NEW RSO FOSTERS BIPARTISAN EXCHANGE
MAY 12, 2021 SEVENTH WEEK VOL. 133, ISSUE 25
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Campus and Community Activists Demand UCPD Abolition at May Day March March organizers linked UCPD abolition to demands by labor groups By AVI WALDMAN Senior News Reporter Organizers from a broad coalition of campus and community activist groups marched through campus on May 1, calling for the abolition of UCPD and recognition of the Graduate Student Union (GSU), among other demands. GSU, National Nurses United, Tenants United Hyde Park/ Woodlawn, the University of Chicago Labor Council (UCLC), and UChicago United were all represented at the march and in the accompanying car caravan. The date of the march both commemorates the labor movement holiday May Day and kicks off a month of action by UChicago United, which is participating in a nationwide push by the campus activist organization Cops Off Campus Coalition demanding the abolition of campus police. UChicago United is a student organization that advocates for racial justice on campus and in the surrounding neighborhoods through direct action. Speakers, such as Ph.D. student and UCLC organizer Esther Isaac, started off the event by outlining the connections between the police abolitionist movement and labor organizing. Participants marched from the Jewel-Osco parking lot to UCPD headquarters and Levi Hall, ending at the Experimental Station on East 61st Street and South Blackstone Avenue. Marchers held signs, including one that said, “Against Cops and Bosses,” and led chants such as, “We don’t want your wine
Activists held signs at the May Day march. COURTESY OF AVI WALDMAN
VIEWPOINTS: Imaging a sexual education Core requirement PAGE 6
SPORTS: Women’s Lacrosse notches first-ever NCAA tournament win
and cheese, recognize your employees.” At the site of last June’s occupation of the UCPD headquarters on East 61st Street, UChicago United organizer and second-year Warren Wagner spoke about the organization’s #CareNotCops campaign, underlining the campaign’s focus on the connection between University administration and its police force. “At UChicago, we know there’s no separation between bosses and cops. We have the administration, the bosses, and they not only fund the cops, but they behave like cops,” Wagner said. “Second, we’ve got the cops, who we know are servants of the administration and the bosses. They exist to protect private property.” UChicago United’s #EthnicStudiesNow and #CommunityCentersNow (formerly #CulturalCentersNow) campaign organizers spoke in front of Levi Hall, advocating for the foundation of a fully funded department of Ethnic Studies and community centers where students and local residents can build relationships with each other. GSU organizer Stephen Cunniff also spoke at Levi Hall, discussing the union’s ongoing efforts to get a union contract and their current demand that the University reduce the $1,200 Student Services Fee in order to alleviate financial stress on graduate students for the duration of the pandemic. “We are in the fifth month of a Student Service Fee strike...When we say we won’t pay, it’s not just about the fee,” Cunniff CONTINUED ON PG. 5
ARTS: An insider look at Nestor, the Midway cat
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Emergence of Brood X Cicadas Expected To Affect Many Illinois Counties, but Not the Chicago Area By GIACOMO CETORELLI Senior News Reporter Brood X cicadas are set to emerge from the ground this May for the first time in 17 years. University of Chicago students will be relieved to hear that, for the most part, this brood will not be directly affecting the Chicago area. Cicada broods are categorized by their geographical location and their time of emergence. Katie Dana, a graduate student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who studies cicadas, said that “this brood is a little bit more restricted in Illinois in terms of distribution, so it’s going to mostly hit the far eastern part of the state: Vermillion, Edgar, Clark, and Crawford counties.” Despite being safe from this round of cicadas, it won’t be long until UChicago
will be more directly affected. “Thankfully, you’ll get a bit of a break from them this year,” Dana said. “It’s not until 2024 that Chicago gets the next brood emergence, which is Brood 13.” Dana emphasized that, for people who do not have to live through the consequences, brood emergences can be fascinating to study. Last year, Dana had the opportunity to travel through Illinois to observe early emergences of Brood X cicadas. “It was incredible stepping out of the car. It was so loud. Cicadas have always been incredible to me. It was like stepping out onto an alien planet.” Cicadas also improve the environment. According to Dana, when cicadas die, they break down into a powerful fertilizer, which increases woody growth. However, brood emergences can also be a nuisance for people living in affected ar-
eas. “For people who live in an affected area who have young fruit trees, it’s probably a good idea to cover them. Females laying their eggs is a little bit stressful for trees,” Dana said. Female cicadas lay their eggs by making holes in the branches of trees, which can be damaging for them. “Also, towards the end of the season it gets a little stinky because they lay eggs, then they die.” Ultimately, Dana said that there are not any ways to prevent an emergence. “There’s nothing you can do. If the cicadas are coming out of the ground, you just have to deal with it. There’s no way to stop them, and they are going to die soon anyway, so there’s no point in killing them.” Despite some people’s trepidation about the oncoming insects, Dana encourages students to make the most of the event. “Even if you guys aren’t in the area where they will be, it might be fun to
take a trip down to a place like Kennekuk [County Park] to go hiking and see them. It’s nice to not have to live through it. You can actually just experience the really cool huge emergence and see the wildlife having a feast,” she said. Dana recommended downloading an app called Cicada Safari, which helps researchers map emergences across the country. “People can report cicadas that they see. It’s really important, since this only happens every 17 years, that we report where we are seeing and hearing them,” she said. This year, it seems that University of Chicago students will get the best of both worlds. While Chicago will be spared from the onslaught, students who are interested can head to nearby counties for a hike to experience the Brood X emergence firsthand.
