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CHICAGO GRAD UNIONS RALLY AGAINST NLRB PROPOSAL PAGE 3

NOVEMBER 20, 2019 EIGHTH WEEK VOL. 132, ISSUE 8

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Beijing, Hong Kong Backers Clash

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Nurses to Strike Again

Facelift for Student Counseling, But No New Hires PAGE 2

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Football Overtakes Lake Forest

ARTS: Bringing Mexican Mid-century Modernism to the Fore

EDITORIAL: Flat Caps, Not Percentages: We Need a Sensible Honors System

SPORTS: Women’s Soccer Moves on in NCAA Division III Tournament

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THE CHICAGO MAROON — NOVEMBER 20, 2019

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The New Wellness Center Will Add Office Space. Will Wait Times Shrink?

By EMMA DYER News Editor Construction of the University’s new Health and Wellness Center is well underway and on track to open Autumn quarter of next year. The new center will add space and centralize services, which administrators argue could improve logistics and alleviate long wait times by making scheduling more efficient.

Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) does not plan to hire any new counselors prior to the Wellness Center’s opening, but University spokesman Gerald McSwiggan said, “We have increased the number of Student Health and Counseling Services staff in recent years and the Wellness Center will enable us to continue this trend.”

The Wellness Center will move Student Health Service, Student Counseling Services, and Health Promotion and Wellness into ne new location constructed inside a currently unused courtyard and will adjoin the current part of the hospital which houses the Student Health offices.

In the past few years, SHCS has added new employees to serve the growing number of students enrolled in the College, and current office spaces are not large enough to house all SHCS employees. Recently, in Student Counseling’s Alumni House space, walls were erected to divide office spaces in two to add more private offices.

Despite staffing increases, Student Counseling Service (SCS) continues to struggle to accommodate the number of students in need of SCS. The high demand for SCS has limited the accessibility of some mental health services on campus, and long wait times for intake appointments have been a recurring student grievance.

Second-year Valentine Figuera said his experience with counselors at SCS was positive and they provided an envi-

ronment where he could comfortably and openly discuss difficult situations, but getting an initial appointment was not a timely process. “In terms of improvement, I think the most obvious is that the services are understaffed, and I had my appointment a week and a half after I scheduled it,” Figuera said. “It did become a long ten days until I had my meeting.”

Some students have decided to use emergency walk-in counseling rather than wait for an intake appointment.

Fourth-year Silvia Diaz took this option after learning she would have to wait two weeks to have an initial intake appointment. Diaz sees long wait times as a lost opportunity for SCS to help students who may need more immediate help but do not feel comfortable going to the emergency walk-in counseling.

“I decided to go in through the emergency walk-in, which I’m in a position in my life where I’ll take up that space and feel comfortable going there, but it’s not really something that I feel everyone would be open to taking,” Diaz said.

SHCS hopes the new Wellness Center will address several of students’ most voiced complaints, including long wait times for intake appointments.

With all services in one location, SHCS hopes to revamp their scheduling by eliminating the need for cross-building communication, which can slow down the process of getting students into appointments. The centralized building will also remove any confusion about where students must go to receive care.

In making design decisions for the Wellness Center, SHCS consulted students through town halls, online surveys, and conversations with the Student Health Advisory Board. Following these consultations, the design for the renovation was to improve students’ experiences upon entering the Center as well as to prioritize confidentiality from the moment students

A digital rendering of the Health and Wellness Center. courtesy of the university walk into the Wellness Center.

According to the University, the Wellness Center was designed with interconnected halls and offices that are not organized in an immediately distinguishable pattern, such that the reason for a student’s visit—for example, receiving a crisis consultation or individual counseling—is not identifiable by the direction they walk through the building.

With all health services located under one roof, students can be directed to all services from a single check-in location. The University also intends for the Wellness Center to offer workspaces for students and act as a meeting place for wellness activities.

While centralization of services and scheduling optimization is one solution to reducing intake appointment times, student groups have advocated for different solutions. Notably, the University of Chicago’s chapter of Active Minds, an organization supporting mental health awareness and education, has suggested shifting SCS hours to deal with long waits.

Active Minds copresident Daily Desenberg said SCS’s “hours of operation coincide with the time that most students are in class, which is a large part of the reason the wait times for intake appointments are so long.” She suggested that “adjusting

their weekday hours and having appointments on weekends would make a huge difference.”

Among students, SCS has also been criticized for a high referral rate to outside clinicians. Diaz said, “As I understand it, all counseling services are provided on a short-term basis, and after a certain number of sessions it’s encouraged that students seek outside therapists or counselors... Which is fine and all, but when I was going through the process myself of finding an outside therapist, I found it really difficult to find one that had openings.”

SHCS says that referrals are made on a case-by-case basis and there is no limit to the number of counseling sessions a student may attend through Counseling Services. Students are directed to outside counselors and therapists at the SHCS counselor’s discretion, based on whether the best care for the student is beyond what SHCS can provide.

Throughout SHCS, there is a focus on increasing preventative protective factors: programming and initiatives that seek to offer resources for students to better their health before reaching a crisis situation.

SHCS hopes wellness services may allow students to practice good mental health and act as resources for students that reduce the need for long-term counseling.

Nurses Vote to Strike for Second Time in Two Months

By MATTHEW LEE Deputy News Editor Nurses at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) voted overwhelm-

ingly to strike for the second time in two months during an election held Wednesday.

The National Nurses Union (NNU), representing over 2,200 nurses at UCMC, said 92 percent of the nurses voted in favor

of the strike.

The strike will take place on Tuesday, November 26, according to a letter that hospital administrators sent to all faculty, staff, and students working in the hospital

on Thursday. UCMC was given notice of the strike on Thursday, said the letter, from UCMC president Sharon O’Keefe and dean and executive vice president of medical afCONTINUED ON PG. 3

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“Management has proposed eliminating [critical] patient care,” one nurse said.

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fairs Dr. Kenneth S. Polonsky.

UCMC nurse and NNU member Pam Valentine said the strike is expected to last one day.

The announcement of the strike comes on the heels of a one-day strike that nurses held in September, protesting unsafe working conditions they claim were due to understaffing and the administration’s unresponsiveness to workers’ complaints.

Nurses have been negotiating with the University since their last contract expired in April this year.

During the September strike, UCMC bypassed all ambulances, closed units, and transferred patients to nearby hospitals.

Hospital administrators said in Thursday’s

letter that similar preparations for the upcoming strike are forthcoming.

“We are extremely disappointed by the Union’s decision to strike, as we did not want another walkout and have been working earnestly at the negotiating table to reach an agreement,” hospital administrators said in the letter.

Valentine said nurses are striking because UCMC administrators want to replace an existing 24-person nursing support staff with a newly hired nine-person intravenous therapy team. The 24-person team would be dispersed to fill current nursing roles at the UCMC. Valentine told The Maroon that the nursing support team can perform a variety of tasks, including discharging patients,

giving medicine, assisting with bedside tasks, and taking patients to tests. On the other hand, the proposed intravenous therapy team would only insert needles for intravenous therapy.

Valentine says that this move will not sufficiently address ongoing complaints of understaffing, and that getting rid of nursing support staff will make nursing more difficult. “[W]e are going on strike because management has proposed eliminating the critically needed patient care support nurse role,” NNU organizer Marti Smith said in an emailed statement to The Maroon.

Hospital administrators said in Thursday’s letter that the “UCMC offered significant compromises on many key issues

during bargaining sessions on November 7 and 11, and invited the Union to work with us. [Thursday], the Union rejected all of the compromises that UCMC had offered on major issues and gave us a proposal reinforcing its inflexible demands.”

The NNU says they will continue negotiating with UCMC during the strike. Valentine said the UCMC “still hasn’t come up with a contract the nurses feel they can live with.” In their letter, hospital administrators also expressed the UCMC’s intention to continue negotiations, saying that the NNU and UCMC have scheduled meetings on November 26, December 11, and December 18.

Chicago Grad Student Unions Rally Against Labor Board

By ALEXIS FLORENCE News Reporter Graduate students from universities throughout Chicago protested on Thursday against the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) proposal to exclude graduate student teachers and teaching assistants from federal labor protections, yet regardless of the decision outcome, students pledge to further apply pressure concerning labor rights on university administrators.

On the solidarity between graduate student union organizers at different universities, Graduate Students United (GSU) Co-President for Bargaining Claudio Gonzales told The Maroon, “It’s critical, I think it’s the answer to the fact that this effort to take away our rights goes across the country. These people are coming together to recognize that we’re all in this fight together.”

Students from UChicago GSU, Northwestern Grad Workers, University of Illinois at Chicago Graduate Employee Organization, and Loyola University Chicago (LUC) Worker Coalition marched at Dirksen Federal Building as part of their efforts in opposing the NLRB’s proposed rulemaking and to get their respective university administrations to engage in collective bargaining for students who perform various tasks for the universities, including teaching classes and working as teaching

assistants.

