a time, and it’s driving him crazy. He’s a planner: he likes to have things lined up. But now, he has no idea what happens after he finishes his chemotherapy treatment. He’s seeing diminishing returns from the therapy, which he describes as “maintenance as opposed to a cure” — the tumor has started to adapt, which means that now he has to start considering other options.

Hardy is a numbers guy.

He majored in accounting and finance, which means that he can’t ignore the odds that were given to him. Plus, he said he doesn’t really believe in miracles: “There’s no reason for me to think that I’m an outside exception.” Still, there are a lot of unique factors in his diagnosis. The average age of diagnosis in stomach cancer is 68, and Justin is a 21-year-old athlete with seemingly everything going for him. His diagnosis was so unlikely in the first place that he has hope that he can also defy the odds with his outcome. “Mentally, I’m not at the point where the bad things are really bad,” he said. “There’s nothing at this point that can really rattle me.”

His optimism is infectious for his team; he’s struggled through dark moments over the past six months, but he’s been intentional about putting a positive spin on his situation. “The love was always there but now that he’s gotten to a place of pure happiness and joy, that love is so much more evident in his life,” said Nolan. “There are people who search for that their entire life and never find it, but that’s the best way to describe that kid.”

A lot of things have stayed constant for Hardy over his

CURRAN NEENAN | STUDENT LIFE

A warmup shirt worn by Hardy’s teammates and the staff.