Noam Chomsky Reflects on Biden’s First Hundred Days at UChicago Political Union Event By ALEX DALTON Senior News Reporter The renowned linguist, philosopher, and political activist Noam Chomsky addressed students at a virtual event on Thursday, co-hosted by the student political unions of the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Columbia University. Chomsky offered measured praise of the first hundred days of President Joe Biden’s administration, addressing the president’s approach to vaccine distribution and organized labor as well as the ongoing threat of climate change. Chomsky stressed the importance of distributing vaccines not only nationally but globally. He called the Biden administration’s decision to send millions of AstraZeneca vaccine doses to India, now struggling with a devastating surge in COVID-19 cases, “a bit better than [what] the European countries are doing.” “Most of the European countries are monopolizing vaccines for themselves,”
he said. “This is not only unethical beyond any words that I can think of, but it’s also suicidal.” The United States and other wealthy countries must do more to ensure that citizens of poorer countries get vaccinated, Chomsky said, citing concerns that the virus, if allowed to spread unchecked, could produce vaccine-resistant mutations that would pose an even larger global health risk. Chomsky, who has described his politics as “anarcho-syndicalist,” was cautiously optimistic about Biden’s approach to labor policy. He noted the decline in unionization rates in the United States over the last 50 years and the lack of strong support for labor unions from the federal government during that period. “Biden seems to be somewhat reversing that,” he said, “He is the first president in a long time to say something positive about unions.” Since taking office, Biden has publicly backed the unionization efforts of Ama-
zon warehouse workers in Alabama and pushed for passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, aimed at strengthening the bargaining power of unions. The act would prevent workers from opting out of union dues, bar employers from using workers’ immigration status against them in negotiations, and establish monetary penalties for companies that violate workers’ rights. “The middle class built this country, and unions built the middle class,” Biden said in a speech to Congress on Wednesday, April 28. The rejuvenation of the labor movement, Chomsky said, holds the key to defusing many of the crises facing society today. “My own feeling is that unless the labor movement is reconstituted [and] redeveloped as happened in the 1930s, we’re not going to have much progress on other fronts,” he said. “Labor has been in the forefront of positive changes for the general population ever since the early stages
of the Industrial Revolution. And it can happen.” Chomsky emphasized the need for swift action on climate change, lamenting the Trump administration’s lack of action in that area and the enduring public skepticism regarding the seriousness of the issue. He cited a recent poll by the Pew Research Center which showed that only 14 percent of Republicans see climate change as a “very big problem.” “You can’t bludgeon people into changing their minds on this,” he said. “It’s a long educational process that has to be undertaken—and quickly, in fact, or we’re basically going to be finished. This is not a problem that can be overlooked.” The United States, he continued, needs to stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry and stop relying on fossil fuels entirely by mid-century in order to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis. “Like it or not,” Chomsky told the audience, “your generation has to decide whether organized human society is going
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UChicago Researchers Develop Novel “Nanotrap” COVID-19 Treatment By GIACOMO CETORELLI Senior News Reporter Researchers at the UChicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering have developed a new COVID-19 treatment that is able to trap virus particles, enabling the immune system to destroy them. The new treatment, which has been shown to be highly effective, is made up of nanoparticles called “nanotraps.” A nanotrap is able to trick SARS-CoV-2 into binding with it by mimicking the characteristics of cells that the virus targets. Once the virus is bound to the nanotrap, immune cells mark the infected cells for destruction. The research was led by graduate student Jill Rosenburg and postdoctoral scholar Min Chen under the direction of Pritzker assistant professor Jun Huang. “The pandemic is something we didn’t expect,” Huang said. But as immunologists, and simultaneously as engineers, we felt that we had to do something to help the world.” The coronavirus infects target cells in the human body by using spike proteins on its surface to bind with ACE2 receptors on the surface of the target cell. The existence of these receptors is what enables SARSCoV-2 to enter target cells. The researchers designed their nanotraps to take advantage of this behavior. By imitating the ACE2 receptors on target cells, nanotraps are able to lure the virus into binding to them. Next, they designed
nanoparticles with antibodies on their surface that are able to bind to and weaken viral cells. “We want to stimulate our immune system to really target those viruses. First trap, then try to degrade the virus,” said Min. Another advantage of this new treatment is that it is highly modular, meaning that pieces of the nanotrap can be swapped out and modified to adjust for differences that might occur with new variants of the virus. Extensive testing has affirmed the treatment’s effectiveness. “We first tested whether it works in vitro. We looked at whether the particle would actually bind to the virus,” Rosenburg said. They found that the nanotraps bound to viral cells in 10 minutes, and the viral cells were subsequently engulfed and degraded within 48 hours. Next, they tested their new treatment on mice to ensure that there were no unwanted side effects. “We looked at the blood chemistry, we looked at the histology, and we made sure that the nanoparticles had no effect on the mice,” Rosenberg said. The researchers then tested the treatment on a pair of ex vivo human lungs with a weakened virus that is unable to replicate. They were able to show that the nanotraps cleared the virus from the live lungs. Finally, in collaboration with researchers at UChicago’s Argonne National Labs, the treatment was tested in vitro with the full virus and proved to be highly effective.
The main quadrangle during the fall. COURTESY OF OREN OPPENHEIM The researchers have determined that the nanoparticles could be administered through a nasal spray, injection, or even eye drops. Ultimately, the researchers emphasized the importance of collaboration in creating the new treatment. “This was a huge collaborative effort between ourselves, the medical department, the chemistry
department, the biosafety level three facilities at Argonne Labs. It was a really big collaborative event,” said Rosenburg. “One of the really positive things that has come out of the pandemic for science is that it has created an awesome collaborative environment where everybody just wants to help each other to find treatments and vaccines and cures.