The Chicago area graduate students’ protest was one of several national protests organized by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Academics, the higher education division of the AFT, over the NLRB decision.

The NLRB posted a notice of proposed policy changes in late September. The notice said, “The proposed rule would exempt from the NLRB’s jurisdiction undergraduate and graduate students who perform services for financial compensation in connection with their studies.”

A month later, the NLRB extended the public comment process required by the rulemaking process, allowing comments to be submitted until December 16, ahead of the NLRB’s decision.

Many graduate students who attended the protest are confident that regardless of the NLRB’s decision they will be able to continue applying pressure to university administrations to create better working conditions for graduate students.

Alec Stubbs, a fourth-year Ph.D. student at Loyola, commented on the progress of the LUC Worker Coalition, which recently delivered a petition with over 400 signatures to Loyola’s dean of the College of Arts and Sciences asking for the administration to bargain with graduate students prior to the NLRB rule change.

“If the rule change does go through, it’s

GSU Co-President Claudio Gonzales. alexis florence not going to change the way we function,” Stubbs told The Maroon. “If anything, it’s just going to spark our graduate workers to continue to push back against this because when they go to work every day, they see what they’re doing as work.”

Laura Colaneri of UChicago GSU commented that they noticed certain changes by the UChicago administration during summer quarter, including pay raises and offices for course assistants in certain graduate departments following the strike of graduate students last June on campus.

“What we can do moving forward regardless of the NLRB is [fight] for those issues where we’ve seen they can make concessions; they can do things to us even if they continue to refuse to recognize it

officially, so fighting for those issues-based things the next few months [is] where we’re gonna be wanting to put a lot of our energy,” Colaneri said.

Benjamin Zucker, membership coordinator for Northwestern Grad Workers, mentioned that the group has been able to press their administration to remove international student fees and implement changes to mental health care policies, and that regardless of the NLRB’s decision, the group will continue to advocate for policies like guaranteed six-year funding for graduate students.

“If the regulation does pass, we will continue with these issue-based campaigns and we will be able to do them as effectively as before,” Zucker said.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — NOVEMBER 20, 2019

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Protestors? “Terrorists.” Carrie Lam? “A Sinner for a Thousand Years.”

By ALEXIS FLORENCE and BRAD SUBRAMANIAM News Staff Protestors and government officials both came under harsh criticism at a UChicago symposium on the ongoing Hong Kong protests Monday, with one speaker calling mainland China “complete lawlessness” and another claiming student protesters are building an “arsenal” on university grounds.

The discussion was moderated by UChicago political science professor Dali Yang, and organized by undergraduate students

from Hong Kong in partnership with the Center for East Asian Studies. Panelists analyzed past events which led to the current turmoil in the city, debated criticisms of both the pro-democracy movement and Hong Kong government’s actions, and discussed police brutality.

The recent student protests come after the death of Hong Kong student Alex Chow on November 4, who fell off of a car park building during a police operation to clear the area. The death, which sparked protests at Hong Kong’s University of Science and Technology, quickly spread to other universities across the region such as Hong Kong

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Polytechnic University and The University of Hong Kong.

Over 1,000 arrests were made at the universities on Tuesday and 235 were injured after clashes between students, some of whom threw rocks and homemade petrol bombs, and police officers, who used rubber bullets, water cannons, and tear gas.

The uptick in violence at Hong Kong’s universities resulted in UChicago’s cancellation of its economics study abroad program on Monday, which was slated to begin during winter quarter at The University of Hong Kong.

The panel speakers expressed their concern for the ongoing violence from both the local police as well as protesters.

Victoria Hui, associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, said, “We are seeing a police-provoked escalation of violence. Once we have violence, it is easy to create a social distance because people feel like they have to defend themselves. Social distance then contributes to the process of dehumanization.”

Henry Ho, pro-Beijing founder of the One Country Two Systems Youth Forum think tank and former political assistant at Hong Kong’s Development Bureau, said that the protests needed to be more controlled in order to prevent further violence and that some students protesters ought to be viewed as terrorists.

“The university students [along] with some extremely violent protesters have turned that campus into an arsenal. I think it’s fair to say that they are becoming terrorists,” Ho said.

Ho argued that heightened police aggression was started by incitement and humiliation from protesters and the media.

“One of the reasons why police [have] become so violent is because at the beginning when the police were relatively restrained, they were called dogs and there was a lot of humiliation by the protesters and the internet. The media has really fueled this movement through hatred and through spreading fear and lies,” Ho said.

Emily Lau, a former chair of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong, argued that the protesters’ fears were justified concerning actions of the Communist Party in China.

Protesters are right to fear extradition, Lau said, because in mainland China the law “is whatever the Communist Party says,” Lau said.

In particular, Lau blamed the government’s response on Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam. “She allowed the whole thing to explode, and disappeared for weeks,” Lau said. “She is a sinner for a thousand years.”

Hui continued Lau’s criticisms of the chief executive, adding that Lam was acting under pressure from Beijing. “A higher force is essentially ordering the police to do whatever necessary to quell the protests,” Hui said. She added that before Lam withdrew the extradition bill, she met with officials from Beijing. “She is just a puppet,” Hui said.

Chu Kong Adrian Iu, a graduate student at UChicago, said he was pleased with the context discussed at the panel, but wished the presenters would have delved deeper into the future of Hong Kong and what will result from the protests.

Another UChicago student, who attended secondary school in Hong Kong and has family in the region, said that although he does not condone the violence, he understands why the protestors are lashing out.

The student wished to remain anonymous.

“I think the [violence comes from] an issue that’s been going on for decades, of a sense of lost identity, not having a feeling of control over your future, and then when you throw further uncertainty into the mix about the extradition bill, and not having any goodwill with mainland China, it seems like an almost inevitable conclusion to me that this was going to happen,” the student said.

Several members of Global Solidarity with Hong Kong - Chicago were present and echoed a similar sentiment regarding the source of violence. “With all the police brutality that’s been going on the past few months, I feel like Hong Kong really has no choice but to do something to escalate their voice to be heard by the city, to the officials, to the world, and to whoever would listen to them,” one member, who wished to remain anonymous, said.

Another member added that protests have been incited by violence from pro-Beijing mobs and companies. “These protesters aren’t just wrecking stores aimlessly.”

Despite the ongoing turmoil in the city, students still expressed their desire to return.

“Hong Kong is still home for me,” said the anonymous student.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — NOVEMBER 20, 2019

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Organizers Urge City-Council to Pass CBA Ordinance at Teach-In

By AVIVA WALDMAN Grey City Editor Community organizers with the Obama Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) Coalition held a teach-in on Saturday morning at the School of Social Service Administration to address the stymied progress of the CBA ordinance through City Council and the need for further activism. Members of Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) and UChicago Against Displacement presented the proposed legislation and discussed the importance of passing a CBA ordinance to residents of the South Side.

The CBA Coalition and the ordinance it advocates for are at the center of the fight over the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), slated to be built in Jackson Park, and over how it will affect the South Side community. The ordinance aims to prevent current residents from being displaced by rising property values by mandating affordable housing and ensuring more broadly that community members will benefit from the massive economic investment that will ac-

company the OPC’s construction.

The current CBA ordinance was introduced by aldermen Jeanette Taylor (20th Ward) and Leslie Hairston (Fifth Ward) in July. Taylor and Hairston’s wards cover the neighborhoods of Kenwood, Hyde Park, and Woodlawn, which will be primarily affected by the presence of the OPC. However, progress towards passing the legislation has stalled. Activists at the teach-in expressed frustration at City Council’s reluctance to pass the bill.

“We’re in these meetings with the Department of Housing,” STOP housing organizer Devondrick Jeffers said. “Their idea is to have something concrete and implemented by January. Our thing is that we have something concrete, it was introduced in July, what’s the hold-up? We can pass a CBA and still have this conversation.”

The central objective of the CBA legislation proposed by Hairston and Taylor, which the Coalition supports, is to mandate that 30 percent of any new developments within a two-mile radius of the OPC be set aside as affordable housing, affordability in this case defined as 30 percent or less of

monthly household income. Within that, some new rental units would be set aside for tenants with income levels between 30 percent and 80 percent of the average median income for the area.

In addition to affordable housing requirements, the CBA ordinance would create an anti-displacement task force made up of community members and stakeholders from the Obama Foundation, CBA Coalition, and University of Chicago.

The task force would oversee a community trust fund authorized to grant funds for home repairs, property tax relief, and other programs to support small businesses and workforce development.

The final important component of the CBA is the “first right to offer,” which would require landlords selling a building to notify a list of “qualified purchasers” determined by the housing commissioner first. This group would include tenants associations, community trusts, and land developers with a proven commitment to affordable housing; if one of these groups were to make an offer for the building that included a guarantee to maintain 30 per-

cent of units in the building as affordable housing, the owner would be required to consider the offer.

