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TRAVEL ORDER COVERS MOST OF THE U.S. BEFORE THANKSGIVING

DECEMBER 2, 2020 NINTH WEEK VOL. 133, ISSUE 10

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Mixed Feelings on LIFE Program Among First-Years

By HAMZA JILANI, ROSHI BALAN News Reporters

“It was…grungy and dusty.”

Students With COVID-19 Adjust to Isolation in Dorms PAGE 5

emeline wright

Week five of autumn quarter concluded the Living Intentionally to Flourish Everyday (LIFE) sequence, a four-week program focused on student well-being required for first-year students at the College. LIFE aimed to use positive psychology principles to “promote flourishing and resiliency among UChicago students,” according to its Canvas page.

UChicago Student Wellness created LIFE in response to the data collected by a campus health needs assessment conducted two years ago, which indicated that support for mental well-being was a priority for students at the University. The sequence was based on the PERMA model, a theory that human flourishing is enabled by positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. To echo the theory, LIFE encouraged stu-

dents to think critically about how their inherent values and strengths were used in the past, are used in the present, and may be used in the future, in order to achieve their potential and be confident and engaged in all aspects of their life.

Students met weekly on Zoom in groups of about 15 for a 90-minute session. Facilitated by a campus representative, who were both students and faculty at the University. The representative led educational lectures and interactive discussions with the bigger group, and students discussed character strengths, mindfulness, values, and purpose in smaller breakout rooms. Before the program began, students were expected to complete the Values in Action (VIA) Institute on Character Strengths Assessment, which gave students a breakdown of their unique character strengths. In addition to attending and participating in the weekly CONTINUED ON PG. 6

Grey City: Trees Tell a History of the University PAGE 7 chloe zheng

VIEWPOINTS: Biden and Harris Aren’t Radicals. You Can Still Celebrate Their Victory.

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VIEWPOINTS: You Can’t Decolonize UChicago PAGE 10

ARTS: Exploring Economic Theory Through Pokémon Go

SPORTS: UChicago Alumni in Unexpected Places: Professional Sports

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Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/chicagomaroon and follow @chicagomaroon on Instagram and Twitter to get the latest updates on campus news.

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Undergrads to Launch Midwave Radio in Winter 2021

By HAMZA JILANI News Reporter Third-years Kitty Luo and Monica Greig are set to launch Midwave Radio, an online student radio station, in the winter of 2021.

They plan to broadcast a wide range of content, including music and news broadcasts, through student-run shows catering specifically to the University community. The radio station will be broadcasted through an online format, rather than through an FM station.

Last summer, while Luo worked for a radio station and Greig was in England, the two came up with the idea to start a radio station together as a way to stay connected.

The following quarter, they reunited in Hyde Park to plan the launch. “We just sat down outside Hutch… and decided on a name, and then sent out a lot of emails,” said Greig. Luo noted that, recently, “people seem to be a lot more interested in audio content, [and] there’s been a recent surge of interest in podcasts.”

The two hope that the radio station will have more interest while people are stuck at home, especially considering the recent Chicago stay-at-home advisory.

Luo and Greig plan on including a wide range of content to broadcast on Midwave Radio. “Our interest is in [broadcasting] a huge variety of shows so that there’s something for everyone to tune into,” said Luo. A

Facebook poll they sent out to students at the College earlier this year indicated that students were interested in broadcasting music shows with diverse genres, as well as political, environmental, and LGBTQ+ focused content, literary discussions, and local news shows. “It’s going to be a place where anybody can collaborate on whatever ideas they’re interested in,” Greig said.

Students’ feedback expressed a desire for University-focused content, such as interviews with professors and members of the University administration as well as discussions with upperclassmen who could give advice and general tips about Chicago and the University community. Distinguishing

Midwave Radio from WHPK, which involves and caters to both the University and the Hyde Park community, Luo said, “we really want to make it student-run and for a student audience.”

Luo and Greig explained that the pandemic has not hindered their launching process.

Over autumn quarter, they found a faculty advisor, gathered enough student participants, and calculated their budget. They aim to submit their Recognized Student Organization (RSO) application by the end of the quarter.

“We want to encourage as many students to get involved,” Greig said. “I think this is a really fun opportunity for people to informally share their ideas and interests.”

Students’ Thanksgiving Plans Affected as New Travel Order Covers a Majority of States

By ANNIE CHEN and MONICA GREIG News Reporters On November 13, the City of Chicago updated its Emergency Travel Order, requiring mandatory quarantine for travelers arriving in Chicago from one of the 43 listed states.

The City has introduced this list to “better reflect the changing nature of the pandemic and provide more specific guidance to travelers” as COVID–19 cases surge. As of December 1, the COVID–19 death toll in Illinois is over 12,400, exceeding state public health director’s projection of 11,000 deaths for the year.

Under the order, states are ranked into three categories—red, orange and yellow—depending on the size of the outbreak.

Travelers arriving in Chicago from a red state are required to undergo a 14-day quarantine in a single location.

For orange states, travelers can choose between undergoing a 14-day quarantine or arriving with proof of a negative diagnostic test from a private health care provider taken within 72 hours of departure.

Travelers coming from yellow states do not need to quarantine or provide proof of a negative COVID–19 test.

Fines for breaking these rules are $100 to $500 per day, up to a maximum of

By November 17, the City of Chicago’s travel order covered most of the United States. courtesy of city of chicago $7000, according to Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH). CDPH did not specify how the penalties will be imposed.

When making Thanksgiving plans, students found ways to abide by the guidelines while traveling home. For example, first-year Alene Taylor planned to travel back home to Indiana, despite it being a red state.

“My family is coming to get me so I will not be taking any public transit. I am

aware that as of right now, upon return, I will be under a hard 14-day quarantine, but I would rather do that and spend the holidays with my family,” said Taylor.

“Housing [and Residence Life] states that if you leave for Thanksgiving, you cannot return until the winter quarter. The new restrictions have not changed my plans.”

A fourth-year in the College who wished to stay anonymous told The Maroon that she planned to come back to

Chicago from Alabama, an orange state, after Thanksgiving and quarantine for two weeks. “But it’s all subject to change, really, depending on the situation in a month in Chicago,” she said.

University housing will remain closed from Thanksgiving until the start of winter quarter. However, students who formally request to stay in housing over the break will be able to do so until the end of the quarter.

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Author Ta-Nehisi Coates Talks Election, COVID–19, and Past Works at SSA

By NICK TARR News Reporter On November 12, renowned author Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke at the UChicago School of Social Service Administration’s (SSA) Cafferty Lecture Series to discuss the 2020 election, racial justice, and his latest book The Water Dancer alongside SSA assistant professor Eve L. Ewing.

Coates is currently a distinguished writer in residence at the New York University Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is the author of the books The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, We Were Eight Years in Power, and Between the World and Me, which won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction. His writings on racial justice, like his 2014 essay The Case for Reparations, made him a household name throughout the United States. The Water Dancer, released in September 2019, is his first novel.

Racialized gender issues in America have affected Coates deeply and comprise the subject of much of his writing. Coates touched on these subjects during his lecture.

“America projects certain ideas of what a man should be, and what the proper relationship should be between men and wom-

en. Part of racism has been to have that definition and cut Black men out of it,” he said. For a long time, Coates struggled to fit into this definition, leading him to question “whether the system is even worth existing.”

“It took a while to get from the space of ‘I should be in that chair’ to ‘why should we have chairs?’” he said.

Despite his own experience with these issues, he found it difficult to write from the perspective of a woman of color. He described the editing process for one of the characters in The Water Dancer, a Black woman named Sophia. “I had two non-males of color [go] through this book, and [they] went through with very specific notes,” he said. “Left to my own devices, I couldn’t do it.”

Coates also discussed how President Donald Trump lowered the bar for other candidates in the 2020 presidential election.

“Biden is a competent white man. It would be good to have somebody competent,” he said. “It’s weird to have the bar set that low.

But his election, for a lot of Black folks, was an act of harm prevention,” he added. “[Politically,] I’m on the defensive.”

“We don’t even get to the more visionary, expansive ideas, what I would call freedom,” he said. “This [election] has been so bad, it shrinks your political imagination.”

On the COVID–19 crisis, Coates painted a bleak picture. He described interviewing a woman in Elmhurst, a Queens neighborhood hard hit by the virus. “She said, ‘my best friend just dropped dead. We don’t even know what happened,’” he said. “When I look at these COVID numbers, I kind of just want that to stop.”

“It’s tough because, as writers, it’s important to stay in that imaginative space, that space of freedom. But I don’t know that I’m there right now,” he said. “Right now, I’m thinking about survival.”

Coates has been a vocal proponent of reparations for African-American slavery, testifying before Congress in 2019 to support a federal commission to study reparations. To Coates, universities have an important role in these reparations. “Universities, first and foremost, need to be accountable to the communities that are around them,” he said.