BFI’s Inaugural Summer Program Centered on “Expanding Diversity in Economics” By BASIL EGLI Senior News Reporter UChicago’s Becker Friedman Institute (BFI) will conduct its first-ever summer program, Expanding Diversity in Economics. The goal of the program, which will be held remotely, is to introduce economics to first- and second-year college students—especially women and people of
color—who otherwise would not consider it as a career choice. The BFI chose Quentin Johnson, former senior economics outreach specialist for the Federal Reserve Board, to lead the program. Johnson said that his experience teaching for three years in Japan after college opened his eyes to the importance of higher education as a tool for uplifting in-
dividuals: “I came back from Japan totally changed by the experience, and I wanted to make sure that other young Black men like me knew about the types of opportunities like that which higher education could expose them to. So that sparked my interest in doing admissions work,” Johnson said. Johnson hopes that students will reap the benefits of the program long after this
summer and was very excited about the potential of the summer institute: “My vision for it is to have a world-class experience for the student participants, to be able to have them to walk away feeling empowered, to have them feeling ‘tooled up’ in terms of their technical ability and just their understanding of what economics can do for them and for society, and to pursue that CONTINUED ON PG. 4
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after the summer is done—don’t let it just end with this summer experience.” Between July 18 and August 6, 2021,
30–40 students will participate in the inaugural session over Zoom. The summer institute will involve many lectures—both as part of the curriculum and during Zoom
luncheons—from prominent economists at UChicago and other institutions. Participants also have the option to apply for a research assistant position at the Universi-
ty during the academic year. The Summer Institute’s admissions process closed on March 14, and admissions decisions were made public on April 16.
Undergrads Launch Political Discussion RSO To Foster Bipartisan Exchange on Campus By HAMZA JILANI Senior News Reporter Sunday, April 11, marked the inaugural meeting of Forum, a new RSO launched by second-years Gabby Bayness and David Calahan. Forum is a political discussion group that invites students from across the ideological spectrum to debate current events. Forum’s mission statement emphasizes that it is aimed at “analyzing and engaging with political, social, and economic related discourse” through open dialogue. “I don’t think that anything is gained in an echo chamber, so I guess what Gabby and I are trying to create is the opposite of that,” Calahan said. To foster informed conversation, Calahan and Bayness send information about the discussion topic to members before each meeting. “I am the right-leaning wing of the group and David is our…left-leaning wing of the group,” Bayness said. Each meeting opens up
with Calahan and Bayness sharing their own opinions. This portion, according to Calahan, is a “jumping-off point…something for [members] to agree or disagree with if they would like to.” After this introduction, Forum moves into moderated speaking time, where members are given an uninterrupted minute each to share their thoughts. Finally, the group enters into free discussion. The group discussed media credibility and the concept of fake news at their first meeting, which Bayness deemed a success. “David and I found ourselves having to hold back just so we could let our other participants talk,” Bayness said. “We talked about social media and indie reporters and meme culture and the entertainment that seeps into reporting, things like that, so it was super interesting and super fruitful.” “At UChicago, you have people who will find all the little intricacies and all the little nitty-gritty details and talk about tangents of ideas that we weren’t thinking of,” Bayness added. The idea of starting an RSO like Forum
came from Bayness and Calahan’s family backgrounds. Growing up in a family with opposing political outlooks, Calahan believes that reaching across the aisle is enjoyable and informative. “One side of my family is Trump supporters and the other side of my family’s very much not. So I’ve been used to those kinds of…difficult and bipartisan interactions, and I want to see more of it because I enjoy it. There’s so much to learn when you reach across to the other side, maybe not necessarily factually. Learning how other people think, even if you don’t necessarily agree with what they think, is just so incredibly beneficial,” Calahan said. Bayness recounted similar experiences, as both her hometown in Cleveland, Ohio, and her family are politically diverse. “There’s a main street by where I live, and there’s a Confederate flag on a Taco Bell next to a mosque next to a synagogue next to an Irish church, all in a row by the Cleveland airport,” she said. “I think we’re now in a position in soci-
ety where you can kind of curate your own realities and your own lifestyles and who you hang out with…so I think [Forum discussions having] this coming together of extremes and ideals and people from everywhere is super important to me,” Bayness added. Calahan sees Forum as different from other partisan political groups on campus, such as UChicago Republicans and UChicago Democrats, which represent only one half of the partisan divide. “We are very intentionally creating a space for controlled conflict. Our group is specifically for those potentially contentious discussions,” he said. Bayness believes that Forum is a space for students with all kinds of goals for political discussion, including people who are already involved in partisan clubs and want a different experience, people who feel they do not fit into partisan clubs, and “people who don’t want to be part of any particular type of activism and just want to learn…from each other, from our experiences, and from our peers.”
Disability Rights Student Group Advocates for Continued Zoom Classes Post-Pandemic By SOLANA ADEDOKUN Senior News Reporter As a growing number of people become fully vaccinated, the end of the pandemic seems to be on the horizon. Many are eager to discard the video conferencing platform Zoom as a relic of the pandemic. Yet some students with disabilities have found Zoom
immensely helpful—so much so, they argue, that it should be available even after full y in-person classes resume. Nahime Aguirre Mtanous (A.B. ’11), a first-year in UChicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, and a handful of other students are leading the push for Zoom classes to continue after the pandemic ends. They argue that UChicago’s Student
Disability Services (SDS) should create a position similar to the existing notetaker job, in which one student present in the class livestreams the lecture to the student learning remotely. The group plans to discuss their concerns with the Crown Family School Dean Deborah Gorman-Smith soon and reach out to staffers of UChicago’s SDS office.
Thrive, the incoming SG executive slate, has also endorsed the measure. Mtanous said learning over Zoom has been extremely helpful for her while managing her disability. As an undergrad with no accommodations and no Zoom, she had a GPA of 2.2. She was even sent a letter by Dean Jay Ellison telling her that her acaCONTINUED ON PG. 5
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demic performance was not up to par. But now, she has been able to maintain a 3.8 GPA with the help of Zoom accommodations. This radical difference in learning style inspired her to rally other students with her to make sure the University leaves Zoom as an option for others in the autumn. “We would just like to see that the University of Chicago prioritizes the learning of neurodivergent students just as much as it does for students that are neurotypical, because we really have thrived in this format change,” Mtanous said. “We don’t want academia to shut its doors on us just because it’s convenient now.”