“This is about putting ownership in the community’s hands,” Jeffers said, adding that the CBA would also encourage the city to sell vacant land to community residents.

“If a working family wants to buy a cityowned lot, we’d rather you than somebody trying to make a zillion dollars.”

Residents who attended the teach-in expressed concern that not enough community members, especially in Woodlawn, were fully aware of and involved in advocacy for the CBA. The Coalition has encountered resistance to its activism from groups worried that placing too many restrictions on development would discourage potential South Side investors.

“When we say affordable housing people go up in arms thinking that we’re trying to recreate the projects,” Jeffers said.

“That’s not the case. We’re looking out for working families and folks who are making $30,000, who are struggling and paying more than 30 percent of their income just to have a place to lay their heads.”

After Eight Decades at Oriental Institute, Ancient Tablets Return to Iran

By ZEFF WORLEY News Reporter After more than 80 years in Hyde Park, almost 1,800 artifacts previously housed at the Oriental Institute (OI) were returned to Iran last month.

They are from a collection of tablets that would come to be known as the Persepolis Fortification Archive, which was unearthed by OI scholars in Iran during the 1930s and provided a wealth of information about an ancient Iranian empire.

The Associated Press reported in October that the Iranian government said online that the artifacts came back to Iran at the end of September, accompanied by University scholars. The OI confirmed the return to The Maroon in an email.

Named for the ancient city and cultural center of Persepolis, from which the tablets were excavated, the collection gave a detailed look at aspects of Achaemenid society, provided insight into an early empire centered in what is now Iran, and

The Oriental Institute. courtesy of the oriental institute influenced how scholars view Achaemenid art, language, and history.

According to the OI’s website, the Achaemenid Empire was the “largest of

the empires of the ancient Near East” and “extended from the Balkans and Egypt to India and Central Asia.” The empire collapsed in 330 B.C.E. after a Macedonian

invasion led by Alexander the Great, and Persepolis lay in ruins for over 2,000 years before the OI began the first major excavaCONTINUED ON PG. 6

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“While some news reports have suggested that the artifacts’ return qualifies as repatriation, the OI disputes the use of that term.”

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tion of the site.

The museum said in an email to The Maroon that the tablets illustrated the “support of the king and court, deployment of workers, practice of religion, the development of seal art, the interplay of languages, and more.”

While some news reports have suggested that the artifacts’ return qualifies as repatriation, the OI disputes the use of that term.

“In the world of cultural property and the museum sector, to say that cultural objects were ‘repatriated’ implies that a

museum had at one point in time claimed ownership over those objects but then relinquished that control to return them to their country of origin,” Kiersten Neumann, a curator and communications associate at the museum, wrote by email.

“In this situation, the Iranian government loaned the artifacts to the OI in 1936 for study and the OI has always had the intent of willingly returning them to Iran.”

Rutgers University law scholar Carol Roehrenbeck wrote in a 2010 article that “art repatriation generally refers to the return of cultural objects to their country of origin,” and that “restitution” is defined as

giving an object back to the person or entity who owned it originally. Roehrenbeck does not tie “repatriation” in and of itself to ownership.

In an emailed statement, the museum said that 110 of the returned artifacts are currently on display at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran.

The collection itself has made headlines in the past.

In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sided with the OI in a case where victims of a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, which the defendants had alleged was funded by Iran, sought compensation

for damages through repossession of the museum’s collection of Iranian artifacts.

The victims had been earlier awarded $71.5 million in the lawsuit, but Iran did not pay, which spurred them to sue for the artifacts.

The Maroon reported at the time that shortly after the court’s decision, the OI announced that it had begun talks to return the Persepolis Collection to Iran.

In 2018, the OI helped return a fragment of a carved soldier to Iran, from the same archeological dig in the 1930s, that had ended up at an auction block in New York.

Midway Plaisance Advisory Council Reelects Incumbents

By LAURA GERSONY Grey City Reporter Members of the Midway Plaisance Advisory Council (MPAC) voted to never make a statement on the Obama Presidential Center and reelected all of its incumbent officers at a heated meeting last Wednesday.

Since 2015, MPAC has been involved in incorporating the community in the Midway’s physical upkeep and has organized activities including trash cleanups and tulip bulb–planting. Recently, MPAC has become a hub for debate about the hotly contested Obama Presidential Center (OPC), which is slated to be built in neighboring Jackson Park.

To compensate for lost park space in Jackson Park caused by the OPC’s construction, the City of Chicago has proposed that recreational space be built on the easternmost portion of the Midway. Plans for this additional green space are not finalized and currently undergoing federal review.

After October’s MPAC meeting drew a packed house, this month’s meeting was held in the Washington Park Refectory instead of the Midway Field House.

As soon as the meeting was called to order, Mary Anton, a candidate for treasurer and supporter of the OPC who recently opposed an anti–OPC demonstration by cutting down ribbons that protestors had

tied around trees threatened by the OPC, raised a motion to suspend the regular agenda and hold the officer elections immediately. Her motion at the meeting incited debate and pushback among other attendees.

Anton later proposed a second motion for the vote to be postponed until the following month. She alleged voters were suppressed, citing the leadership board’s mishandling of membership forms and dissemination of election information that she viewed as misleading. A handful of members voiced support for Anton’s claims, but many attendees expressed audible doubt and frustration at her allegations. “They’re delaying the election, let’s go,” one member said. “We’re not stupid,” another attendee said. Both of Anton’s motions failed.

Elisabeth Moyer, a longtime MPAC member and an associate professor of geophysical sciences at UChicago, addressed the underlying source of tension in the room. “The community is fighting a proxy war over the Obama Center through this PAC,” she said.

Moyer then proposed a motion that MPAC “would make no statement about the Obama Center, ever.” The members voted to pass her motion.

Moyer said later in an interview that MPAC’s recent rise in attendance is due to community fears related to the OPC. “The

reason people are showing up is [that] they are afraid that the PAC will come out with a statement that purports to be the voice of the community that’s not what they believe,” she said.

She also expressed her frustration with MPAC’s recent politicization, which she sees as inhibiting its normal operation.

“People’s feelings about the Obama Center are getting in the way of doing all kinds of useful things that the community actually needs,” she said. “We have serious infrastructure issues. We have educational disparities. We have connections that could be made between communities. And we’re spending all our time fighting about who gets the floor to make a political statement about something. It’s just nuts.”

Stephanie Franklin, president of the Nichols Park Advisory Council (NPAC) and a park activist since 1986, feels otherwise about MPAC’s decision to remain silent on the OPC. Unlike MPAC, NPAC has been outspoken about issues relating to the OPC, releasing a statement in 2017 that said, “Parks are not vacant land awaiting development; they are instead valuable assets for rejuvenation of the human spirit.”

In the statement, NPAC urged the City to revise its plans for the area, which included an OPC parking garage on the Midway and Tiger Woods’s proposal to upgrade the golf course in Jackson Park. “We question whether these plans, as currently pre-

sented, will do more harm to this historic park than they will do to actually spur economic development,” the statement writes.

Franklin voted against the motion for MPAC not to comment on the OPC. “The issue is too important to all of us to try to silence us,” Franklin said.

Voting, which was scheduled to begin at 7:35 p.m., got underway at 8:18 p.m., with 12 minutes remaining in the two-hourlong meeting. All three incumbent officers were reelected for another one-year term, including Bronwyn Nichols Lodato as president, Donald McGruder as vice president, and Radiah Smith-Donald as secretary-treasurer.

“People seek out the public forum that they can find to express themselves,” Lodato said regarding Moyer’s comment that MPAC meetings had become a proxy war for the OPC. “As a PAC, we don’t limit against that, but we do try to keep people focused on the Midway itself.”

However, she also stressed the interconnectedness of the Midway with other local parks, noting that federal reviews relating to the OPC could affect the Midway as well. “We work very hard to make sure that the PAC, if nothing else, is informed about not just what’s happening in the Midway, but other things that are happening around the Midway that could impact it.”

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ARTS Bringing Mexican Mid-century Modernism to the Fore

By MILES FRANKLIN Arts Reporter For those not well-versed in the history of design, mid-century modernism carries associations with places like Germany, Sweden, and Southern California, but the link between modernism and Mexico is less obvious. The Art Institute of Chicago’s exhibition In a Cloud, in a Wall, in a Chair: Six Modernists in Mexico at Midcentury seeks to change that. By showcasing the works of six artists (Clara Porset, Ruth Asawa, Cynthia Sargent, Sheila Hicks, Anni Albers, and Lola Álvarez Bravo) who lived or worked in Mexico between 1940 and 1970, this exhibition encourages conversation around Mexico’s contributions to modernism by locating the commonalities between these artists.

The exhibition takes its name from a quote by Clara Porset, who immigrated to Mexico in 1935 as an exile from Cuba.