“You have a university like the University of Chicago which is sitting right in the middle of an African-American neighborhood, and has a particular history with that community,” he said. “That should convey the responsibility to not make things worse, to not participate in harmful practices that, for instance, the Chicago Police Department is participating in.”

“They need to make sure that the massive amount of wealth and riches [in the University] are available to the community around the university, and I’m talking about something more than scholarships,” he said.

The University of Chicago has had a tenuous relationship with the greater South Side. The University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) has come under fire for discriminating against people of color with limited accountability.

“Why are communities in these neighborhoods not entitled to seats on the board of trustees, for example? Why is there not more of a cooperative ownership relationship?” he said. “I would imagine a more open relationship.”

Coates ended the discussion on a hopeful note. “I think young people on campuses across this country have a real opportunity.

They don’t have to wait for Congress. They don’t have to deal with whether there’s a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, or if Joe Biden is going to do the right thing or not,” he said. “They are pressure points of power right now.”

“It always makes me feel good to see young people on the streets. I feel great about that. It makes me think, ‘This is why I do it, now I’m gonna go do my part,’” he said.

“It is an era of hope for me.”

Social Determinants of Health Are Key to Understanding the Pandemic, UChicago Health Geographer Says

By MICHAEL MCCLURE News Reporter Understanding the set of social factors that influence health outcomes is crucial to modeling the effects of the COVID–19 pandemic, according to University of Chicago health geographer Marynia Kolak.

In a talk on November 17 hosted by the Triple Helix, an undergraduate organization focused on the intersection of science and society, Kolak discussed the process of analyzing the impact of the COVID–19 pandemic using the so-

cial determinants of health (SDOH): opportunity, mobility, support, and advantage. With SDOH in mind, Kolak and her research colleagues at UChicago have built the U.S. COVID Atlas, which identifies and tracks hotspots at the county and state levels and helps communities predict the trajectory of the pandemic.

Kolak is the assistant director for health informatics and a lecturer in geographic information science (GIS) at the University’s Center for Spatial Data Science. She conducts research on the ways location and environment

can affect individual health outcomes by combining sociological and scientific methods.

One misconception Kolak hopes to correct is that health is solely genetic.

Rather, health is determined by a variety of factors, ranging from socioeconomic conditions to air quality, and these circumstances contribute to the health and wellbeing of people in a particular neighborhood.

To carry out the research, Kolak and her team compiled Social Vulnerability Index scores, census data at the census-tract level nationwide, and mortali-

ty data in Chicago. Among the variables they considered were age, education level, family structure, minority status, and access to health insurance.

Their findings have pointed to social factors, rather than the built or natural environment, as the most important determinants of health outcomes.

For instance, more than 65 percent of the variation in premature deaths can be explained by SDOH alone.

The researchers’ statistics have helped them identif y significant COVID–19 hotspots as well. OverlayCONTINUED ON PG. 4

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“In a pandemic, we need data on a more immediate basis.”

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ing a map of Black Belt counties, which have a high proportion of Black residents, on existing COVID–19 data in the American South shows that the region experienced a disproportionately high number of cases and deaths compared to surrounding counties with a primarily white demographic. A similar disparity exists in Chicago, where 60649, a South Side zip code which is about 93 percent Black, has experienced the highest death rate. The two lowest death rates were found in 60610 and 60611, both predominantly white zip codes on the Near North Side.

Although Kolak has gained considerable insight into the pandemic with her recent research, overall, the quality of existing COVID–19 data sets varies; she predicted that the Centers for Dis-

ease Control and Prevention (CDC) will likely not have official information for another five years. “In a pandemic, we need data on a more immediate basis,” she said.

Kolak’s team has focused on bringing the available data together and presenting its patterns on an interactive dashboard, helping people track patterns in the spread of the coronavirus.

At the statewide level, Illinois appeared to struggle in April, although the numbers were skewed by a large number of cases in Chicago. County-level modeling shows that the rest of the state fared better, but without robust protocols in place early on, those counties have experienced surges in cases in recent months.

A similar scenario has taken place in neighboring Wisconsin, which had sig-

nificant cold spots in rural areas at the end of July. But as those communities became more relaxed about preventative measures, they became more vulnerable to subsequent spikes. Just as models had projected, cases ballooned just a few weeks later.

This phenomenon is not unprecedented, according to Kolak. “We see these same kinds of behaviors happen in things like hepatitis C infection rates or HIV infection rates,” she said.

“In communities that have never had outbreaks in either of these infectious diseases before, they don’t take it as seriously, so any explosion or any kind of positive cases in those communities can then develop rapidly.”

Kolak, who has worked in both Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin, observed that cities have higher concen-

trations of analysts, data scientists, and epidemiologists, positions crucial to public health research. In rural areas, “you just don’t have that same level of cultural, social capital to generate that type of information. So there’s again a concern that not all groups could access sophisticated spatial-analytic tools to provide a meaningful surveillance,” she said.

Kola k also warned that some COVID–19 graphics have spread misinformation. “It’s more important now than ever before that we adhere to good principles, both in how we set up research projects [and] how we convey information,” she said.

The project has expanded recently to study new data metrics, such as the spread of the virus by congressional district and positivity rates by state.

Woodlawn Residents Approve Proposed Health Center Ahead of City Council Vote

By DIMITRIY LEKSANOV Senior News Reporterr A proposal for the development of a health center at the intersection of East 63rd Street and South Cottage Grove Avenue was approved by Woodlawn residents and Chicago’s Community Development Commission over the past two weeks, and will be incorporated into the City of Chicago’s budget for the fiscal year 2021. The proposed budget passed the City Council Budget Committee with a 26–8 vote on Thursday.

In late October, 20th Ward Alderman Jeanette Taylor held two town halls over Zoom to address the proposed development. The plans were developed in a joint effort between Friend Health, a nonprofit community health clinic that serves low-income, uninsured, and undocumented patients; DL3 Realty, a real estate agency local to the South Side; and several other firms, including Moody Nolan, a Black-owned architectural company.

Friend Health currently rents space from the University of Chicago at East 55th Street and South Cottage Grove Av-

enue, and partners with the University to provide patients access to specialized medical personnel, including doctors involved with the asthma program at UChicago Medicine.

When asked about the health care provider’s relationship to the University, Friend Health CEO Verneda Bachus said, “We are a totally separate organization that is self-governed.”

The proposed development includes two facilities, each on opposite sides of Cottage Grove Avenue. The main facility will occupy the currently closed Cosmo Beauty Supply building at 6250 South Cottage Grove Avenue and will feature 45,000 square feet of medical space, including 56 exam rooms, an imaging suite, waiting areas, and a restaurant that will serve “white box” to-go/takeaway meals, as a precaution against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The opposite side of Cottage Grove Avenue will feature an annex building and a parking garage. Alex Sparhawk, director of acquisitions and development at DL3 Realty, said that part of the annex will be used to house Friend Health admin-

istrative personnel. The annex will also include a 1500-square-foot community center, intended to serve as a “gathering space.” Leon Walker, managing partner of DL3 Realty, said that the cost of parking will be high enough to offset operating costs, but not high enough to draw a profit.

When asked why this specific location was chosen for the new development, Luke Mich, a city planner for the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, said that the proximity of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Green Line Station at Cottage Grove, which is on the same block as the proposed main facility, played a role. “There has been a lot of talk of transit-oriented development for densification in that area,” said Mich.

Sparhawk also said that the southwest side of the main facility will feature a mural. During the Q&A portion, when Walker was asked whether Black artists would be hired to paint the mural, he replied, “Obviously, artists are going to have to be sensitive to what the community wants.”

“You might get artists from other counties, other parts of the city, but it will be people who understand the communi-

ty,” continued Walker.

According to a presentation given at the community meetings, the proposed project is expected to create 43 new jobs.

Bachus added that Friend Health would hire personnel from within the community for these positions.

The project will cost just under $37.5 million, with most of the funding already secured. Just under $8.5 million comes from the federal New Markets Tax Credit Program, which covers around 22 percent of the total cost, while just above $20 million will come from a variety of other sources, including debt financing. However, the project still requires $8 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) from the City of Chicago to proceed.

TIF is a special funding program based on property tax revenue that finances small- and large-scale projects throughout the city, including cleanup, infrastructure repair, and private investment.

Chip Hastings, managing deputy commissioner at the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, said that the investment would use a significant porCONTINUED ON PG. 5

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Critics of Proposed Health Center Worry About TIF Fund Drain CONTINUED FROM PG. 4

tion of the TIF fund for the Woodlawn Community Area. “It wouldn’t drain the fund, but it would significantly reduce the amount available for the next few years,” Hastings said.

Taylor expressed concern about the amount of money that would remain in the TIF fund for Woodlawn residents to use on personal projects such as home improvements. However, she also mentioned that the proposed development is popular. “Most people who call me tell me they want the project,” she said.

During a Q&A session, one audience member asked why a proposed budget sheet for TIF funding earmarked $8 mil-

lion for Friend Health between 2021 and 2024. The questioner implied that this funding had already been secured without any input from the community.