Another first-year student in the Crown Family School who requested to remain anonymous has suffered from a chronic case of COVID-19 since contracting the virus last October. They mentioned that if not for Zoom and their professors being understanding and flexible, they most likely would have had to withdraw from school. Contracting COVID, they said, has “open[ed] my eyes to disability justice and what people have been facing for a long, long time already and have been complaining about that they shouldn’t have to complain about. There are so many considerations, so many more considerations to everyday tasks that have to be taken into account
now. With disability justice, a lot of the advocacy and administrative work still falls on us.” When Mtanous and her peers learned that the University had announced that autumn quarter would be in person, they immediately contacted SDS with questions on how students with disabilities would be impacted in the fall. According to Mtanous, SDS does not currently know how they will accommodate students in the fall and if Zoom will play a role in the accommodations available. Despite the unknowns surrounding SDS’s response, both Mtanous and the unnamed student have said that the professors
and Dean of Students in the Crown Family School have been very helpful and accommodating of their needs. “The whole reason why we’re organizing around this is because there seems to not be a clear answer, and students with disabilities deserve answers, and we deserve plans, and we deserve to not be an afterthought in this change of format, because a lot of us will get left behind and slip through the cracks,” Mtanos said. “Some of us have some real career aspirations that we want to work on because we’re now able to get the jobs, the Ph.D. programs, and the fellowship programs because of these class format changes.”
UChicago Reports 13 New COVID-19 Cases, Encourages All Students to Receive Vaccinations Before End of Quarter By BASIL EGLI Senior News Reporter The University reported 13 new cases of COVID-19 this week, according to a UChicago Forward email sent to the University community Friday, May 7. There are two close contacts associated with the new cases. Two of the cases were identified from UChicago’s off-campus surveillance testing program, bringing the past week’s positiv-
ity rate to 0.05 percent in that population. Currently, five or fewer students are living in on-campus isolation housing, while six are isolating off-campus. The University Accident/Incident Reporting System received 25 reports this week. With Phase 2 of COVID-19 vaccination underway in Illinois, the University has now issued vaccination invitations via MyChart for all eligible students. First vaccine appointments must be scheduled to take place
before or on May 21 in order to complete the two-shot Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine sequence by the end of spring quarter on June 12. Despite the Center for Disease Control (CDC)’s modification of guidelines regarding fully vaccinated individuals, the email wrote that “we do not expect any major changes to the requirements in the UChicago Health Pact for the duration of the spring quarter.” For instance, while the CDC has stated that fully vaccinated individuals do not have to
wear a mask outdoors, the Health Pact still requires individuals to wear a mask while on campus grounds. The email also noted that “policies for the 2021–22 academic year are under development with close consultation by medical experts.” Students who experience symptoms of COVID-19 are still required to self-isolate and arrange for prompt testing, either by calling Student Wellness at (773) 834–9355 or the UCMedical triage hotline at (773) 702–2800.
“When we say we won’t pay, it’s not just about the [Student Services Fee].” CONTINUED FROM PG. 1
said. “When we say we won’t pay, we mean we will not fund an administration that’s willing to spend millions of dollars in legal fees to prevent us from exercising our rights as workers. When we say we won’t pay, we mean we will not support an institution that is willing to spend millions and millions of dollars every year on a private police force but refuses to offer us a little financial relief during a global pandemic.”
Branching out from the boundaries of campus, representatives of allied groups told the crowd about their own organizations’ work. A spokesperson for the nurses of UChicago’s Medical Center described their efforts to secure full sick pay for nurses infected with COVID-19 and to restore the University’s contributions to retirement benefits. Faye Porter, the president of Mac Tenants United, condemned the local landlord giant’s rising rents as evidence of
gentrification and exhorted the crowd to act in “financial protest.” “UCPD helps Mac Properties protect their investments,” Porter said. “I know because I live in a Mac property that Mac Properties’ business model depends on creating the illusion of safety for richer whiter tenants to pay the crazy rents.” The march concluded at an event organized by the Experimental Station Union, which was recently formed and is
still struggling for recognition. The union represents workers from the Experimental Station nonprofit itself as well as from organizations the Experimental Station building houses, such as Blackstone Bicycle Works, the 61st Street Farmers Market, and the nonprofit Link Up. Students and neighbors engaged each other in outdoor arts and crafts, handed out buttons and flyers, and visited food stations set up along the grassy lawn.
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VIEWPOINTS Sex Education Should Be a Core Class With a new president and a new slate both inbound, now is the time to strengthen our sexual education curriculum. By SYLVIA EBENBACH Right now, UChicago is at an inflection point. We recently elected a new slate, Thrive, to lead the student body; Paul Alivisatos is joining UChicago as the new President; and the school has announced that it intends to bring students back to full in-person classes this fall as our community gets vaccinated. Now is the best time to implement changes that will positively affect the future culture on our campus, including
a comprehensive, quarter-length, sexual health education course that is a requirement of the Core. Of course, there already is a requirement to complete a self-guided sexual assault prevention course when students begin at UChicago and to briefly review the material at the beginning of each academic year. The course is composed of slides and short videos that explain topics relevant to sexual assault, such as bystander intervention. I also recall that during O-Week when
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I began as a first-year at UChicago, there were a couple of large sessions in Mandel Hall that provided information about the resources available to students at UChicago. While this form of prevention education is certainly an important place to start, there is so much more that can be done. As a member of the Title IX Student Advisory Board, I recently read the book Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus by Jennifer Hirsch and Shamus Khan, who are both faculty and researchers at Columbia University. The two authors recently spoke at a virtual UChicago event about their work. One of the major takeaways from the book and the talk is that students’ knowledge about sexual health and autonomy varies greatly. As students from all over the world join UChicago, there are a variety of systems in place that account for differences in academic background, ensuring that everybody gets the information they need. Students come in with differing mathematical abilities, which is fine because they can choose what type of math they want to use to fulfill the math requirement (and what difficulty level best suits them). In addition to the Core humanities sequence which most students start during the fall quarter of their first year, there is a required writing seminar course that is graded on a pass/fail basis. Like the variety of math courses, these seminars are meant to bring everyone up to speed with the writing skills deemed necessary by the Uni-