During her 1952 exhibition, Art In Daily Life, Porset declared, “There is design in everything...in a cloud, in a wall, in a chair, in the sea, in the sand, in a pot.” Along with the other artists on display, Porset was working at a crucial time in Mexico’s design history, a time when the Mexican government was working to establish a recognizable and cohesive design identity.

Combining traditional Mexican craft methods with newer, technologically driven techniques, Porset took her vision to the public, using furniture to express the daily lives of Mexicans. Porset’s lounge chair, for example, was conceived in the 1950s and was used for decades at Acapulco’s famed Pierre Mundo Imperial hotel. One of Porset’s most famous works, the Butaque chair, infused new life into a traditional Latin American design by incorporating materials such as plant fibers and leather which made the chair suited to Mexico’s different climates. In line with the modernist ideals of the time, Porset also worked to ensure that her versions of the Butaque chair were mass-producible and affordable.

In contrast to Porset, the works of Ruth Asawa were not primarily functional, but rather overtly sculptural. Like several of the other artists exhibited at the Art Institute, Asawa spent her formative years at Black

Mountain College in North Carolina, where she initially began exploring looped wire as a means of creating minimalistic, organic forms. It was only after her move to Mexico that Asawa learned her defining crochet loop technique, initially employed for the creation of egg baskets, but later used to produce wire sculptures. Reminiscent of the movement of water or even a spider’s web, these looped-wire sculptures can be seen hanging from the ceilings of many museums and public spaces, notably the new Whitney Museum in New York.

Moving on, Cynthia Sargent came into Mexico’s art and design scene in the 1960s after moving away from New York with her husband and artistic collaborator Wendell Riggs. Creating rugs with colorful, flowing, asymmetrical motifs, Sargent aimed to elevate tried and tested Mexican design practices, even contributing some pieces to Porset’s Art In Daily Life. Known also for her business savvy, Sargent founded the Bazaar Sábado in 1960, a weekend place of commerce still in operation, showcasing the works of artists of many places of origin. Sargent and Riggs also worked together to form the eponymous Riggs-Sargent, a company that created scalable lines of fabrics favored among the Mexican elite. As may be obvious in her work, Sargent’s asymmetrical motifs often evoke musical rhythms and were even given titles which referenced the names of famous European composers, a move that helped her gain favor with clients who considered themselves to be worldly.

The show also features the works of Sheila Hicks, another notable name in Mexico’s midcentury scene. Feeling a connection to Mexico’s strong lineage of weaving, Hicks sought to deconstruct her own pieces to reveal the many parts and individual threads, often pulling apart the threads at the center of each work to allow light to pass through. “Any good weaver would look at this and say, I don’t think this lady knows how to weave,” she said. In Hicks’s works, then, it is the means rather than the end — the act of weaving rather than the product woven—that is central to the work.

Anni Albers, meanwhile, was a student of the revered Bauhaus, now synonymous with functional modernism, visual

Colorful and asymmetrical motifs abound on Cynthia Sargent’s rugs. miles franklin restraint, and abstraction. Having fled to the United States in 1933, Anni and her husband Josef Albers began teaching at Black Mountain College in North Carolina where she met Porset. Having grown fond of Mexico through Porset, the Alberses visited Mexico several times throughout the 1960s, contributing much to its abstract modern design scene. Notably, Albers realized that the abstract forms and patterns that she adored and created had existed well before her time in Indigenous Mexican and American weaving. Inspired by this history, Albers sought to combine the modern with the ancient in her designs, which were eventually mass produced and sold by Knoll throughout the 1970s.

Last but surely not least is Lola Álvarez Bravo, whose work stands out even among this distinguished group for both its medium and its message. Álvarez was a modernist in every conceivable meaning of the word: Working in photography throughout the 1950s, Álvarez sought to capture the energy and potential for modernization through photographs depicting Mexico’s industrialization. By collaging separate photographs into photomontages, Álvarez projected her socialist ideals while celebrating both the practical need for industrial modernization and the cultural need to retain Mexico’s longstanding and rich traditional

modes of production. Álvarez’s work is not only interesting in its expression of socialist and modernist Mexican thought, but also in its placement within the exhibition as a whole. The first thing one sees upon entering the double doors of the gallery is a floor-to-ceiling photomontage in landscape format, depicting industrialists hard at work in the 1950s.

These photomontages permeate the entire gallery, constantly contextualizing the work of each artist within the practical concerns of the time of their production, beautifully and thoughtfully synthesizing the idea of industry and production as art.

It is frankly remarkable to find that only one of the six artists on display was actually born in Mexico. The fact that five modernists between 1940 and 1970 fell so deeply in love with Mexico, its traditions, and their potential for modernist applications serves to highlight the injustice of marginalizing Mexico’s indelible impact on design during this period. Though long overdue, it is a step in the right direction to highlight the culturally and geographically specific contributions of these artists to the greater conversation of what it meant to be modern in 20th-century Mexico.

In a Cloud, in a Wall, in a Chair: Six Modernists in Mexico at Midcentury is on view until January 12, 2020 in the Modern Wing.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — NOVEMBER 20, 2019

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Arting Around: Week Eight

By ARTS EDITORS Wednesday, November 20 Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex Court Theatre, 7:30 p.m., free with UChicago ArtsPass Join Court Theatre on their exploration of the Oedipus Trilogy and the

questions of identity, fate, and free will that it poses with the first of three installments: Sophocles’s seminal Oedipus Rex.

Take a break from Week Eight struggles and hang out with some student artists over cookies and tea at the Festival of the Arts’ fall quarter showcase.

FOTA presents: Twilight Tea Reynolds Club, McCormick Lounge, 7 p.m., free

Thursday, November 21 In Response: Sampada Aranke Logan Center, Terrace Seminar Room, 6 p.m., free Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute Sampada Aranke responds to Camille Norment’s harrowing sound project at the Logan Center, Untitled (red flame).

Friday, November 22 UChicago Presents: Craig Taborn & Kris Davis Logan Center, Performance Hall, 7:30 p.m., $10 Students Spend an ethereal, propulsive evening with pianists Taborn and Davis as they perform rich improvisations on original compositions as well as some

by Clara Bley and Sun Ra.

Feel like your Week 8 is in freefall? Le Vorris and Vox has you covered. alexandra nisenoff

Anna Martine Whitehead: Notes on Territory Green Line Performing Arts Center, 329 E. Garfield Blvd., 7–9:45 p.m., free What is the nature of freedom? What is the prison? Join choreographer Anna Martine Whitehead and the Human

Rights Lab for a performance and panel about traditions of liberation practices.

Saturday, November 23 Middle East Music Ensemble: The Turkish Concert Logan Center, Performance Hall, 7 p.m., $5 Students From Black Sea Folklore to Ottoman classical court music, Wanees Zarour leads the Middle East Music Ensemble through a richly packed program for their annual Turkish Concert.

Le Vorris & Vox: Fall Circus Logan Center, Room 701, 7:30 p.m., free Secretly planning to drop out and join the circus? Come to the LV&V showcase for a taste of what might be in store for you, including acrobatics, aerial silks, staff spinning, juggling, and more!

Monday, November 25 73rd Annual Latke Hamantash Debate Mandel Hall, 7 p.m. Complimentary tickets for student entry The oldest debate of its kind, join UChicago Hillel in a debate on the environmental pros and cons of the latke and hamantash. Then, decide for yourself the superior flavor.

From Svalbard to Lebanon

By ADRIAN RUCKER Arts Reporter “Do you think humans are evil?” a scientist asks a priest as they overlook the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, dotted with colorful houses in an otherwise bleak and mountainous landscape.

“I believe in humans,” the priest replies simply. They discuss a recent polar bear sighting, British parliamentarians, and a 32 centimeter–tall weed that sprung up next to the church and was promptly plucked by the governor.

In 2012, the Syrian Civil War forced the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) to move from Aleppo to Beirut, prompting the Svalbard Global Seed Vault to fa-

cilitate its first ever withdrawal of seeds.

This event, heralded by some as the first horseman of a coming apocalypse, sparked the inspiration behind Jumana Manna’s excellent film, Wild Relatives, screened at the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society on November 13, followed by a discussion with Manna herself.

Located on an island deep in the Arctic circle, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a cooperative project by the Norwegian Government, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, the Global Crop Diversity Trust, and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center, among others. The vault stores copies of seeds from around the world to preserve their biodiversity in the event

of a global crisis. As a vault administrator jokes in Manna’s film, they are planning for a future that they hope never occurs.

Before the film, Manna showed a series of striking photos of the two million–strong insurrection and general strike, now in its fourth week. One particularly poignant sign outside of an encampment read in Arabic, “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.”

The film follows the journey of these seeds from Syria to Norway to Lebanon.

However, the events themselves take a backseat as the film explores how humans forge and preserve relationships with each other and the environment during times of geopolitical tension.

Much of the runtime is filled with gorgeous landscape sequences and scenes of intimate socialization, but Manna ultimately situates this presentation in the context of liberation struggles.