James Harbin, deputy commissioner of neighborhood development at Chicago Bureau of Economic Development, replied that the budget was only a proposal. “That budget has not been passed yet,” he said.

To gauge the project’s popularity, Taylor opened her office to all Woodlawn residents and allowed them to vote either in favor of or against the project in the days following the November 3 general election.

“Too often, people want to come to our community, but don’t want us to be part

of [the process],” said Taylor. “I can’t sign this without asking my community.”

According to reporting by the Hyde Park Herald, the proposal was approved in the vote by community members.

“While I did have some reservations about the amount of TIF dollars this project is asking for, my community voted to have this and my community votes to make the decision,” said Taylor at a Community Development Commission meeting.

Having gained approval from both Woodlawn residents and the Community Development Commission, the project will be able to proceed once ongoing negotiations about the Chicago budget con-

clude. Construction work for phase one of the project, which primarily involves raising the main complex, is projected to begin as soon as this month and the estimated opening date is January 2022.

Meanwhile, construction for phase two, which includes the annex and parking garage, is slated to begin in July 2021 and is estimated to finish in July 2022.

Work on the mural is projected to begin early next year, with a call to artists planned for the spring of 2021, a community design process organized for the summer of 2021, and the installation scheduled for the fall and winter of 2021, prior to the opening of the main complex.

Students With COVID–19 Learn to Live in Isolation Housing

By FINN HARTNETT News Reporter The first call Conner Fong received was from the UChicago testing center, informing him that he had contracted COVID-19. Then came the contact tracers, asking him who he’d been in close contact with for the last week or so. Another was a nurse, who asked if he was feeling any symptoms. Arriving on October 2, these calls felt a little overwhelming to Fong, though he wasn’t too surprised he was receiving them.

Fong, a first-year student living in Campus North, knew one of his friends had tested positive for the virus a few days earlier. But at the time, Fong thought he had avoided the virus. He had not had much in-person contact with his friend and assumed the muscle aches he’d been having were just from working out.

But he soon found himself boarding an ambulance bound for Stony Island Hall, one of UChicago’s temporary housing centers for students who test positive. Fong felt slightly embarrassed ducking into the vehicle. “The ambulance [was my] personal Uber,” he said.

UChicago has been sending students to Stony Island Hall (or Snell-Hitchcock, the other building used for isolation housing) since the beginning of autumn quarter. Their isolation protocol is intricate, but the broader points are clear: students who test positive for COVID–19 must stay inside their designated housing center until they are cleared to return. This usually takes about 10 days. Once inside their temporary residences, they are provided with an apartment already fitted with bedsheets, linens, pillows, and towels.

Meals are dropped off at the door, and a “care package” containing medicine, tissues, and other items to help coronavirus symptoms sits on one of the tables in the living room.

Jenna Uhles, another first-year who tested positive, also stayed in Stony while she was infected. Her ambulance was delayed in getting to the isolation housing; the dispatchers had been given the wrong address, and Uhles ended up in a town on the Indiana border called Calumet City. The situation was eventually resolved, and Uhles arrived at Stony—about the same time firstyear Daisy Brownfield, a roommate of Uhles’s, began receiving the same series of phone calls Fong and Uhles

had already gone through. Brownfield wasn’t surprised, as Uhles was a close contact of hers; she’d been packing her bags for Stony before even getting the call.

The housing official on the phone told Brownfield that her ambulance would be outside in an hour. Brownfield asked what she should do about her laundry, which was downstairs drying. The housing official told her to wipe the machines down with Clorox after she had finished using them.

Brownfield arrived at Stony a few minutes after Uhles; Fong had moved in the day before. He stayed by himself in an apartment, while Brownfield and Uhles shared one across the hall. Brownfield found their apartment large but slightly dirty. “There were a bunch of dead bugs on the table, there was a dead bee in the kitchen,” she said. “It was…grungy and dusty.

There were a bunch of iron burns on the carpet. There was a piece of gum stuck to the wall.” All three of them used their balconies to get fresh air and people-watch. “Sometimes I’d drag a chair out to the porch and just sit there,” Fong said.

Fong rarely crossed paths with Uhles and Brownfield. “I didn’t even

realize there were people down the hall from me until a few days in,” he said. “And by then I was already, like, ready just to leave.” Though everyone theoretically has the virus, you’re still only allowed one visitor to a room at any time in Stony Island. Consider this, along with the fact that only a few people inhabit Stony at any given time, and that no visitors from outside Stony can come inside for any reason, and the loneliness that inhabitants report makes sense. Fong spent most of his time alone in his apartment, which was outfitted with two bedrooms, four beds (only two of which were fitted with sheets), and two bathrooms. “One of the showers didn’t work, which was funny,” he said. He found the boredom overwhelming. When he wasn’t in class or doing homework, he watched television, read, and took showers just for the sake of it.

The two roommates passed the time working and watching movies together.

“You have classes, you have homework, then you watch a movie and then you think, ‘Yeah, that’s like a normal day,’” Brownfield said.

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Isolation Housing: Students Face Few Meal Options and Boredom CONTINUED FROM PG. 5

field partially lost her sense of smell and felt the occasional sniff le. Uhles was asymptomatic, barring a few headaches. A housing official from Stony Island reached out to them daily and would replenish their bottled water whenever they ran out. In addition to the nurses, there were plenty of emails and forms to respond to—mainly related to the athletic department, who tried to contact-trace Uhles and Brownfield separately from the University—and return to their respective senders. Phone calls came through from unknown numbers, often while Uhles and Brownfield were in the middle of virtual classes, asking about symptoms or whether they had been in contact with certain buildings on campus.

The other two first-years who lived with Brownfield and Uhles, Norma

Ferrel and Marie Ardy, had been tested the same day as their roommates.

But both their tests returned negative.

Following separate phone interviews with the contact tracing team, Ardy was asked to quarantine for 14 days.

Interestingly, no such restrictions were placed on Ferrel.

According to Uhles and Brownfield, the food they received was not what the University had promised. “They said in an email that they provide you with a fully stocked fridge…. That’s a complete lie,” Brownfield said. Their fridge contained two bottles of water and some Gatorade. There was a welcome basket waiting for them, but Brownfield was unimpressed. “It was mostly food that you really wouldn’t want to eat,” she said. What kind of food? There were some chocolate-covered pretzels, but Brownfield mentioned that those “were so stale that I had to throw them

out…and I’m not usually a person that throws away chocolate.” Also included were some off-brand ramen noodles. “I don’t know how cheap you have to be to buy off-brand ramen,” Brownfield joked.

Fong said that he often received no indication when meals were left at his door. “I had to guess and see if [they were] there,” he said. Stony residents received cereal for breakfast, a choice between Cheerios and Chex, as well as a muffin and a granola bar. Lunch was usually a wrap and a side of either vegetables, an apple, or some chips.

Dinner was generally spicy, the dinner staff testing their sense of smells and clearing their throats.

“I wish I brought some other food, because I didn’t really like the food they gave me,” Fong said. Fortunately, Brownfield had come prepared. As she was packing her bag, she shoved

in cans of soup, chicken nuggets, and even a coffee machine before rushing downstairs to leave North.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Brownfield said of her experience in Stony Island.

“It was hugely improved by the fact that I had my roommate…. If we had been alone it would have been lonely and boring. It was still boring. But it wasn’t that bad.”

As the quarter has gone on, UChicago has done well in handling the pandemic on campus. Case numbers are low, especially in comparison to other universities with a similar number of students. Still, it’s good to know that even if a student comes down with COVID–19, the university is providing them with adequate support and hospitality—even if they could work on the food.

Aiming to “Promote Flourishing and Resiliency,” University Concludes New LIFE Program for First-Years CONTINUED FROM COVER

meetings, students were asked to complete a “StrengthsWork” activity between each session, which they reflected upon in the sessions. These activities included daily strengths awareness logs, in which students were encouraged to log and reflect upon daily experiences and how they used their strengths in them, along with other exercises.

Facilitator and student Parv Golwelkar said that he believes the sessions have had a positive impact on the first-years. “I think they’re effective; the primary purpose of the program was to ensure that you have other communities to talk to and I think that, to some extent, that is happening. I think people are having discussions with people that they meet during the session even outside.”

He admitted, however, that the sequence would have been more effective in person, “Doing it over Zoom is better than not doing it at all, but in person would have

been much better.”

Julie Edwards, the director of health education at UChicago who designed the LIFE sequence, discussed the initial plan for an in-person sequence: “The original intent was to have small groups in person—R.A.s were going to deliver the program in the houses, students would get to know the people in their house, they would be able to see if they liked the program.

The program absolutely would be more effective in person.”

The LIFE sequence, Edwards said, is debuting to a somewhat mixed response, according to the 763 first-year evaluations she received so far, “I think it’s very split— over half of responses to the evaluations are positive, around 30 percent are neutral, 8 percent are dissatisfied.”