versity. UChicago’s academics already accounts for the fact that students may not have the same knowledge of certain topics coming into college. Nevertheless, it is important to provide the resources for students to obtain this knowledge to make the best use of their college career and life after. This same logic translates to sexual health education. Sexual health education is an extremely normal component of education. Many high schools already provide courses about those topics along with other health classes. The problem, one that Sexual Citizens emphasizes, is that the quality and content of this education may heavily vary on a district-by-district basis. For instance, in Illinois there is no statewide standard for sexual education in K–12 (although the Responsible Education for Adolescent and Children’s Health Act would change that if passed). A short crash course is not necessarily enough information for everyone coming into college. A solution could be a quarter-long course, graded on a pass/fail basis, that provides comprehensive, intersectional education about sexual health. This format could facilitate discussions among peers that have positive impacts outside of the classroom as well. This course could be formed in coordination with UChicago’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and the title IX office. Perhaps historically sex education has not been viewed as central to a liberal arts education. However, it involves topics
that fall within multiple categories of the Core, such as social sciences and biological sciences. According to the Core Curriculum website, the purpose of the Core is to “engage students with the range of insights, habits of mind, and academic experiences that can enrich their own reflections and activities in the world.” A sex ed course has the potential to embody that goal and help set the standard for future education on the topic at a college level. Not only could an in-depth course create healthy change on and off our campus, but it could provide an interesting lens through which to think about topics like consent, gender, sexuality, race, and access to health resources in other classes. Furthermore, it would be an opportunity for UChicago to explore new methods of sexual assault prevention education in college environments. Through the development of the course, in-class discussions, and projects, the body of knowledge on the topic would grow. The upcoming changes in leadership and the logistics on UChicago’s campus present an opportunity to prioritize sexual assault prevention. A great way to institute this change would be through a system, the Core, that is already in place. A course that is comprehensive enough to serve the needs of all incoming college students would have positive effects for the well-being of individual students and the future of our university. Sylvia Ebenbach is a third-year in the College.
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The Power of Individual Action Our decisions have community-wide consequences, especially during a pandemic—consider others before you party. By MAYA ORDONEZ In normal times, I am a proponent of fraternity parties; they provide students with an outlet and can occasionally be fun. Yet, we are far from living in normal times, and recent actions by students distance us even more from returning to normalcy. With that being said, I believe that the onus is not only on the fraternities. Although responsible for hosting the party, we can’t place the blame entirely on one person or group. By attending UChicago, each student assumes a responsibility towards our community; actions taken by students a few weeks ago put residential deans, fellow students, and our shared future at the University at risk. The morning a f ter receiving the news of the campus-wide shutdown, I opened my inbox to an announcement sent by one of my professors. It read, “We were already living in an extraordinarily stressful moment—with regard to the pandemic, various forms of violence and discrimination, and lots and lots of other events and factors. As someone who lives in a dorm as an RD, last night’s email really intensified that stress for me.” Reading this email made my heart sink. In past lectures, my professor had laughed about how he would do his best to teach despite his fiveand seven-year-old daughters running around in the background and uploaded two separate hour-long lectures with comprehensive PowerPoints, and was super enthusiastic
overall. In his next lecture, he dolefully remarked how he was pressed for time with all the additional meetings revolving around the outbreak which caused him to lecture on a “Saturday morning in sweatpants” rather than on a “Friday afternoon in more formal business attire.” Although it may not have seemed like it in the moment, that “small” fraternity party has had immense repercussions for our whole community, not just for anyone who chose to attend. People like my professor are forced to find ways to cope on a personal level, aid the undergraduates within the dorms, and, for many, continue teaching. This puts an unfair burden on both residential deans and heads. I cannot imagine what it would be like to explain to my two daughters that they could not go outside because a group of students knowingly broke University, city, and state protocol just to host a party. It’s also crucial to understand that the University has the capability to revoke its decision to hold autumn quarter in person. The language of the email was conditional—not absolute. We will only resume our in-person education “If the state of the pandemic and the health of our community allow.” As we have seen over the course of the year, especially in response to the new outbreak, the University will act to protect our community as a whole, even if this means reverting to remote learning. This community is composed of students in addition to professors, dining hall staff, li-
brarians, and too many others to list. In our current reality, and as members of this community, the actions we take must consider all of these individuals, not merely ourselves. Hosting and attending parties, and causing outbreaks as a result, are not community-conscious actions, and these are exactly the types of actions that prove to the University that its students are not responsible enough to follow its guidelines. The University will not hesitate to re-
consider, adapt, or shut down in accordance with the actions that we, as students, take. Be mindful that one party can send a message far louder than music played in any dingy, beer-stained basement. Do a few rounds of beer pong, lukewarm conversation, and awkward dance moves truly outshine the light at the end of the tunnel? I hope the answer to this question is no. Ultimately, though, no matter what I think or hope, the way you impact our community is
up to you—every individual is inevitably responsible for themselves and their own actions. All I can do is urge you to consider your actions in the context of UChicago as a whole; remember, each action you take is the beginning of a long chain of consequences that reaches far beyond you. Maya Ordonez is a second-year in the College.