Some of the most powerful moments include when the film follows Lebanese farm workers employed by ICARDA, all of whom are female. Two of them share a cigarette in a greenhouse, teasing a coworker who doesn’t smoke, seemingly unaware of the massive political implications of their labor. Much of Wild Relatives’s message emerges through subtle and surprisingly sweet moments like this. There is little discussion of how the seed vault works, its scientific and social importance, or even the conseCONTINUED ON PG. 9

THE CHICAGO MAROON — NOVEMBER 20, 2019

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“...the film treats us to a gorgeous, introspective study of resilience and solidarity.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 8

quences of the conflict that it aims to mitigate. Instead, the film treats us to a gorgeous, introspective study of resilience and solidarity.

Following the film came a question-and-answer session with Manna.

One question focused on the water politics involved in exacerbating the crisis in Syria. Although Manna was skeptical of pinning all responsibility for the civil war on climate change–induced drought, she did emphasize that control over local food systems is essential for political autonomy. In light of this, the Svalbard Vault can be conceptualized as a potential tool for corporate and colonial power, though Manna was careful to qualify these claims by stipulating that the vault is genuinely important in maintaining global food security in the face of unprecedented environmental degradation.

Wild Relatives explores how humans forge and preserve relationships with each other and the environment during times of geopolitical tension. courtesy jumana manna

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The University of Chicago has changed its requirements for the Dean’s List and will begin awarding Latin honors as of the 2019— 20 school year. Surprised? You’re not alone. The administration did not announce the changes—the student body wasn’t notified, and moreover, three faculty members I reached out to said they were not notified as well, nor did the University publish a press release.

Instead, they updated the College Catalog. This lack of communication reflects as poorly on the administration as do the changes themselves, which are neither consistent with the honors policies of other top universities nor, more importantly, in the best interests of students’ already challenged mental health.

Despite the lack of communication, some might attempt to justify the changes by arguing that the University wanted its awards to be equivalent to those of its peer institutions. However, that cannot be the case—these changes simply don’t have that effect. Yale, Harvard, and Stanford, among many other universities, do not have Dean’s Lists. As for Latin honors, Stanford does not have them. Though Yale and Harvard do, following these schools’ lead isn’t nearly a strong enough reason to create such a system at UChicago.

Since the 1995—96 school year (the oldest archived College Catalog on the College’s website), students with a GPA of 3.25 or higher have been eligible for the Dean’s List, an honor that typically commends students for excellent academic performance in a given year. As of 2019—20, however, the honor will go only to the top 20 percent of students.

Because UChicago does not

release GPA data (individually or in aggregate), it is unclear if this change alters the group of students eligible for the Dean’s List.

However, the 3.25 threshold was remarkably lower than that of similar colleges with Dean’s Lists (Columbia’s is 3.6, for example), and the University may have felt, as Harvard did in 2001, that too many students were eligible. If this is true and the change does increase the threshold, students’ futures could be seriously affected. A student who maintains the grades that would have made them eligible for the Dean’s List in the past risks being unable to make the cut under the new standards. This is important because potential employers, who may use the Dean’s List as an easy metric to gauge the quality of a student without deeply reviewing their resume, will not necessarily know about the change in eligibility standards. They will simply see a student who could no longer make the Dean’s List.

In the past, students could see if their GPA met the 3.25 threshold if they wanted to determine their eligibility for the Dean’s List.

However, with the shift to a percentage cutoff, such determination becomes impossible: As previously noted, the University does not publish percentage rankings or students’ GPAs (individually or in aggregate), so students neither know their percent-rank before the Dean’s List is announced, nor can they use historic percentage and GPA data to determine which percentile their GPA might fall into.

Why is it important for students to be able to self-assess whether or not they make the Dean’s List? Because I predict that not having a clear GPA cutoff will make students even more preoccupied with grades than they

already are, and will cause them to struggle with more stress and uncertainty than they currently face. Given that University-provided mental health resources continue to be subpar, there’s no reason UChicago needs to add any extra stress to students’ plates.

The College Catalog also states another change: for the first time since the school’s founding in 1890, students whose cumulative GPA places them in the top 25 percent, 15 percent, and eight percent of students by major over the past five years are eligible for Latin honors—cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude, respectively. According to the catalog, candidates for magna and summa cum laude will be evaluated by a College committee who will consider each student’s “broad engagement with the curriculum by, for example, promoting students who have taken graduate courses, taking [sic] multiple majors, attempting [sic] courses across divisional boundaries, taking [sic] extra courses, and completing [sic] minors.” Students eligible for summa cum laude will be evaluated even more closely for the “breadth and depth of [their] engagement with the curriculum outside of their primary major.”

As laid out by the Catalog, Latin honors will reward students for prioritizing academics over every other aspect of their lives—a disturbing prospect given how seriously I predict UChicago students will take the new awards. Students who care about these honors (and many will) will choose the highest-possible course load to maximize the “breadth and depth of [their] engagement with the curriculum outside of their primary major.” Instead of making new friends, exploring the city of Chicago, or enriching their lives continued ON pg. 11

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“I hope that students will not place too much weight on superficial awards,” continued from pg. 10

with other extracurricular experiences, students will tack on an extra major, make space for a minor, and sequester themselves in libraries and in their rooms.

In my year and a quarter at this school, I have searched for interpersonal connection and have cried when unable to find it. I have stayed up past midnight trying to balance a rigorous academic cal-

endar and commitments to new RSOs, have become schedule-obsessed only to realize how terrible that is for my mental health. I am lucky enough to have found wonderful friends in my house; yet, at times, I have still felt isolated, sad, frustrated, like I am fighting to create and maintain friendships with people from classes and RSOs. I know that many of my peers have also felt this way.

If this is our experience with UChicago’s academic rigor before these honors, what do we see in the future? Once students realize (and they soon will) that further-intensified academic calendars will increase their chances of being awarded Latin honors, I can only imagine that intellectual passion and social interaction will vanish, replaced with pursuit of “broad engagement with the cur-

riculum.”

Given the overall negative impact on students’ lives, I have to wonder: Why did the University make these new cutoffs and honors? Why now? What do they hope to gain? University administrators should openly announce the changes, explain their motivations, and own up to the issue the changes create for their students.

In the meantime, I hope that stu-

dents will not place too much weight on superficial awards, but will take time away from academics to be with friends, watch a movie, draw, read (not for a class!), and engage with one another in fulfilling, meaningful ways.

Elizabeth Winkler is a second-year in the College.

Alone in Loneliness...or Not?

By GAGE GRAMLICK It’s eighth week, and I just ate by myself for the first time. As a deeply indoctrinated Lutheran-adjacent Midwesterner, I tend to view every second spent alone as a second wasted. From eating at my house table, to constantly texting my friend group chat, to,

in desperate times, soliciting myself to random people at Bartlett to avoid the desolate booth seats, I am deeply afraid of solitude. I worry that my own, unfiltered thoughts will end up creating a feedback loop of self-pity. And yet, despite sometimes feeling alone in my loneliness, it seems that loneliness is a rite of passage for

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many UChicago freshmen. A walk through the Reg, where everyone seems to be alone in a crowd, is proof enough. Despite the pervasive feelings of loneliness plaguing the UChicago student body, many students handle their loneliness in ways that are not only ineffective, but also indicative of a fundamental misunderstanding of what loneliness is. Indeed, I’ve learned over the past few months at UChicago that one key secret to overcoming loneliness is, somewhat counterintuitively, spending more time alone.

The UChicago Secrets page provides a rare glimpse into the collective struggle of first-years.

For the most part, loneliness is a taboo topic, but the Secrets page teems with students’ confessions about being unable to make friends or make the right friends.

UChicago Secrets is a modernized confessional, a place for anonymous catharsis, operating under the collective agreement that the themes discussed are fundamentally embarrassing.

The people who post about loneliness on Secrets want support but don’t want others to know their names, to know that they’re lonely. And who can blame them?

We think that the lonelier we look, the lonelier we become. If people know I’m lonely, they’ll think I’m lonely because of some deep personality flaws, then they won’t want to

be friends with me and I’ll be even lonelier. It’s a self-perpetuating social anxiety. So, we pretend we’re not lonely. We post pictures of our O-Week acquaintances, laugh at and pity the people who write the confessions, and we pretend. We pretend we’re fine. The problem is, pretending we’re never lonely makes it seem like no one is lonely. It makes us feel like we’re the only one who feels this way. In some ways, UChicago first-years seem to be set up for loneliness.

Being transplanted into a new environment can be disorienting enough, but paired with UChicago’s infamous grind culture that leaves students with little time or mental energy to reflect, we’re left with few opportunities to process these major changes.

This welcome party of work-tillyou-drop extremists leaves the freshman class plagued by a feeling of disconnect, one that can remain throughout our college career. This isn’t to say we aren’t making friends. We are. Yet still, despite having friends, a lot of us still feel lonely. Why? The reason has a lot to do with what loneliness really is.