She commented on a common firstyear misconception about the seminars, where based on the subject line of orientation emails, the seminars appeared to be mandatory: “All Incoming First-Year

Students Need to Sign Up for Your LIFE Sequence.” She discussed how, although students felt they would have a hold placed on their account if they didn’t show up, there were no consequences or repercussions to not attending the sessions.

The Maroon spoke to first-year students with a similarly conflicted view of the LIFE sequence.

“I just thought of LIFE as one of the other required programs that we had to do, because we had to do so many,” said Sarah Domico, a first-year participant in the program. “I was just like, ‘this is just something I have to go [to] as well.’” However, Domico was pleasantly surprised with her LIFE sequence, because it resulted in her meeting new people. She also enjoyed the smaller discussions in breakout rooms, which she described as “so much more engaging than the other required meetings we’ve had to go to.”

Alexander Wilson, another first-year, appreciated the intent of the LIFE pro-

gram, but felt as if the school’s execution of the initiative was wanting, “I think that at its core, the LIFE program had good intentions and would be a beneficial program for students, if it were executed a little bit better and in a more engaging way. Having it be an optional program would [make] it more rewarding for the people who want to engage. Nothing is going to be helpful for people who don’t want to be helped.”

Both students noted that the participation of their respective groups affected their experience in different ways. Wilson said that in his LIFE group, “most people [didn’t contribute] and just stare[d] at the camera for the majority of the time,” which created an environment that was not very engaging. Domico, however, said that she enjoyed the discussions she had in LIFE because in her group, “people pa[id] attention and they [were] willing to share their experiences and it [was] nice to hear from other people. It depends on the group you’re in, and I [had] a good group.”

THE CHICAGO MAROON — DECEMBER 2, 2020

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An Arboreal History of the University of Chicago

By ANGÉLIQUE ALEXOS

AND LAURA GERSONY Grey City Reporter and Grey City Editor In 1920, a burr oak sapling is planted next to Bartlett Gymnasium.

The tree, over the course of its lifetime, sees the University of Chicago through a timespan longer than any individual human does. Its middle age sees the construction of Regenstein Library, its senior years the transformation of the neighboring gymnasium into a dining commons. It eventually towers above Max Palevsky Residential Commons and Bartlett Dining Commons, providing a sanctuary for those who come to rest below its branches.

Years unfurl into decades, and when the tree has 100 rings, a group of researchers— mask-clad and six feet apart—gather to assess the old oak, gnarled and wide-crowned.

They marvel at the tree’s grandeur, surrounding it with outstretched arms; it takes the wingspan of two of the researchers, plus that of one small child, to fully encircle its trunk.

The tree tells them a story of late adulthood tinged with illness. It has a wound in its trunk, caused by a canker disease, and the humans seek to measure the oak’s remaining strength. The test takes just a few hours, and it is determined that the tree has years more to live. But even at this moment, in the tree’s late adulthood, the old oak is a newcomer to the region; its ancestors, too, are new arrivals. This burr oak was preceded by generations and generations of trees, in a time when the landscape would be near-unrecognizable to today’s onlooker.

Twenty thousand years ago, Chicago was encased in 3,000 feet of ice—a glacier the height of 40 mature burr oaks. Traces of ancient tree pollen suggest that more diverse floral environments began to emerge as the ice receded. Seventeen thousand years ago, the region was dominated by spruces, trees adapted to growing in cold climates, and the forests were still inhabited by mastodons, woolly mammoths, and other large mam-

mals. As the climate became warmer over the millennia, however, marsh-loving black ash trees became the primary species, and humans succeeded large mammals as the region’s apex predators.

The land which eventually became the University of Chicago, too, looked very different from how it does today. Because it is situated on what is known as a lakefront marsh ecosystem, the campus was swampy and prone to flooding, which remains an issue even today. Its infertile soil was lacking in nutrients, so the landscape was scattered with shrubs.

Human culture in these areas developed over the next few thousand years; in Chicago, this included the indigenous tribes of the Council of the Three Fires—comprised of the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi Nations—as well as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, and Illinois Nations, among others. While these cultures were as diverse as they were numerous, many went to great lengths to stabilize the natural ecosystem and exercised a keen awareness of their effect on the environment.

That is not to say that they left no trace; many of their large-scale ecological practices had a profound impact in creating the landscape we see today. Among the most influential of these practices was the use of fire to manage ecosystems. Fire-setting could have served a number of purposes. It may have improved the ease of spotting game, ease of movement, or served as part of another ritual practice. But it also played an important role in stabilizing the ecosystem.

“To preserve tallgrass prairie, you have to burn it,” Eric Grimm, a paleoecologist who has studied the history of Chicago’s natural environment, told The Maroon in an interview. “If you don’t burn it, it’ll be overtaken by woody plants, and by introduced European species…. [Regular burning] maintains the vegetation that was native to Illinois.”

The benefits of this practice were manifold. In his essay “Native Americans and the Environment,” historian David Rich Lewis writes that the fires neutralized soil

acidity and warmed the earth, which sped the germination of new forest flora. Periodic low-burning fires also reduced the risk of naturally occurring uncontrolled fires, as the accumulation of dry materials absent these fires turns forests into tinderboxes.

But humans’ role in the Chicago environment changed rapidly at the turn of the 19th century, when Europeans forcibly displaced the native populations that had been living there for centuries.

Decades before Smokey Bear popularized the notion of aggressive fire suppression—at the expense of forest ecological stability, forest researchers have since written—the U.S. Forest Service outlawed native fire-setting on the grounds that the fires destroyed marketable timber materials. This was codified in the 1935 “10 a.m. policy,” which mandated that all fires be under control the morning after they were set.

In the debate over forest management can be seen European colonizers’ attempt to establish cultural hegemony on the so-called “frontier.” Author and fire historian Stephen Pyne has argued that European opposition to the practice was also rooted in the view that fire-setting is a mark of cultural primitivism.

The long-held policy of fire suppression has had lasting effects, this year’s raging wildfires in California among them. But it is also slowly changing the composition of modern-day oak woodlands, Grimm said.

Thick-barked oak trees are resistant to fire, unlike relatively sensitive maple trees. As a result, “if a forest just sits there and isn’t burned or disturbed, the maples will eventually take over,” he said.

Another large-scale European ecological practice was the draining of naturally occurring swamps. The Swamp Land Act of 1850 promoted the draining of wetlands in Illinois and reclamation for settlement and development. Gerould Wilhelm, a botanist and co-author of the compendium on local plants Flora of the Chicago Region, said that the practice of draining wetlands permanently debilitated the environment.

Soil in the Midwest has simply been “killed out” by industrial-scale tillage, Wilhelm said. The draining of wetlands created a harmful positive feedback loop: With no water on land, no water can be evaporated to form clouds; in turn, there is no rainfall to rehydrate the land.

Draining land also makes the soil more sensitive to fluctuations in temperature. Water has a relatively high specific heat capacity, meaning that a lot of heat is required to raise the temperature; this allows it to stabilize the temperature of moist soil. But dry soil lacks this temperature control.

“When [organic matter] is gone, and the soil is just sitting there, it just cooks, or it freezes,” he said. “It would be like if you had a third-degree burn on your body; that surface tissue is dead. And if you had third-degree burns on 95 percent of the body, you can imagine the trouble you’re in.”

Wilhelm is intimately familiar with the scale of human impact on the environment, as he devised the Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA), a measure of the integrity of natural ecosystems. The FQA works by determining the area’s average “coefficient of conservatism” (C-value), or how likely it is that its flora are native to the region.

Untouched natural areas, which Wilhelm said includes the Chicago region prior to European arrival, have an average C-value of 5.5. Nowadays, however, C-values in Chicago range from 0 to 2. This metric doesn’t even account for the fact that vast swaths of concrete urban space are totally devoid of plant life, Wilhelm said.

Botanists and landscape planners at UChicago are also conscientious of the loss of native plants. Manager of Campus Environment Design Kathleen Golomb is committed to preserving these native species by planting trees that are native to the area on campus.

“We work with nurseries; we usually procure our trees within 250 miles to make sure they’re most adaptable to our climate,” said Golomb.

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THE CHICAGO MAROON — DECEMBER 2, 2020

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“The protection of existing trees is extremely important.”

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The landscaping department visits nurseries and fields in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana to best understand what trees will be most adaptable to the climate in Chicago, considering factors such as species diversity, resistance to pests, and the trees’ ability to thrive in warmer climates.

Despite such efforts to soften the blow of humanity’s impact on the environment, anthropogenic land cover had already threatened natural life in Chicago. “Habitat fragmentation,” or the subdivision of natural ecosystems, is one of the main mechanisms of this process. This has particularly harmed birds, many of which need bigger expanses of woodland, and likely caused a large-scale drop in bird diversity throughout Illinois, Grimm said.

Climate change is expected to take a tremendous toll on a variety of Chicago-area flora and fauna. Already, warming temperatures have caused species to move northward to stay within temperature ranges to which they are adapted—causing such exotic creatures as armadillos to turn up in Illinois, Grimm said. Without a contiguous habitat, it will be difficult for animals to perform this necessary migration.