MAYA ORDONEZ
THE CHICAGO MAROON — MAY 12, 2021
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ARTS The (Not So) Secret Life of (a Very Specific Midway) Pet(s) By KAYLA MARTINEZ Arts Contributor There is an adventurer among us. He has traversed the snowy streets of Chicago and the rainy lowlands of the Netherlands. He often braves the terrain alone, soliciting the help and friendship of local passersby. He is a bit of a celebrity, and despite the saying, he’s managed to stay very much alive while being an immensely curious feline. I am, of course, talking about Nestor, the beloved, bilingual Midway cat. The orange tabby, who responds to both English and Dutch, has amassed quite the following, with over 2,000 followers on his Instagram account, @nestorthemidwaycat. Despite his many skills, Nestor isn’t quite capable of posting on his own, but luckily for him—and all of us—he’s enlisted the help of third-year and cat connoisseur Devon Wenzel to share his stories. Their dynamic duoship began before Devon was even officially a student: She spotted Nestor during pre-O and again during move-in. Curious, she asked an older student, who told her, “that’s the Midway cat.” Devon knew what she had to do. She made the Instagram later that day, and the rest is history. Devon loves all cats, which makes sense given that it’s sort of the family business. In their free time, her family rescues cats and helps find them suitable owners, and her aunt even takes care of a colony of stray cats, visiting and feeding them daily. But our heroine had her doubts, and in fact, there was a point at which she considered herself a dog person. (She still loves all animals, but when your Twitter name is “Devon loves cats” and your Instagram is @catslovedevon, you’ve kinda chosen a side). As a child, her cat Spot, more commonly known as Babycakes, scratched Devon and scarred her lip. But instead of allowing this to snowball into a cat-hating villain origin story à la Cruella de Vil, Devon found it in her heart to love Babycakes, along with all the other cats she has come across.
Nestor, Nestor, shining bright. COURTESY OF DEVON WENZEL A little piece of UChicago cat lore that Devon recently shared with me is that there used to be a Rockefeller Chapel cat by the name of Modo (like Quasimodo, because…tower, I think, but don’t feel bad if you didn’t immediately
get it. Me neither. It’s cute though). He lived in the basement, and the door was marked with a piece of paper that read, simply, “Modo’s Cave.” Devon considered making Modo an Instagram when she first heard of him prior to her first
year, but she worried that it would “be really extra to knock on [someone’s] door every day to bug [their] cat.” And when she began Nestor’s fanpage, she really did post every day, alCONTINUED ON PG. 9
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“If you ask, you’ ll learn that Nestor is an excellent climber, can give you a fist bump and is just a little bit weird.” CONTINUED FROM PG. 8
though that’s not possible now because he’s back at home in the Nestorlands (the Netherlands). She does her best to get into his head, writing the captions from his perspective. Although she’s “unsure what it says about [her] that [she] roleplay[s] a six-pound orange cat,” it’s clear that the two are close. She knows a lot about him, and she is happy to share it. If you ask, you’ll learn that Nestor is an excellent climber, is able to give you fist bumps, and is just a little bit weird. For example, though cats often don’t love large amounts of atten-
tion or affection, Nestor used to sit on a bench outside of Cathey and wait for people to pet him. On more than one occasion, he gathered a crowd, and people had to line up to get their turn. Devon attributes his love for human contact to his bizarre origin story: He was born in the wilderness of the Netherlands in a cat commune, and his owners had to go through an intense screening process to adopt him. Devon herself went through some intense medical crises as she grew closer to Nestor. It turns out she’s pretty allergic to cats, to the point that she once
ended up in the hospital with concerns about her eyes. Another time, she injured her ankle trying to get the perfect shot. Although all of this might have discouraged a less dedicated social media manager/storyteller/friend, it didn’t faze Devon. She even befriended Nestor’s owners, and sometimes, she’ll receive photos of him in the Netherlands just doing his thing: usually sleeping or chasing animals. She says one of her favorite things about running the account is how much joy it brings to other students—it’s a nice break from the never-ending crush of UChicago’s
workload. Her advice to other people looking to obtain moderate celebrity status by befriending an animal is to make sure you know what they want—Devon can intuit when Nestor does or doesn’t want to be photographed, and she’s sure to give him his space if he isn’t feeling super friendly that day. She wonders about what would have happened if she had arrived at UChicago just a little bit later—there could have been a Nestor TikTok. In any case, the Nestor Instagram we already have is certainly a claws for celebration.
IN, DE-ED By CHRIS JONES, ALINA KIM, COOPER KOMATSU, AND NISH SINHA Across 1. Likelihood 5. Infectious liver disease (Abbr.) 9. Not for sure 13. Cylindrical water toy 16. Oliver Twist’s famous plea 17. Happening every six months 18. ____ A Manger 19. Without a smartphone? 21. Possess, in Scotland 22. Bluish green hue 23. Cherry bomb disarmers? 31. Tour grp.? 33. Apollo org. 34. Jealousy 35. Wrangler, Explorer, or Rogue (Abbr.) 36. “Won’t do it anymore”? 40. Hamilton bill 41. Greek love god 43. What remained in Pandora’s box 44. Charlemagne domain (Abbr.) 45. Directional devotee? 50. Dialect often
appropriated as “Gen Z slang” (Abbr.) 51. Mythical giant bird 53. Turned down a boarding pass? 59. Drench 60. Allowing 62. “...or ___!” 63. National Geographic frequency 64. Legalization subject 65. Suds source 66. 2011 Heisman winner’s father? Down 1. “Special” military division 2. Performs, to Shakespeare 3. “I need a little help here” 4. Sandwich maker’s device 5. Refine 6. Sch. URLs 7. Nebraska river 8. Faith 9. Urge 10. Sumter or Knox 11. Let go 12. “The best is ___ to
come!” 14. “Uh-uh” 15. Where Pachelbel’s Canon ends 20. Sigma follower 24. Cal, Dart, or Pitt 25. Dulles code 26. When duplicated, giant fly 27. Japanese fish broth 28. Coronating 29. Winnebago rider (Abbr.) 30. “Auld Lang ___” 31. Common HW assignment 32. Wise teacher 37. Tokyo 2020 organizer 38. Sauna site 39. Vietnamese New Year 42. Noshed 46. Indian lentil dish 47. Paperless party announcements 48. From the beginning (Latin) 49. Douglass or Cicero, famously 52. One-hundredth, for metric units 53. Big name in the pineapple world
54. Comfort 55. Home of philosopher Zeno 56. Interjection of
stupidity 57. Forcefully open 58. On the ___ (avoiding capture)
59. Put in stitches 61. They precede “JK”
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SPORTS The Joys and Challenges of High School Sports During a Pandemic Athletes and administrators reflect on the challenges posed by a pandemic which has forced many Chicago-area high schools to postpone or cancel sports over the past year. By MICHAEL MCCLURE Sports Contributor