Like many first-years, my Google search history is questionable. Beyond the obvious, though, is one particularly sad-boi search: “What is loneliness?” As it turns out, I’m not the first UChicago student to wonder this. The third

Google result was an article from UChicago Medicine examining the technical elements of loneliness in the context of Valentine’s Day. Sad stuff. What struck me is that the article didn’t just explain loneliness as the state of being alone. Rather, it described loneliness as “a state of mind characterized by a dissociation between what an individual wants or expects from a relationship and what that individual experiences in that relationship.”

Basically, we feel lonely when we’re disappointed with our relationships. That makes so much sense. All of our lives, we’re told that college is the place where we’ll meet our best friends, fall in love, etc. Our expectations couldn’t be higher. When we actually get here, though, reality sets in. We miss our old friends, our communities, comfort. It takes time to develop relationships from which we can expect what we really need.

However, just because college is so often a time of change and turbulence, doesn’t mean we have to feel so lonely. First, we can start by destigmatizing loneliness. Be open, be chill. Talk about feeling lonely—no one will judge you. You’ll find that people might even commiserate with you, making you feel less alone in your loneliness. Moreover, the continued ON pg. 12

the chicago maroon — November 20, 2019

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“One of the most effective ways to combat loneliness is to be alone.” continued from pg. 11

UChicago Medicine article encourages us to be mindful about gratitude and just generally be more positive to stave off feelings of loneliness. Finally, and somewhat counterintuitively, the article suggests that one of the most effective ways to combat loneliness is to be alone. I realized this week that I hadn’t really spent more than a few minutes alone since I got here. I hadn’t given myself space to reflect on what I expect from my interactions with others and to check in with myself.

As it turns out, I’m not alone. In her article, “Spending Time Alone: A Surprising Cure for Loneliness?”, Taylor Bennett points to licensed marriage and family therapist Laura Carr, who finds the root problem of loneliness to be a feeling of insecurity about oneself. “People who are chronically lonely are disconnected,” Carr finds. “They believe that they are flawed in some way. They are looking for connection outside of themselves, but others will ALWAYS fail them because no one can meet that need. It is unmeetable by others.”

Carr goes on to say that in order to feel

socially fulfilled, our sense of self-actualization must come from inside; before we can be okay with our relationships with others, we have to be okay with our relationship with ourselves. This isn’t to say that being alone in itself will make you feel connected. Indeed, on its own, it won’t. Rather, we need to use alone time as a tool to develop confident identities and process our relationships.

What does this all mean for UChicago students? For one, it means we need to learn to be truly alone: no friends, no work. Go on a lunch date, party of one. Hit up a dining hall or walk to the Point; be by yourself and think about your life. It’s not magic. Your loneliness won’t disappear, but it will force you to process the insanity of the first few months of school (or, for non-first-years, the insanity of life in general) and, in so doing, will help you both evaluate and create realistic expectations for your relationships.

As I sit at this barren Bartlett booth, staring at my computer like some Gen Z trope, I find that the quiet is nice. It’s hard not to be surrounded by people, but I can tell this alone time is good for me. And I

SUHA CHANG don’t feel lonely, even though I expected to. If anything, I feel more connected. To myself, to my friends, and just in general.

My thoughts aren’t being filtered through others’ voices, and I’m free to examine my feelings about starting college, new friends,

class, etc. It’s hard to believe, but the best remedy for loneliness, especially first-year loneliness, is some good old-fashioned alone time.

Gage Gramlick is a first-year in the College.

Do Kurds Have Any Friends Other Than Mountains?

By XELEF BOTAN I am writing to the UChicago community because as members of one of the leading universities in the country, we can make a change by supporting efforts to stop the Turkish invasion of northern Syria and the ensuing ethnic cleansing and war crimes.

As a global institution, we have a responsibility to do something in the face of these brutal, unprovoked military occupations that make the world a more dangerous place for all. There are many actions the University can take to help improve the situation, or at least prevent further deterioration, such as suspending ties with the state institutions of Turkey, organizing panels on the topic, raising awareness, and making sure that the truth is spoken, since silence makes us complicit in the crimes being committed.

After a phone talk with President Erdoğan of Turkey on October 7, President Trump greenlit the long-planned invasion of northern Syria by Turkey and its proxy forces, an amalgamation of jihadists of all

stripes. Trump’s decision has been labeled by both Democrats and Republicans as an abandonment, betrayal, and backstabbing of the Kurds. The area, known as Rojava in Kurdish, which was until recently one of the most peaceful areas of Syria, turned into a warzone. Hundreds of civilians have died, and hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Kurds, have been forced to evacuate their homes or face terrible deaths during Turkish invasion.

The U.S. had originally wanted to work with Turkey to fight against ISIS, but did not find a willing partner in Turkey, as the country’s leadership didn’t see Islamic jihadism as that grave of a threat and was willing to turn a blind eye both towards foreign fighters entering Syria to fight against the Kurds and the Syrian regime that Turkey considered an enemy. Furthermore, Turkish leadership ultimately didn’t see ISIS and the foreign fighters flooding into Syria (40,000+ from 110+ countries) through the Turkish border as a threat.

Indeed, Brett McGurk, former presiden-

tial envoy for the coalition to fight ISIS, said that despite ISIS’s presence on Turkish borders, Turkey said it “couldn’t do it [close the border].” Members of ISIS were, in fact, treated as “soft” Turkish allies against the Kurds and the Assad regime.

Why did Turkish officials not feel threatened by ISIS’s presence on the country’s borders? Why did Turkey keep the borders open to the transfer of weapons and influx of jihadists, including 40,000 foreign fighters from 110 countries from all over the world? And why did it refuse to close the border area despite repeated requests from the U.S., but when the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) beat ISIS and took the areas along the Turkish border under its control, Turkey closed all of its borders at once and built the third-longest border wall in the world? This is no coincidence: The SDF never posed a credible threat to Turkey. American troops stationed on the border, witnessing the developments on the ground firsthand, attest to that fact, as do other U.S. government officials.

These conditions paved the way for the U.S.–Kurdish partnership against ISIS. Kurds were secular, well-organized, tolerant, and brave, and didn’t shy away from fighting ISIS and sacrificing so many lives, around 11,000, to protect themselves and provide security for the world at large. The SDF kept the pressure on ISIS and prevented them from carrying out attacks in the West, but now that they are under Turkish attack, they won’t be able to do that effectively. What led the United States to so readily partner with the Kurds? Turkey’s unwillingness to treat jihadists as a real danger and portrayal of the Kurds as worse “terrorists” than even ISIS enslavers, rapists, and murderers, coupled with the Kurds’ strong track record in fighting against ISIS, played a crucial role in the formation of the partnership between the Kurdish-led SDF and the U.S., as has been stated repeatedly by former and current U.S. government officials.

In a place like the Middle East, where continued ON pg. 13

the chicago maroon — November 20, 2019

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“The U.S. has a responsibility to provide these protections to Syrian Kurds.” continued from pg. 12

religious and ethnic tensions run high, radicalism of all kinds finds fertile ground to operate. Still, even there, the Kurds had built a pluralist democratic administration that put women and ecology at its center.

Even a quick skim of the Social Contract of Kurdish Rojava will demonstrate this: it is inclusive of all groups in the region; there is a 40 percent gender quota, guaranteeing fair representation of both sexes; it is secular; and it guarantees protection of all local languages and representation of minorities. The Kurds implemented a cochair system in which there needed to be a woman as cochair for all positions of power, guaranteeing equal power between sexes. They formed all-female police forces and put domestic abuse cases under their jurisdiction. They banned child marriages and polygamy. In short, they aspired to build an egalitarian, democratic, inclusive, and just society. The institutions they built in the midst of one of the most barbaric civil wars in history testify to this.

Importantly, the Kurdish experiment with self-rule in Syria, after many decades of oppression, dispossession, and statelessness, was perceived as a threat by Turkey.

From all I can observe, it appears that Turkey wanted to suffocate this experiment lest it set an example for Turkey’s own

restive Kurds, who have been reeling under Erdoğan’s heavy-handed oppression.

Indeed, in Turkey, Kurdish politicians are jailed, and those who speak Kurdish in western Turkish cities are lynched and killed on a regular basis. Opposing the war has been criminalized too. Turkey deems any manifestation of Kurdish autonomy as an existential threat.

If the U.S. were to pull its full weight and honor its statement that it will not accept its partners being destroyed and invaded by Turkey and their allied forces, the bloodshed would be stopped. If not that, then a no-fly zone over northern Syria under U.S. auspices would protect the people of Rojava from bombing by Turkish jets, as Turkish air attacks account for most of the casualties and damage. This no-fly zone is one of the main demands of the SDF leadership.

The U.S. has a responsibility to provide these protections to the Syrian Kurds. It is never too late to mend. Kurds should have more than just mountains as their friends.