Likewise, Golomb and the rest of the campus planning and sustainability group in Facilities Services at UChicago are already accounting for the effects of climate change

on campus ecology. Specifically, the group has started selecting trees and shrubbery that can survive in warmer climates, anticipating a gradual increase in Chicago’s temperature.

“While it’s in our care, we want to really focus on the strength of [the campus], the health of it, and, as always, planning for the future,” Golomb said.

The loss of biodiversity is also a concern among ecologists at UChicago and around the world. Beyond the inherent tragedy in decreasing life’s richness, the climate forecast makes this doubly concerning.

“As species get reduced in numbers, we’re losing some of the genetic diversity that those species have,” Wilhelm said. “The fact that we’ve lost this diversity has made them less able to adapt.”

In the early 20th century—before climate change was viewed a major concern— the UChicago campus was organized with a mainly aesthetic purpose. Streets were lined with trees of the same species, Golomb said, bringing about an air of unity and symmetry to the environment. However, over the last 20 years, planners of the campus have come to realize that planting the same trees in one area, a practice called monoculture, is severely unsustainable and detrimental to the health of the campus’s natural environment.

While the aesthetic appeal of campus is

still taken into consideration, Golomb emphasized that it is most important to plant for diversity. If a disease or pest were to infest a certain species, the problem would be addressed more easily and effectively as the variance in species across campus would block the pest or disease from rapidly spreading.

“What we’ve known and learned from the past with chestnut blights and Dutch elm disease is that we have to get away from these monocultures of tree plantings,” Golomb said. “We might not have those specific stately avenues that you might have seen in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, even back in the ’30s, but knowing what we know now, it’s most important to plant for diversity.”

One thing is for certain: The natural equilibrium prior to humans cannot be returned to its original state. Even areas that humans attempt to restore to their original biodiversity rarely reach above a three on the FQA scale, Wilhelm said, and they never regain their original rating of 5.5.

While Golomb and her department spend $20,000 a year repopulating the campus with new trees, she emphasized that no amount of restoration efforts can ever fully restore the original quality of undisturbed trees that for centuries have existed on the land that became UChicago’s campus.

Campus “will change tremendously, but with that the protection of existing trees is

extremely important,” she said. Inevitably, “we will lose trees due to construction; however, mature trees should take precedence.

It’s not the same to replace a tree that’s a thousand years old with a tree that’s two years old.”

Perhaps a lesson can be drawn from our arboreal neighbors. When trees have a wound or infection, they don’t heal, as humans do; rather, they form a wall of tissue around the harmed area to prevent it from spreading to the rest of the tree. Only if this wall is compromised will disease be able to advance. Humanity’s impact on the natural environment cannot be undone, but its negative effects can be mitigated, and a new equilibrium can be devised.

In the meantime, a row of vivacious katsura trees lines the west side of Max Palevsky East, a singular Persian parrotia stands tall near Swift Hall, and a magnificent burr oak unfurls its branches across the side of the Bartlett Gymnasium. Under their boughs, Golomb feels at home; and her appreciation for nature has given rise, unmistakably, to tenderness.

“I really think that you create this relationship with campus, and you will find your little hidden gems—the place that you return to over and over again—throughout your campus career,” Golomb said. “These little pieces of campus that you carve out as your own.”

VIEWPOINTS It’s Okay to Celebrate Qualifying our excitement over Joe Biden’s victory will leave us too burned out for future battles.

By ELIZABETH WINKLER On Saturday, November 7, 2020, at 10:20 a.m. Central Time “I almost cried.”

“I did cry.”

“I ran up and down the sidewalk, laughing and waving my arms.”

The presidential election had just been called for Joe Biden, and everyone

I talked to had had a visceral physical reaction to the news. It is worth noting that I, my family, and most of the friends I speak about here are left-leaning; more conservative readers likely had a different experience than I did on November 7. On that day, I was standing in a friend’s entryway starting to put on my shoes when the alert lit up my phone.

Without meaning to, I sank to the floor,

cradling the screen in my hands. A bubble started to expand in my chest as I clicked from The New York Times to The Atlantic to Fox News to MSNBC, eyes wide, torn between tears and the face-splitting smile hidden under my mask. My friends and family reflected this unbridled joy back at me when I saw them later that day, texted with them, or spoke to them on the phone. It

can be hard to let ourselves bask in this kind of celebration when there is work to be done, but this election cycle has reminded me that giving ourselves space to dwell in moments of joy—unrestricted—is an essential life practice.

Given my own process of moving from shock to celebration, both individual and communal, it was strange, CONTINUED ON PG. 9

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“This election cycle has reminded me that giving ourselves space to dwell in moments of joy—unrestricted—is an essential life practice.”

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that afternoon, to see the tone of people’s Instagram stories and Facebook posts. They were celebratory, yes, but it was a celebration overwhelmingly seasoned with grains of salt—that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not perfect, that their election does not mean that America’s ills will magically disappear. It’s true, they’re far from perfect, as people and as politicians, far from the representatives of radical change that I and many of my friends had hoped to see in the White House. It’s true that, in Viewpoints columnist Sylvia Ebenbach’s words, “racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, and elitism won’t just go away

because the final votes were tallied and Biden was declared victor.” Because of these truths, many refused to give themselves space to be publicly joyful, purely celebratory, even for a few hours.

While I understand this impulse, it can, in the long-term, do more harm than good. If we move from fight to fight without pausing to rest in moments of success, we may feel strong.

We may feel that we are getting things done and that taking that pause would be giving up or wasting time. These feelings, while understandable, are not a recipe for long-term success or personal well-being. Adding grains of salt to every victory will exhaust us. We will burn out and, to lean into the recipe

metaphor, our dish will be inedible. This holds true not only for the 2020 election cycle, but also for activism, school, work, family, friendships—every aspect of our day-to-day lives.

The recipe is not exact.

Sometimes it will be important to immediately capitalize on

our successes, liberally adding grains of salt to push ourselves to continue the momentum of the moment. But often, as with the 2020 election, it is more important to let ourselves rest and dwell in our success for a moment, to put the salt away and run up and down the sidewalk,

laughing and waving our arms.

Elizabeth Winkler is a thirdyear in the College.

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ALVIN SHI

THE CHICAGO MAROON — DECEMBER 2, 2020

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There Is No “Decolonizing” UChicago Instead, we must abolish systems of harm and learn to practice radical care in our communities.

By KELLY HUI “Decolonize your mind!” reads a lovely, lilac-colored infographic on the Instagram story of a fellow first-year. The ostensibly Canva-created post implores us to forget historical narratives that center on whiteness, likening the act of unlearning or pursuing an anti-racist education to the act of decolonization. But decolonization is not simply a set of readings or documentaries for white folks and non–BIPOC to assuage their settler guilt. Decolonization is the radical, transformative repatriation (or rather, rematriation) of land for the Indigenous peoples from whom it was stolen.

The adoption of decolonization as a tool for learning, though noble, erases the radical origins and radical futures of the cause: dismantling settler colonialism and the institutions that perpetuate it. It’s not only inappropriate to appropriate decolonization in issues not related to the settler-colonial state—it’s also impossible. You cannot “decolonize” abstract spaces of whiteness. As You cannot “decolonize” spaces built upon

oppression without fully dismantling them.

Anything less would be performative and reductive.

Our own school makes for a wonderful example. Nothing short of abolition of the University as we know it will suffice. You cannot “decolonize” a neoliberal university that will continue to prop itself up at the expense of its students. Accordingly, we must move past the university model rooted in capitalism and toward one focused on students and education for education’s sake. We must abolish the systems of harm that claim to protect us (namely, UCPD) and learn to practice radical care in our communities.

UChicago has proven itself to be a business first and a place of education second. On the individual level, the University isolates students within its capitalist framework, which second-year Noah Tesfaye better articulates in a recent column. The stress and toxicity in the academic culture the University breeds is merely an expression of market competition. Our four years are marked by the idea of individualism to further our own careers. We pay for our education, we

DARYA FOROOHAR

receive it, we enter the workforce (often with mountains of debt); we are products of the academic institution. Education is stripped of all possible intrinsic good or social good—it is a necessary expenditure insofar as it can benefit the individual. This culture is simply not sustainable: To prioritize joy and true fulfillment in education, we must adopt an anti-capitalist approach to our academics and call on the University to make systemic changes to that effect.

Another aspect where our current model of the University has failed us is in establishing safety. In the name of safety and security, the University has amassed one of the largest private police forces in the nation. But UCPD has failed to provide genuine safety—instead, its officers terrorize Black and Brown students and members of the Hyde Park community, consistently failing to protect victims of sexual assault and misconduct.