When COVID-19 first arrived in the United States in early 2020, school extracurriculars were halted abruptly. Thousands of student-athletes like Leo Necheles, a junior who plays baseball at Jones College Prep High School (JCP), were left without a chance to play their sports. “I [was] able to do absolutely nothing. In my opinion, baseball’s been the short end of the stick,” he said. “Not only did we miss our season last year, but we have to deal with a shortened season this year while the other sports get to have another season. They don’t have a year that got cancelled on them like we did.” The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 coincided with the scheduled start of the spring season for Chicago Public Schools (CPS). After initial postponements by the Illinois High School Association (IHSA)—the governing body which regulates sports and other extracurriculars at hundreds of Illinois high schools—the season was ultimately called off last April amid the uncertain trajectory of the pandemic. Necheles recalled that JCP’s baseball team for the 2020 spring season was set to be a strong one. “It was going to be one of our better teams in school history. It was definitely sad to see that team never pan out,” he said. Nevertheless, Necheles found some opportunities to continue his sport. Aside from doing individual training work at the home gym he built after the pandemic began, he played during the summer and fall with his travel team, Windy City Baseball Club, and competed in an informal set of scrimmages set up by CPS parents and coaches. “[It] was
very nice just to play with the team…after so long. We got to see our coaches, which was a good feeling,” he said. Although the pandemic continued to disrupt education and athletics into the 2020–21 academic year, the outlook for high school sports became brighter. IHSA was able to reschedule high-risk fall sports to the spring and push the compressed winter season a couple months later than its initial start date. IHSA also approved the resumption of low-risk sports like tennis and cross country in the fall and allowed some postseason games to occur. Téa Tamburo, a sophomore at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools who plays doubles on the junior varsity (JV) girls’ tennis team, felt that the nature of tennis also lent itself well to the restrictions borne of COVID-19. “Tennis is a very socially distanced sport anyway—we got very lucky with that. We don’t have those awkward little moments of not knowing how to social distance when we’re actually playing,” she said. There are three levels of girls’ tennis at the Lab School: a varsity team, a JV team, and a team for freshmen and sophomores. Some practices were held with all three teams together, which allowed the athletes, from the most experienced seniors to the newest freshmen, to get to know one another. “Since we did a lot of doubles and switching off partners in team practices, we got to know each other that way, but I think there was definitely a sense of sadness in not really being able to get to know everyone to the full capacity [like] in the past,” Tamburo said. For Tamburo in particular, those opportunities were much needed, as she was
unable to complete her freshman season after developing carpal tunnel syndrome. “I had not held a tennis racket in about a year when I came back, [which was] not ideal,” she said. “One thing it did really affect was the fact that I just had much less time with the rest of my teammates compared to people who made it through the full season the previous year, so I kind of came in with a weird cross between being a returning member but then also feeling new to the team in some ways.” Unlike most other high schools in the state of Illinois, the Lab School guidelines are set not only by IHSA but by the University, which can veto any decisions made by David Ribbens, the Lab School’s director of athletics. The extra layer of oversight has given student-athletes an added feeling of security that all activities are being conducted safely. “There was some doubt about it when we first began the season—I mean, it’s like 30 people practicing together in an athletic environment—but…I personally really trust what the University and our officials have been doing to keep us safe, and I think it’s obviously been working because no one on the team tested positive,” Tamburo said. According to Ribbens, the University’s approach has been shaped mostly by recommendations from the Center for Disease Control and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH). But the additional oversight of the University also creates more organizational difficulties. After the conclusion of the fall sports season at the end of October, the University did not give the Lab School permission to resume athletic activities until Monday, March 1. The winter sports season was ultimately cancelled entirely in mid-February.
“We’re one of the very few high schools in the country that are owned and operated by [a] university, and we can expect that benefit on many occasions. On this particular occasion, it has been a bit of a challenge for us to go through the bureaucracy and simply the labyrinth of decision-making that has to go on at a place like this. It’s an enormous institution and it’s got a lot of varying factors,” Ribbens said. The guidelines imposed by IDPH and IHSA vary from one sport to another, according to Ribbens. In basketball, for example, IHSA guidelines stipulate a restriction on spectators and at least six feet of distance between athletes on the bench. But Necheles said that the impetus behind certain administrative decisions hasn’t always been communicated to JCP student-athletes, leaving them confused and uninformed. “We just get thrown into a category of high risk, low risk, [or] medium risk, and then based on what tier our county’s in, that’s what happens to us. There’s really no explanation of why each sport is in its tier or why we aren’t able to play at certain times and why scheduling works out how it has,” Necheles said. JCP, a magnet school, is also overseen by multiple entities. IHSA must first approve play before CPS can decide whether or not to implement IHSA’s policies in its schools. “[That] has been scary at times,” Necheles said. “CPS is known to be stricter than IHSA, and that means there could be instances where non–CPS schools get to play and we don’t.” Unlike well-funded professional sports leagues, CPS cannot spend millions on elaborate safeguards, like bubbles and continual testing, for its stuCONTINUED ON PG. 11
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“Unlike well-funded professional sports leagues, CPS cannot spend millions on elaborate safeguards…for its student-athletes.” CONTINUED FROM PG. 10
dent-athletes. As Necheles wrote in an op-ed for Blueprint, JCP’s student newspaper, the struggles that leagues like the MLB and NFL have faced in combatting the virus have made it difficult for high school student-athletes to imagine a realistic model for success. “There’s not a lot of optimism surrounding high school sports,” Necheles told The Maroon. Recent developments, however, show signs of promise. All Illinoisians age 16 and older became eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine on April 19, and the IDPH recent-
ly ruled that athletes in sports classified as low risk, including baseball and tennis, no longer have to wear masks in competition. Although Ribbens conceded that the newfound emphasis on personal and public health means that we may never fully return to the pre-pandemic definition of normalcy, he believes that some of the changes necessitated by the pandemic will improve the high school sports experience for both student-athletes and administrators. For example, Ribbens has met with athletic directors from other
area schools nearly every week via online conferencing platforms. “As difficult as [this pandemic] is, there’s still some rays of sunshine that have shone through,” he said. Another positive has been the realization of how important sports truly are to many high school students. “I think the benefit of athletics is simply that affiliation with friends, that social aspect of it,” Ribbens said. “The friendships and just the relationships with their peers [are] becoming even more pronounced. I think we’ve learned
a lot during this crisis, and I think things will change going forward in a significant way.” It is exactly for those reasons that student-athletes have been so desperate for a return to playing. “Sports have been a nice break from the pandemic. They’ve been a sense of reality for everyone, whether it be pro sports or college sports, and as high school athletes, we want to be a part of that. We want to be able to play and just have a sense of normal in these crazy times,” Necheles said. “It means a lot to us to be on those fields.”