The University can also take a stance against the Turkish invasion. UChicago administrators can review if they have any financial investments in Turkish companies that are supportive of or are involved in the invasion of northern Syria. And if they do have such ties, they should walk out of them. Moreover, using the highly regard-

HAYLEY PAGE ed Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the University should initiate a program to provide scholarships to bright students from northern Syria. It can task the Pozen Center for Human Rights with investigating the gross human rights violations and war crimes, which we see daily on the news, taking place in northern Syria. It can initiate a Kurdish language program or major option.

These are just some of the actions that the University can and should take, given the challenges Syrian Kurds currently face.

What we cannot do is to remain silent.

We owe it to ourselves to speak up for those whose voices are being drowned out and whose rights to life are being brutally taken away. Remember, as Martin Luther King once said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere in the world. Let’s do all we can to stop this injustice.

Xelef Botan has an A.M. from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UChicago

Flat Caps, Not Percentages: We Need a Sensible Honors System

By MAROON EDITORIAL BOARD With little fanfare, the administration recently made hefty edits to the honors section of the College Catalog, including a tightened Dean’s List, newly instituted Latin honors, and a slate of shiny new academic awards. The most significant change, affecting the largest number of students, is the new Dean’s List cutoff. Starting this June, the year-end accolade—formerly awarded to any College student with a GPA of 3.25 for courses taken over the previous year—will be restricted to the top 20 percent of students based on grades earned that year.

There’s good reason to be alarmed by the unannounced Dean’s List changes. In 2018, a whopping 74.8 percent of the graduating College class earned General Honors,

a label phased out under the new system but formerly given to students with cumulative GPAs of 3.25 or above.

If we assume that the percentage of fourth-years with overall GPAs over 3.25 is roughly equal to the proportion of students earning an equivalent GPA in a given year, then under the previous system, around three-quarters of students were on the Dean’s List each June. This would mean that over half of the student body who could formerly expect a congratulatory email from Dean Boyer at the start of summer will now be excluded from the list.

(A note: To get the 74.8 percent figure, we looked in the graduation program for 2018. There, 1,177 of the 1,573 total students in the Class of 2018 appear under “General Honors.” A corresponding General Honors list does not appear in the 2019 graduation

program—a signal of the distinction’s pending demise, perhaps?)

It’s almost certainly true that when the Dean’s List distinction was first instituted, the proportion of students who received it was much lower. In 1965, the average GPA at UChicago was just 2.50, according to research by Duke University professor Stuart Rojstaczer. Similarly, in 1971, only 31 percent of graduating students earned General Honors. By 1997, that figure had risen to around half of the graduating class.

If our estimate is right that the Dean’s List has grown to include around three-quarters of students each year, the University probably is justified in thinking that the 3.25 cutoff was too lenient. Our reservations with the new Dean’s List don’t stem from the College’s efforts to make it more selective. Ultimately, these acco-

lades—duly noted on resumes and graduate school applications—serve to shape outside institutions’ perceptions of the University.

We agree that it’s important for academic honors at UChicago to have weight in the real world, and that the current cutoff may be harming the respect with which the Dean’s List is viewed.

But there is a fairer way to make the Dean’s List more selective: simply raising the GPA cutoff, instead of tethering honors to an arbitrary 20 percent restriction.

As several students have argued, the percentage cap will very likely perpetuate cutthroat competition as students duel for the top GPA quintile.

Under the old system, the Dean’s List was useful not just as a pat on the back, but also because it served as a standard for continued ON pg. 14

the chicago maroon — November 20, 2019

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“But the 20 percent cap removes a tangible goal to which students can strive” The introduction of Latin honors, for example, is probably a net positive, since it helps students who would genuinely benefit from including magna or summa cum laude on their applications to graduate and professional schools. Ensuring that Latin honors are spread evenly across majors is also a smart move, since it acknowledges potential grade disparities across disciplines.

Again, however, we’d be in favor of GPA cutoffs rather than percentile restrictions for these awards—as at the University of Pennsylvania, but with cutoffs determined by the departments.

We’re also supportive of the new Harper Awards’ intent, which is to spotlight intellectual curiosity and subject-specific work by recognizing “the deeply engaged, stellar student, independent of the grade they receive” in a given class.

However, with the dubious Robert Maynard Hutchins Scholars distinction, the University again misfires. The brand-new award will be given to the top 10 percent of second-years by cumulative GPA. Accord-

continued from pg. 13

what administration-sanctioned academic success here looked like. If in light of grade inflation in recent years, Dean Boyer’s office believes this measure should be higher than 3.25, then that is a perfectly valid assessment. But the 20 percent cap removes a tangible goal to which students can strive.

It will only perpetuate confusion and anxiety among students, who—having no idea what GPA should be achieved—must now grasp at perfection to ensure inclusion on the Dean’s List.

Who are those best served by the choice to base the Dean’s List on percentile ranking, rather than a higher GPA cutoff? The administration. With this switch, they have neatly avoided publicizing the extent of recent grade inflation at UChicago.

Even as the University has trimmed the percentage of students receiving awards, the types of showy labels students can display on their resumes have proliferated.

Parsing through the online catalog, we actually find some additions to appreciate.

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ing to the College Catalog, the award seeks “to honor students who have performed exceptionally in their core courses and introductory courses for their major.”

The criteria for this award are enormously misguided. For one, unlike Latin honors, the award isn’t distributed across declared majors (disadvantaging students whose departments require notoriously tough weed-out classes, like Organic Chemistry, the Economics 200s series, or the Computer Science 150s). Second, handing out accolades for straight-A’s in primarily Core classes undermines the very goal of the Core Curriculum itself.

The Core was designed to cultivate in underclassmen the ability to read critically, write clearly, and think systematically, and prepare them for college-level work— regardless of background. Commending perfection in the Core, rather than improvement over time, will almost certainly favor students from elite high schools where proofs and ancient philosophy are taught. Alternatively, it will reward stu-

14. Roughly 15. ___ Today 16. Common desiccant 17. Parts of a set 18. Sources of 5-Across 20. Mental pictures?

22. Bucking horse 23. Short moment 24. 5-Down’s place (Abbr.)

26. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of ___” (Matthew 19:24) 30. Alternative to sems.

32. Department of eastern France 34. ___ Thai 35. What the 62-Across are doing?

38. Subject of a recent Obama speech 39. Middle school science project 40. End on ___ note 41. ___ Ivanovic of WTA 42. Sharknado channel 44. What a tone-deaf person has 46. Minor complaint 48. Loser to DDE 50. Playwright Joe who

dents who neglect the reading-intensive Hum and Sosc sequences, or rigorous experiences like Honors Calculus, for more lightweight options.

Several students have already argued that UChicago should have consulted (or at the very least, informed!) the student body before instituting such significant academic changes. Clearly, the tightened Dean’s List and the new breadth of honors offered reflect the administration’s renewed commitment to eliteness and accolades—to identifying, lauding, and tracking students who excel academically.

But these changes must make sense; they should be reformed to discourage needless gaming of the system, and instead promote genuine intellectual engagement that does not breed unhealthy competition. For academic honors that are actually worthwhile, UChicago should go back to the drawing board. The administration must overcome its pride surrounding grade inflation, and put College students’ well-being ahead of institutional ego.

wrote “What the Butler Saw” 52. Type of woman’s shoe 54. Bad info to give out in a chat room 58. “Lemme tell it like it is” 59. Partner of Granma 60. Emacs alternative 61. Recuperate 62. Children’s character Judy (plural) 63. What comes before some royalty?

64. God with a bow Down 1. Cables 2. Like Core Bio for a Bio Topic 3. Reason for black bars on a TV screen 4. Cubs all-time home run leader 5. City near Lviv 6. Soot 7. Clothe 8. ___ Martin (luxury car) 9. Exams where you’re graded on speed 10. Baseball superteam of 1999

11. Try (for) 12. PDF-to-text technology 13. Max P authorities 19. Red-haired animal 21. Intervention for dementia 25. Stanford, e.g.

27. Cow owner, perhaps 28. Highway marker 29. Yellowstone beast 31. Beached 33. Machu Picchu resident 36. Gaming Google results (Abbr.)

37. Off-center, in a way 38. Pacific salmon 39. Soft, mushy food 43. “And?” 45. He shoulders quite a burden 47. Ships that have sailed?

49. What a leopard can’t change 51. ___ blue 53. Enervate 54. Car battery type 55. ___-Magnon 56. Confucian way 57. Location unknown (Abbr.)

THE CHICAGO MAROON — NOVEMBER 20, 2019

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The team experienced their best regular season in history...

CONTINUED FROM PG. 16

mindset and playing with a group that is so driven and relentless is so much fun,” third-year Katherine Wilson said.

“That’s a special group when you can bring people together who just respect each other so much and they celebrate each other’s successes...and when you get

to coach that every day, that’s pretty remarkable,” head coach Sharon Dingman said.