As Kelly Lo, a representative of Phoenix Survivors Alliance, stated this October at a Student Government town hall with the University administration, “Safety exists in the spaces where investment is given into healing and community instead of policing.” To truly protect and serve our communities— the student body of UChicago, yes, but also the surrounding neighborhoods—we must invest in and prioritize community solutions, as well as do away with the oppressive institutions that claim to help us.

Despite the dangers of using decolonization as a framework for progress, a call for decolonizing UChicago is not as far off as we might expect; the University has propped up colonial systems globally, actively benefiting from American imperialism and racial capitalism. The administration has time and time again used its infamous Kalven Report as a shield, even justifying, in one instance, complicity in genocide. The two-page report was written in 1967 as a response to the student protests on campus against the Vietnam War and maintains the University’s neutrality on political and social issues. For the sake of “an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry,” the administration refused to divest stock from companies doing business in South Africa during apartheid in the 1980s. This happened again in 2006 with companies “identified as being

complicit in the Darfur genocide,” despite significant pressure and peer institutions choosing to divest their own endowments.

Additionally, the University has ties to companies that enable Israel’s human rights abuses in Palestine, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon. To this day, as reported by The Maroon, the University has investments in fossil-fuel companies, companies involved in deforestation, and weapons manufacturers.

UChicago’s unsavory investments are consistently met with student backlash and protest. Nevertheless, the administration has historically been steadfast in their commitment to their monetary sources—and we should expect no different from such a quintessential neoliberal university. After all, the administration will protect what is most valuable to it: money, not students.

So how can we reconcile our reality with the fact that UChicago as we know it must be abolished, as we attend our classes and walk through the quad every day? We must fundamentally reimagine the University.

We must shed the myth of individualism and learn to think in terms of the many. We must grow our relationships with our peers, prioritize collective safety over the safety of products, and strengthen our ties with the greater South Side. The work UChicago United is doing is critical for the cause: #CareNotCops, #EthnicStudiesNow, and #CulturalCentersNow are building power by creating coalitions and conducting impactful direct action that challenges the administration and grows the movement. They are daring to imagine a better University, one less beholden to capitalism and more focused on community. We must uplift and organize with these campaigns.

Abolition can sound like unmaking, like something destructive. But there is joy and creation in the community that comes during, and after. If every action we take is toward liberation—toward transformative, restorative justice—then we are not unmaking; we’re rebuilding. Abolition is a lofty goal— and true decolonization all the more—but a worthwhile one, especially when we can begin the work today.

Kelly Hui is a first-year in the College.

THE CHICAGO MAROON — DECEMBER 2, 2020

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ARTS Professor Lima Used Pokénomics! It’s Super Effective!

By ALINA KIM Arts Editor Released in 2016, Pokémon Go was arguably the closest we ever got to world peace: People ran across towns at midnight to catch a Dratini or crowded around city hubs at the sight of a Mareep. It encouraged us to exercise, meet people, and go outside.

Four years later, with people quarantined due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chicago Economics Forum held a virtual panel with professor Victor Lima to discuss the economic implications behind the popular mobile game.

UChicago economics student Jeremy Huang started the discussion by asking how gamers connect with different Pokémon and choose their favorites. Lima reflected on his own experience with Pokémon (or, as he endearingly calls them, “’mons”), having never played any Pokémon game before Pokémon Go. After a friend encouraged him to play, Lima grew fond of its social aspects, as well as the incentive to catch something missing from his collection.

With an open mindset, Lima remarked on the unique qualities of each Pokémon.

“You demand characteristics,” he said.

“Some are good for fighting. Some are pretty. When you start getting really into the battle side of things, some have strong defense. Some have devastating attacks. You can’t actually go and build your own ’mon…

You have to do combinations of characteristics… that span some space of desired qualities. You value them as you need them.”

Lima mentioned the appeal of keeping certain Pokémon and refraining from capturing an identical one in the wild: loss aversion. “Because you owned [a specific Pokémon] for a very long time…you have a difficult time parting with it,” he explained.

“Economics is about having the willingness to pay. [Having or not having] the ’mon gives you a higher—or lower—willingness to pay.”

Beyond attachment to a Pokémon, every trainer must bear in mind their battle strategy: Without the ideal team, a trainer inevitably crawls toward defeat. Lima noted that a beginner should face randomized wins, but, as the player levels up, skills (and internet connection) determine the battle

The Chicago Economics Forum discussed the economic strategies behind Pokémon Go. outcome. However, as the player reaches higher levels, Lima noticed a switch to game theory as the main predictor for victory. With limited information on a rational opponent’s party, a gamer must predict the best times to switch out Pokémon, use items, or even keep a near-fainted Pokémon in play.

“But there’s another model called Level-K Thinking,” Lima continued. “You play a Venusaur, and your opponent plays a Charizard. You play a Blastoise. Then [your opponent] plays Venusaur. [That second-guessing] gets close to a Nash equilibrium [and] might actually get you to Level 10 faster.”

Huang then asked about the assembly of the optimal Pokémon team, that is, the incentive to select Normal-type Pokémon in one’s party, ahead of more advantageous types like Grass or Psychic. Besides the fact that Normal Pokémon are resistant to Ghost types, are jacks of all trades, can learn moves that counter Steel and Rock, and have the move Return (one of the highest power moves with no repercussions), Lima admitted that he takes on a strategy

that mimics that of ancient Roman military tactics: modification of battle techniques already observed to win. “I got to my [Little Cup] team because a Pansear took me out, and I thought, ‘Oh, Pansear! Pretty good.’

So I put that one in and hoped it goes well.”

Lima and Huang then talked about the collector’s guilt behind purchases of vintage Pokémon cards; the risky opportunity cost of holding a gym when paying on the App Store would save time and effort; and irrational spending when Stardust is rare. Lima, who reportedly is in the top 0.1 percent of Stardust owners, joked that he didn’t consider battling until around a month ago because of the consumption savings problem behind the Pokémon Go currency. Rather, he spent his time collecting Technical Machines , now proudly boasting a collection of 300 of each.

After a brief discussion on the benefit functions of spamming Poké Balls, Lima concluded the discussion with the topic of Niantic’s profit maximization in Pokémon Go: It depends on the players’ attitude.

“There’s variations across players’ elasticity. Niantic can raise the prices really

high [without losing sales for inelastic players]. Then there’s elastic players: Any little change, monetary or non-monetary, is going to make them leave…. If they make catching the ’mons a little too hard, [elastic players] will become disenchanted.”

“What Niantic does all the time is play around with [in-game events]. You can trade long-distance now,” Lima continued.

“Another thing they understand really well is convexity and concavity. When going from bronze to silver [badges], then from silver to gold, getting gold is always harder than getting silver. You can see the convexity structure everywhere in the game.

It gives players a sort of challenge. If the game were too easy, people would also get bored. Another interesting thing to see is how people are leveling up…. We’ll see what barriers [Niantic] puts.”

What Pokémon type would Lima be?

He hesitated, then answered, “Maybe Grass and Water.”

(In the comments, students responded: “LUDICOLO!”)

THE CHICAGO MAROON — DECEMBER 2, 2020

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So Long, and Thanks for All the Hints

By ZEFF WORLEY Arts Reporter Alex Trebek was as much a household staple in my family as bread and butter.

Every night, without fail, I would sit down in front of the television with my mother and, for the next 22 minutes plus advertisements, we would do our best to outsmart whatever vagabond, mountebank, or straight-shooter had just been plumbed from the depths of American trivial ingenuity. We relished a right answer just as much as we did the palpable awkwardness of a contestant struggling to summon up one last mildly interesting fact about themselves in their sixth-consecutive taping, or the schadenfreude felt when Alex’s clipped, wry rebuke let a player know—beyond all shadow of a doubt—that their answer was not only wrong but possibly offensive to the very nature of the show itself.

But it was all in good fun. Jeopardy! was never mean-spirited; never boasted any artificially contrived tension; and, at the end of the day, never relied upon any gimmick, trick, or spectacle to keep you coming back for more. Taping after

taping, show after show, season after season, Alex Trebek delivered the same performance as always: a reserved (yet invariably witty) host who made each episode enjoyable to watch while never forgetting what made the show unique.

Its lack of pomp was a boon. It made the banal immediately arresting: every piece of information, no matter how seemingly unimportant, took on a cast of worldly importance. Jeopardy! enlivened everything it touched, including me.

Trivia inspires a thirst for life. In an essay, the cultural critic Walter Benjamin once wrote that “to renew the old world…is the collector’s deepest desire when he is driven to acquired new things.” Much as the archivist is driven ceaselessly to expand his own collection, the trivia enthusiast (to describe myself in one of the most embarrassing terms imaginable) reconstructs the world only as quickly as one more disparate piece can be added to the overall puzzle. There is no well of information that might ever run dry, no fragment of existence, offhand remark, or footnote that cannot be studied more deeply and carried with you for life. If the world has

long been fleshed out in broad strokes, then it is the minutiae of life that seek to give it greater depth.