Bulls Look to Future as Playoff Hopes Disappear By JONATHAN GU Sports Contributor
Bulls out of the Playoff Picture Despite an offseason full of promise and trade deadline additions intended to boost the Bulls into the postseason, the Bulls are officially eliminated from playoff contention. While the Bulls looked to hold onto the 10th seed to make the NBA’s new play-in tournament in late April, ultimately the team fell short. Following the news that Bulls all-star guard Zach LaVine would miss several games due to COVID-19 protocols, there didn’t seem to be hope for this team to reclaim their play-in spot. Despite winning two games without LaVine, the Bulls aren’t better without their best player on the court. On top of that, the Bulls have a tough remaining schedule. This is bad news for a team that traded for all-star center Nikola Vučević in a win-now move. Granted, the trade itself should be and is a roster improvement. The Bulls replaced 22-year-old Wendell Carter Jr., who averaged a modest 10.9 points and 7.8 rebounds for the team this season, with one of the best centers in the league. The team also let go of Otto Porter Jr., who has averaged 9.9 points for the Bulls this season and missed many games due to injury during his time with the team.
The Bulls also gave up first-round picks in the 2021 and 2023 NBA drafts; they could end up having a high selection in 2021 given their recent struggles. Having dealt their best defender in Wendell Carter Jr., the Bulls traded for Daniel Theis and Troy Brown Jr., two good interior and perimeter defenders respectively. The Bulls have made a significant roster improvement with these trades and have not only found the elite big man they needed but also supplemented defensive holes left by dealing the team’s top defender. So What Is the Problem? Despite making these moves, the Chicago Bulls have remained abysmal. Though Vučević is putting up strong numbers, the team isn’t seeing an increase in wins. The main issue seems to be a lack of team basketball. The Bulls have a glaring hole in the point guard position, with Tomáš Satoranský starting at the spot. Second-year guard Coby White has shown to be a better off-ball guard and is still in the process of developing his facilitation game. A floor general is crucial to elite team basketball, and the Bulls lack that at the moment. The Bulls have on-court leadership in veterans such as Thaddeus Young, who is a good passer and a vocal leader. Despite that, the team doesn’t play well together, and that translates into poor
on-court performance as a group. Beyond the hardwood, executive vice president of basketball operations Artūras Karnišovas has set a new precedent for the Bulls’s front office. Moves at the deadline have shown that the Bulls are not afraid to make bold roster moves to improve the team. Overall, this is good news for the team’s future. However, this is also a reminder to players that nobody, with the plausible exception of LaVine, is untouchable. This creates a stressful climate for the players, especially as the front office has labelled this season an “evaluation year.” Players seem to be overexerting themselves in an attempt to solidify their spot on the roster. The looming threat of another roster shift puts the team on edge, which doesn’t help their team chemistry. Karnišovas’s Vision of the Future Karnišovas seems to be replicating the winning formula for teams such as the Brooklyn Nets by putting together a winning roster through trades and small free agency moves. Following promises of a bright future, marquee free agents will choose to sign with the team. The Nets were able to convince Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving to sign, and the Bulls look to attract similar talent having put together a team with two All Stars. During his time with the
Denver Nuggets, Karnišovas made stellar moves in the draft, most notably selecting Nikola Jokić (now a frontrunner for MVP this year) with the 41st overall pick. Given his success in the draft, it’s interesting to see Karnišovas give up on building the team through that avenue. However, building through free agency and trades has always been the most consistent way of building a championship-caliber team, and Karnišovas knows this. Moves made during the 2021 trade deadline have not seemed to pan out, and moves made to win now have only resulted in more losing. A team that is currently 11th in the Eastern Conference is not exactly a prime destination for big-name free agents. However, the 2021 offseason doesn’t feature many big-name free agents, and those available aren’t what the Bulls are looking for. The Bulls should look to swing for a good point guard such as Lonzo Ball, who is a restricted free agent this coming offseason. The Bulls have one more chance to prove that they are worth Zach LaVine staying in the 2021–22 season; otherwise, they risk yet more years of perpetual mediocrity. Karnišovas is a man with a plan, and the overall future of this team still looks bright despite what has shaped up to be a disappointing 2020–21 season.
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Women’s Lacrosse Advances to Sweet Sixteen The Maroons (10-1) routed Hamline, 20–2, in their first-ever NCAA tournament appearance. The women’s lacrosse team will travel to Virginia to play against Ohio Athletic Conference champions John Carroll (17-1) in the third round.
Second-year midfielder Katie Large (above) tallied three goals and chipped in five draw controls while second-year Charlotte Rapp dominated with ten. COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS
Third-year defender Audie Shutler paced the team with five ground balls as part of a defensive unit that held Hamline scoreless for the final 47 minutes of gametime. COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS
First-year attacker Lulu Hardy helped overcome a slow start by notching three goals and an assist. COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS
The Maroons will bring to Virginia a balanced attack that saw 13 players record a goal or assist against Hamline, including second-year attacker Peyton Sanborn. COURTESY OF UCHICAGO ATHLETICS