The 2019 Chicago volleyball season has certainly exceeded all expectations. The team experienced its best regular season in history with a final record of 28–4 that included a program-record 23-game win-

ning streak and the first-ever top national ranking. While the Maroons hope to build off this success, the team will return to 2020 without a trio of important fourthyears: All-Regional Madison Pearson, All–UAA Anne Marie Stifter, and former All–UAA Anabella Pinton. The program has grown immeasurably in their time in

Hyde Park, and their legacy will forever be remembered due in large part to this past season. In a season of firsts, the Chicago volleyball team proved that the lasting image of this team will be of determination, talent, and spirit—a magical combination that resulted in a magical season.

Womens Soccer Moves on in NCAA Division III Tournament

By DANIEL ZEA Sports Reporter The Maroon women’s soccer team began NCAA Division III Tournament play this weekend, kicking off the com-

petition at home with a pair of dominant victories over solid opponents.

Entering the tournament ranked no. 16 nationally with a record of 12–2–3, the Maroons proved why they deserve national praise, leaving the pitch Sunday

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Announcing

with a place in the Sweet 16. This year marks the 12th time the Maroons have reached that point in the tournament.

In the first round, the Maroons took on the Pitt-Greensburg Bobcats, winners of the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference. The Bobcats entered the match undefeated, but could not overcome a stifling Chicago defense, losing 5–0 on Saturday.

The Maroons’ offense was rolling from the first whistle, opening the scoring with a goal in the 17th minute from fourth-year midfielder Hanna Watkins.

Not slowing down, the Maroons scored again five minutes later in the 22nd, with second-year forward Nicole Kaspi capitalizing on a pass from fourth-year midfielder Rachel Dias. Chicago kept the pressure on until the end of the half, with second-year forward Nicole Willing scoring in the 44th to make the halftime score 3–0.

Dominating the second half as they did the first, the Maroons netted two more goals in the final 45 minutes for a final score of 5–0. Third-year midfielder Bri Fadden scored in the 68th, while second-year forward Nikola Charouzova added another in the 79th. Further illustrating the Maroons’ firm grip on the game, Chicago outshot Pitt-Greensburg 36–2 overall and 22–1 on goal. Thirdyear Miranda Malone and second-year Emma Smith combined for the shutout in goal.

Moving on to the second round on Sunday, the Maroons continued their excellent play against the Augsburg University Auggies, who entered the game with a record of 15–4–2. With another stellar offensive performance, the Maroons defeated Augsburg 4–1, moving on to the round of 16. Katie Jasminski

stated afterwards, “We came out really strong this weekend and dominated both of our games. It was definitely a great team effort.”

Just as they had against Pitt-Greensburg, the Maroons put the pressure on early, creating opportunities from start.

First-year midfielder Annie Mitchell was the first to take advantage, scoring in the 20th minute for the first goal of her UChicago career. Within the next three minutes, the Maroons added another, with Hanna Watkins scoring in the 23th for her team-leading 12th goal.

Piling on in the second half, Katie Jasminski picked up her second assist of the weekend, setting up fourth-year forward Adrianna Vera for the third goal of the game. While Augsburg netted a goal in the 80th, third-year midfielder Claudia Hodgetts quickly answered, taking advantage of a corner kick opportunity to make the score 4-1. Once again, Chicago outshot their opponent, this time 22–10 overall and 14–4 on goal.

Reflecting on the weekend, Jasminski conveyed she felt the team’s performance “sets [them] up really well for this coming weekend in the round of 16.” Not satisfied, however, she added, “We are going to keep building in practice this week and are super excited to face rematches against some teams we played earlier in the season.” The team will travel to St. Louis next weekend to face the no. 8 Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens, who dealt the Maroons a 1–0 loss in September. Chicago will look to avenge that loss on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — NOVEMBER 20, 2019

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SPORTS

Maroon Football Wins in Season Finale

By MIRANDA BURT Sports Reporter To finish off the season, UChicago football faced Lake Forest College for the fourth time in the past two seasons. The Maroons won the first meeting this season by 17 points at Stagg in September. It was a much colder afternoon for this kickoff compared to the last meeting; however, this chill did not cool down the offenses on their first drives of the game. The Foresters received the ball first and controlled the ball as they methodically moved their way down the field. Ultimately, the drive ended up in the endzone on a five-yard touchdown run with Lake Forest taking seven and a half minutes off the clock—a type of drive that could take the crowd out of the game if it is not responded to with a nice drive.

Luckily, UChicago responded similarly with a 13-play, 75-yard scoring drive giving their defense the time needed to rest for the upcoming Foresters’ drive. This rest gave the defense the time they needed to stop Lake Forest’s next drive to give the ball back to the productive Maroons offense. UChicago produced another long drive, using 14 plays to travel 75 yards into the end zone with fourth-year Dante Nepa hauling in the touchdown to take a 14–7 lead in the second quarter. However, the lead was short-lived

as Lake Forest took advantage of good field position to tie it at 14–14. It seemed likely that UChicago was going to go into halftime with the lead as the potent offense drove down the field, but fourth-year quarterback Marco Cobian was intercepted on the oneyard line right before halftime. Similarly, on the first drive of the third quarter, the Maroons’ offense was able to move the ball, but ultimately stalled in the red zone and turned the ball over on downs. After that, both offenses slowed down as punts dominated the third quarter resulting in a 14–14 tie going into the final quarter of the season.

Quickly the game as a competition was tilted on its head. The Foresters were driving near the red zone, but fourth-year linebacker Henry Winebrake forced a vital fumble to stop Lake Forest from taking the lead. Three plays later on offense, the Maroons scored on a 76-yard touchdown pass to retake the lead. On the ensuing kickoff, UChicago kicked a surprising squib kick that bounced off a Lake Forest player into first-year linebacker Matt Lynch’s hands.

On the very next play, the Maroons executed a perfect flea-flicker for a 38-yard touchdown increasing their lead, and in three plays turned a 14–14 game into a 28– 14 game. The Maroons were able to force another turnover on the next drive and

Quarterback Marco Cobian evades Lake Forest players. spencer gordon-sand put the game to bed with an 11-play touchdown drive. Lake Forest ultimately scored a consolation touchdown to make the final score 35–21. UChicago’s potent offense outgained Lake Forest by over 200 yards to cap a positive end to the season. The perfect gift in the last game on their collegiate career for the seniors was this victory. Ryan Montgomery, a third-year defensive back,

put it perfectly: “Our main focus going into the game was giving our seniors a win in the final game of their careers. They worked so hard, improving this program over the four years they were here, and deserved a win in their last game more than anything. Thankfully we were able to get it done and beat Lake Forest for the fourth time in the past two years in an exciting game.”

An Extraordinary Season for UChicago Volleyball

By ALISON GILL Sports Editor A historic season for the UChicago women’s volleyball team ended in a thrilling showdown over the weekend.

Hosting the NCAA Tournament for just the second time in program history, the team advanced to the program’s first ever Sweet 16, where they fell to the Carthage Lady Reds in five tightly contested sets.

The Maroons had previously defeated Carthage earlier in the season by a score of 3–1. In front of a raucous crowd at Ratner, the No. 2 Maroons and the No. 4 Lady Reds match up lived up to its billing as the teams played with an intensity and skill

more befitting a Final Four.

The Maroons took the first set by the narrowest of margins, 26–24. Tied at 16all, the Lady Reds strung together four quick points and led 24–20 before the Maroons won six straight points to win the set. The outside hitter tandem of second-year Temilade Adekoya and thirdyear Fredericka Paulson led the comeback effort with two kills apiece in this pivotal run. The grit and resilience of the team in the first set, where they faced four match points, defined the match as the Maroons fought until the bitter end.

The Carthage team then seized the momentum, winning the second and third sets. Carthage jumped out to a 10–3 lead

that they never relinquished. Each time the Maroons rallied, the Lady Reds responded and the early deficit proved too much to overcome. The Maroons came within a single point several times but a late hot streak allowed the visiting side to tie the match at one set apiece with a 25–21 victory. This hot streak continued on into the third set, where an early 9–1 lead resulted in a 25–17 set win for the Lady Reds.

In a pivotal fourth set, the Maroons pieced together another impressive comeback to keep their season alive. The Lady Reds again had an early lead, but the Maroons were able to trim the 11–4 lead to 11–9 with a 5–0 spurt and tie it all at 13–13.

While Carthage hung onto a 21–20 lead,

Chicago finished the set strong, winning the final five points to force the decisive fifth set.

And what a final set it was. The two teams undeniably left their all on their court, to slip into cliché. The teams traded points back and forth, and multiple points extended into long rallies as the teams attacked and returned over the net. The Maroons had a 12–11 edge, but the Lady Reds finished with the crucial four points to win the set and advance to the Elite Eight.

In the post-match interviews, the term “special” continually arose. “It’s a really special group...everybody having each other’s back, every point.… Having that CONTINUED ON PG. 15