Jeopardy! was one of the few ways I could discuss what I liked; it provided me an audience that was not only interested but passionate about the same things I was. None of my friends really cared about history, literature, or the minutiae that flow through everyday life like softly spilling waters—but Alex Trebek, my mother, and I made quite a committed trio. Whatever it was in the world that truly mattered to me would inevitably be rewarded with an appearance on Jeopardy!—less sure was whether or not I would actually answer any given question correctly. To this day, “Broadway Theater” and “World Rivers” remain my weak points. But the show was just as much about highlighting what you did know as what you didn’t; and how many times did I flounder during “Final Jeopardy!” only to have revealed to me some tidbit of knowledge that would see me leaping desperately through Wikipedia articles to find out more? The show assured me that what I was interested in was actually valid and that what I didn’t know was possibly

even more intoxicating.

I use the qualifier “was” so frequently in this article because it is impossible for me to imagine a Jeopardy! without Alex; the show was just as much about him as it was the trivia. Knowing what to expect from Alex each night was a comfort in a time when so much else in my life was in flux. Jeopardy! was even the subject of my Common App essay. But even for the seemingly endless number of appearances he made, I realized in the course of writing this article that I really didn’t know all that much about the late Mr. Trebek. He was a vague Canadian, sometimes sported a sly mustache, and looked good in a dark suit.

That was about it. His memoir came out this summer—I haven’t looked at it yet.

I’m not sure if I will. It certainly appears strange to me to learn more about a man who seemingly prided himself upon only ever letting the public know so much. On the other hand, I’m sure there’s a wealth of trivia and a world of knowledge inside.

Alex Trebek, who hosted “Jeopardy!” for 37 years, died from pancreatic cancer in November; he was 80 years old.

Washington’s Bullet Wounds Have Not Healed

By CASEY MATHUR Arts Contributor In an era of coups, crisis, and international chaos, Vijay Prashad (Ph.D.’94) critically examines the history of international interventions on behalf of the U.S. capital in his latest work, Washington Bullets. The author of several historical works, including The Darker Nations, The Poorer Nations, and The Karma of Brown Folk, Prashad expands his canon of histories with this collection of essays. In his own words, this book was written for “young militants, because we [young activists] need armor” and “cannot afford to get amnesia” of the history of past repression.

Inspired by the Bolivian coup and subsequent political crisis in 2019, Prashad noticed striking similarities to the overthrow of former Guatemalan

president Jacobo Árbenz in 1954. He then decided to “write a hundred-page book that will tell the whole story that will indict the CIA from its founding to the present!” After frantically writing, Prashad requested former Bolivian president Evo Morales, who was in Argentina at the time, write the foreword of this manuscript.

The foreword is a short, bitter letter.

Former president Morales was powerless as the Movement for Socialism (MAS)— his life’s project—faced massacre after massacre. The large-scale enterprises his party had planned before the coup were completely dismantled. Nevertheless, the foreword ends with hope: “It is likely that the world that will emerge from the convulsions of 2020 will not be the one that the one that we used to know…. We must work together towards a world in which greater respect

for the people and for Mother Earth is possible.…We have the conviction that we are the masses. And that the masses, over time, will win.”

This optimism characterizes the progression of the rest of the book. Dark, bitter, and powerful, Prashad critically examines the history of imperialist-backed bloodshed across the world.

The cost of a bullet is the central question of the first essay: What is the cost of killing a figure who stood for hope and leadership to the poor? What motivated this figure’s murder? And how did this figure’s death permanently shape the landscape of the country? The answers to these questions have implications significant to the history of numerous countries, from Indonesia to Congo, from Burkina Faso to Guatemala, and many more.

For all politically minded individu-

als, the second essay is the most informative—a literal how-to manual for regime change. Prashad lays out nine steps honed from practice, ranging from first attempting to bolster domestic support all the way to “making the economy scream” through sanctions and diplomatic isolation, and finally, assassinations. However, the coup attempts do not stop at assassinations. As described by Prashad, “theories of society which attempted to understand the social mechanisms of war and unemployment could be softly dismissed as merely conspiracy theories.” The erasure of the crime of a coup—denial of its existence—is the final stage of the crime.

The remaining essays examine how the themes of the first two essays reflect upon dozens of post–World War II examples. Contemporary countries that face CONTINUED ON PG. 13

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“Washington Bullets, despite the brutality of the title, is a work about hope, and about change.”

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hostility with the United States are analyzed under this framework, concluding with an explanation as to how these same processes are ongoing today.

Washington Bullets, despite the bru-

tality of the title, is a work about hope, and about change. It is a collection of essays that highlight the power of the masses. It is a book written about visionaries and villains, manipulators and martyrs, as well as the billions of people

who dared to fight for justice and paid the ultimate price for it. Meticulously well-cited from publicly available CIA documents, Prashad writes with a polemical and passionate tone. Despite its inherent bleakness, this work is for ev-

back to the past

eryone. At times, the history presented in Washington Bullets can feel desperate and hopeless. Nevertheless, it is essential for understanding the international status quo, recognizing the identical cycles repeating themselves in current events, and learning how to resist them.

By NISH SINHA Across 1. Gray-ish color 5. So-called “variety meats” 10. Unguent 14. Many a Grapes of Wrath character 15. Up on a rose, in Spain 16. Kauai cookout 17. 1884: Sotirios Bulgari releases his first handbag?

19. Object of a Cold War race 20. Unlock, to Shakespeare 21. Metro area 22. Gather together 23. 1812: Russian victory over Napoleon?

27. Sugarcane drink 28. Serpentine shape 29. Wane, as the tides 32. Certain TikTok personality 35. Actor Julia of The Addams Family 37. Opera song 38. 66 million B.C.E: Chicxulub meteor impact?

41. Gruesomely bloody 42. Home state for 62Across 43. Phil, to Will Smith in Fresh Prince 44. Chicago-to-Indianapolis dir.

45. Q&A format on Reddit 46. Bikini top 47. October 2020: feral hogs ransack San Jose?

53. Mates to sows 56. Ceremonial act 57. Bygone car brand 58. Northwest Pennsylvania city

59. Make like McFly... or a hint to each of the dated clues 62. NL Central team 63. Ring-shaped reef 64. Japanese flavoring 65. Heads out 66. Cape ___, West Africa 67. George Washingtons Down 1. Place for a 46-Across 2. Zebra giraffe 3. More pleasant 4. “Bug!” 5. Taped 6. Loud, musically 7. Ice cream alternative (Abbr.)

8. Dispenser of moolah 9. Author of Go Set a Watchman 10. Assign guilt 11. Distinctive air 12. Makes a run for it 13. Tousle 18. Like black magic 22. Things that must be provided by landlords in Arizona 24. Assortment 25. Brainy prefix 26. Cruise ship stop 29. Guitarist Clapton 30. Coll. subject 31. Enemy of Batman 32. Goads (on) 33. Large, to Jacques 34. “Able was ___ I saw Elba” 35. Recovery 36. Bee prefix 37. No time

39. ___ of the Rock 40. One who travels the waves, or the web 45. Relaxation sounds 46. Liquid container

47. Lock of hair 48. Medieval means of protection 49. Result 50. Famous ’90s cowboy

51. They fly in Vs 52. Spotlight performances 53. Chunk of ice 54. Creme-filled cookie 55. Politician s assistant

59. Last letter in the Hebrew alphabet 60. Graph ending 61. “Te ___”

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SPORTS The Conversation Around Diversity in the Video Game Industry

By BRINDA RAO Sports Editor

On Thursday, November 19, Chicago Ideas and Red Bull held a virtual conversation on the world of online gaming. The event featured Anne Munition, a professional gamer, and Anastasia Staten, Executive Director for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) Foundation, with Keisha Howard, the founder of Sugar Gamers, facilitating the conversation. During the conversation, the three discussed diversity, representation, and the impact of the ongoing COVID–19 pandemic on the gaming world.

Munition has worked in the industry for over six years, having started

streaming in 2014. After her mother gave her the confidence to take the leap, she decided to quit her day job as a graphic designer and pursue esports professionally five years ago. While the decision was a risky one at the time, Munition’s intense work and efforts have paid off. Today, hundreds of thousands attend her Twitch streams, and she is sponsored by Red Bull.

“It was not a quick rocket to success,” Munition explained during the conversation. “It’s a labor of love. I have to remind people there’s a difference between playing for oneself versus what I do. I play the game, read the chat (with a few hundred people trying to talk in it), have a conversation while playing the game all at the same time.

It’s multitasking to the extreme.

Staten works with the philanthropic side of the video game industry, helping make a change in the industry through the ESA Foundation’s scholarship program. Through this program, the organization has created a scholarship fund for women and minorities in computer science and video-game arts.

Currently, there are 26 scholarships with over 400 alumni in the program.

“We’re providing pathways for the underrepresented to push back and disrupt inequity,” Staten said. “I’m never tired of hearing questions on this subject. The goal of making the industry more diverse is so important that it bears repeating.”

Howard, a native of the South Side

of Chicago, founded Sugar Gamers in 2009, wanting to create a space to bring women and underrepresented groups into the video game industry.

Since then, Sugar Gamers has expanded rapidly, gaining recognition from corporations like Twin Galaxies and HTC. Keisha facilitated the conversation, asking questions about the efforts Staten and Munition have taken to promote diversity and inclusion within the industry.

Munition shed some light on the situation, explaining, “People often see a woman or person of color in video games and ask why the game is going political. I’m tired of people saying this: It is not a political statement to include this representation in games.”

UChicago Alumni Continue to Leave a Mark in the Sports World

By DHEERAJ DEVARAJAN Sports Reporter

For years, UChicago graduates have continued to make the school and its students proud by conquering their respective fields. Our minds immediately take us to the likes of Bernie Sanders, Milton Friedman, Carl Sagan, and the like, but as of late, our alumni have been blazing a trail in the world of professional sports. The hiring of Kim Ng by the Miami Marlins as the first-ever female general manager in the Big Four pro leagues, as well as the first-ever Asian-American general manager in Major League Baseball (MLB), has brought attention to some of our former students in this field, and their journeys are incredible.

Perhaps the most prominent of them all is Adam Silver, commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA). You probably saw him handing the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy to LeBron James a few weeks ago

or announcing the first-round picks in this year’s NBA draft. After graduating from UChicago’s Law School with a J.D. in 1988, Silver went on to work for NBA Entertainment and spent eight years as its president and chief operating officer. Following this, he spent eight more years as chief operating officer and deputy commissioner of the NBA, negotiating three unprecedented collective bargaining agreements, each of which served to give the players more power and continue to grow the game worldwide.

Silver also played a big role in the development of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the NBA G League. Finally, in 2014, he became the commissioner of the league, and he was immediately met with his greatest challenge: dealing with former L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling after tapes were released of Sterling making racist remarks on the phone to a friend. He was decisive in his ruling, banning Sterling from

the NBA for life in every capacity and forcing him to sell the team. This was met with widespread acclaim and praise from global sporting circles, establishing Silver in his position as an intelligent, fair leader. Since then, he has gone from strength to strength, establishing an international presence for the NBA (over 20 percent of current NBA players are born outside the United States) and most recently dealing with the COVID –19 crisis swiftly and efficiently by creating a bio-bubble in which games continued to be played and the 2019–20 NBA season could be successfully concluded. Silver continues to be an inspiration for those who aspire to work in the business of sports and has staked his claim in six short years to being one of the greatest commissioners in the history of professional sports.

Jason Wright is a name that took over the football universe a few months ago when he was hired by the Washington Football Team as team

president, becoming the first ever Black president of a National Football League (NFL) team. Wright was a running back in the NFL for seven seasons and served as a captain for the Arizona Cardinals in the 2010 season.

Following his retirement from the NFL in 2011, he attended the Booth School of Business and graduated in 2013 with an M.B.A. in operations and finance. Following his graduation, Wright worked for McKinsey and Company and rose to the position of partner at the prestigious consulting firm, before being hired by Washington to run the team’s business operations. He is also currently the youngest team president in the NFL at just 38 years of age.

Finally, let’s talk about the reason why the spotlight now shines upon UChicago’s alumni in the sporting world: Kim Ng. You know the trail she’s blazed and the barriers she’s broken in the world of professional sports, but CONTINUED ON PG. 15

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“Ng was finally rewarded for her efforts when she was hired by the Miami Marlins as general manager.”

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you might not know the path she took to reach this point. Ng graduated from the College in 1990, playing on the softball team for four years and serving as captain. After graduating, she was hired by the Chicago White Sox as an analyst and served as assistant director of baseball operations until 1996. After working for the American League for a year, Ng was hired

by the New York Yankees in 1998 as assistant general manager, becoming the youngest person to hold that position in the MLB at just 29 years of age. She constructed the Yankees’ dynastic roster of the late ’90s, winning three straight World Series championships from 1998-2000. In 2002, Ng left New York to serve in the same role with the Los Angeles Dodgers, where she worked until 2011, after which she

left to work for the MLB as senior vice president of baseball operations. She continued to interview for the position of general manager, but almost 22 years after she took the baseball world by storm with the Yankees, it looked like her dream had passed her by. But earlier this month, after years of hard work, disappointment, and struggle against racism and sexism, Ng was finally rewarded for her efforts when

she was hired by the Miami Marlins as general manager. The widespread approval of Miami’s decision to hire Ng showcased the appreciation the baseball world had and continues to have for her, and her resume speaks for itself.

Kim Ng is an inspiration and a role model, and her story will continue to serve as a lesson in the value of hard work, tenacity, and perseverance.

Jeopardy!: America’s (True) Pastime

By ALISON GILL Sports Editor

After the death of beloved host Alex Trebek from pancreatic cancer in November, the long-running trivia game show Jeopardy! found itself at the center of national attention. As fans and contestants alike reflected on Trebek’s legacy and speculated on the future of the show, Claire McNear (A.B. ’11) braced for her book about the show, Answers in the Form of Questions, to hit shelves just two days after Trebek’s passing––a “bittersweet” moment, she admits. The Maroon sat down with McNear to discuss trivia subcultures, Trebek, the top contestants, and, yes, why Jeopardy! should be considered a sport.

Chicago Maroon: Could you talk about your first involvement with Jeopardy! and where that first love came from?

Claire McNear: I really grew up with [Jeopardy!]. It was always in the background and my family certainly watched it. We weren’t religious diehard “don’t call us in the 7 p.m. hour” people, as a lot of people are.

But it’s such a part of pop culture that it was just always in the background. [When I was a student here] I didn’t have cable and so I fell out of watching Jeopardy! for a while until I moved in with my fiancé, Justin Sink, fellow Maroon alum and former Editor-in-Chief of The Maroon. We

got cable and I had this realization, “Oh my god, we could DVR Jeopardy! every night.” It became this thing where every night we were watching Jeopardy!, like a couple [of ] big fucking dorks. [laughs] I write for [sports and culture website] The Ringer, and I joke that Jeopardy! is the perfect collision of those two things in a TV show that I profoundly believe is a sport. So I started covering it and somehow it led to a book.

CM: So what was that first time like when you pitched an article about Jeopardy!? What was the reaction in the room?

McNear: The great thing about working at The Ringer is that it is a place where you are encouraged to go down the rabbit hole with whatever [interests you]. The thing about Jeopardy!, too, is that 10 million people watch it every night—it is a huge show. That was one of the things I was curious about: Why is this trivia game show such an enduring and major part of pop culture and this massive ratings draw?

But my early stories about Jeopardy! were not super serious or long.

They weren’t even reported. I wasn’t really interviewing people for those.

Slowly I started to learn more about the show and the trivia subculture that fuels it, started actually doing some reporting and got to know people in the universe, and just got deeper and deeper into it.

CM: How would you describe the trivia subculture to people who are on the outside of it and haven’t really had a ton of interaction with it?

McNear: I think most people assume [when they’re watching an episode of Jeopardy!] that, OK, these are very smart people, but, for the most part, they’re just kind of pulled in from the street. Anybody could be on. That’s the great, beautiful myth of Jeopardy! Over the last five or 10 years, there has been this steady professionalization of the Jeopardy! community to get to where it is not Jeopardy! is like Everest for trivia lovers.

They work their way up to it—even really accomplished, really brilliant people who eventually do get on and kill it. Like, James Holzhauer [who repeatedly set the single-game earnings record and won 32 straight games] took the online test 13 straight years before he was finally chosen to be on.

It’s just this obsession for trivia lovers everywhere.

CM: What does the selection process generally look like?

McNear: This year alone, more than 100,000 people have taken the online contestant test, and of those 100,000, about 2,500 people are invited to auditions. From that pool of people, only about 400 new contestants get to play each season. I am not a math person, so I won’t try to do that in my head [laughs] but it’s a tiny fraction of the total applicants. So

of course the test becomes this absolute obsession for people who want to be on the show, and they’re panicking about their auditions and how to impress the coordinators.

CM: Once you get to the live auditions, what makes a contestant stand out and make them the right fit for the show?

McNear: That is one of the great mysteries of the universe .[laughs] By the point you’ve made it to an audition, you’ve had to take [the famously difficult 50-question] online contestant test. I can’t even tell you what a passing score is—it is widely thought that it is a 35 out of 50. They don’t tell you how you did or what score you need, so it becomes this neurotic thing for people, understandably so. [At the audition] you have to take a second 50-question test where a contestant coordinator reads the questions in real time. Then, you move onto the personality portion of [the audition] and that is the thing that surprises a lot of people who are trying to get on Jeopardy!. Out of this much smaller, more selective group, they want to see if you can be on television. It’s a little surprising when you watch Jeopardy!.

It’s not the liveliest group of people on an average night, but Jeopardy! wants players who are fun to watch, whom you can root for, who aren’t just rattling off answers like a zombie. The producers are very aware of the fact that Jeopardy! is a television show.