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OCTOBER 6, 2022 SECOND WEEK VOL. 135, ISSUE 2

University Adds Free Downtown Shuttle, Metra Pass, and After-Hours Parking to Transit Options

By GUSTAVO DELGADO | Senior News Reporter The University is broadening transportation options for students to address gaps in the system and increase safe use of existing citywide public transit, as outlined in an email on September 21 from Dean Michele Rasmussen and Associate Vice President for Safety and Security Eric Heath.

The Lyft Ride Smart program, inaugurated last fall allows students up to 10 free Lyft rides per month within the Hyde Park service area, has been expanded to include the Garfield Red Line and Green Line stations. Within this area, Lyft rides worth up to $15, not including tips, are subsidized by the University at no cost to the student. Students not previously enrolled in the program will receive an invitation to join.

The University is also offering passes

for 10 free Metra Electric rides each year on any zone of the Metra Electric line. Students may sign up for the offer beginning October 1 through the my.uchicago portal. To claim a pass, students must also have created a Ventra account and have downloaded the Ventra app, which allows students to purchase and validate Metra tickets digitally.

The University will also begin offering students free parking at the Campus North Garage at Ellis Avenue between 5 p.m. and 3 a.m., seven days a week. To avoid any fees, students without a 24-hour parking permit must exit the garage by 7 a.m.

Additionally, the UGo Shuttle system will open a new line during winter quarter 2023 connecting Hyde Park and downtown UChicago locations like the

“Whose Work? Our Work!” At Rally, GSU Begins New Campaign for Formal Recognition

By NOAH GLASGOW | Senior News Reporter At a rally on the quad on Tuesday, Graduate Students United (GSU) announced the beginning of a new “signing card” campaign that puts graduate student workers on track to win representation in a legally recognized union.

ARTS: Alum reflects on his theater career and the pandemic PAGE 2

Gleacher Center and UChicago Medical Center clinics. This shuttle, slated to run every 20 minutes from 6:30 a.m. – 10 p.m. Monday to Friday, will also stop at the Roosevelt Red Line CTA station. More details and an exact route map will be provided later in autumn quarter.

The University also plans to make reliability and efficiency improvements to the shuttle system in response to observed service gaps, particularly in the morning hours.

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ARTS: Phoebe Bridgers’s concert is an outlet for cries PAGE 3

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Hundreds of graduate student workers from across the University gathered on the quad alongside representatives from Faculty Forward, the University’s union of non-tenure track professors, and the Unit-

More information on UChicago’s transit options is available on the Department of Safety and Security’s website or the UChicago Safe mobile app, which displays live information for transportation on and surrounding campus. The University has also released a video outlining the forthcoming updates alongside guidelines for staying safe on public transit.

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SPORTS: The Chicago Bull’s 2022 Offseason and Season Preview

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“This is what democracy looks like!”

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ed Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE), the national union with whom GSU recently voted to affiliate in August. UE has led successful graduate worker unionization efforts at the University of Indiana Bloomington and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

When graduate student workers sign a union authorization card, they consent to union representation under UE, explained GSU spokeswoman Laura Colaneri. Once 30 percent of workers sign cards, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will organize a plebiscite to confirm the workers’ decision to unionize. After an affirmative vote, the case would advance to the NLRB for formal approval.

“This is what democracy looks like!” attendees at the rally shouted, gathering around organizers in yellow vests that issued authorization cards or directed attendees to a digital authorization page.

Organizers announced that they hope to sign up 900 student workers in the campaign’s first week.

Graduate student workers at the University voted to unionize in 2017 as an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT),

Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). However, GSU withdrew their case from NLRB consideration when they feared that a new, Trump-appointed majority on the Board would use GSU’s case to overturn a yearslong precedent allowing graduate students to unionize.

Tuesday’s rally marked the beginning of a new campaign for unionization. At the rally, signs advocated for a new set of bargaining demands that GSU has established after a summer of community meetings and online surveys of graduate students. These demands include comprehensive dental, vision, and healthcare for graduate student workers, as well as additional legal support for international graduate student workers.

Graduate chemist Valay Agarawal said that he wanted the University to support international graduate students “in tangible ways, not just in emails.” At the rally, he said that visas and travel expenses can prohibit them from working at the University of Chicago.

Representatives also advocated for a higher stipend to cope with the increasing cost of living, another plank of this year’s platform.

“We’re finding that our stipend is not keeping up with inflation,” Colaneri told The Maroon. “Tying a living wage to the cost of living and rising inflation has become a much bigger priority for people.”

Based on publicly available information, the minimum graduate student stipend appears to be $33,000 a year, a number that was repeated by organizers at the rally.

“We’re realizing we don’t get to see the budget on this,” Colaneri said. “Decisions are being made for us but without us.”

Maya Mallaby-Kay, a graduate student at the rally, said she joined GSU when she received a medical bill from the University of Chicago for a procedure that insurance at the University of Michigan—where she’d been a graduate student worker previously— had covered. The University of Michigan has a long-standing union for graduate students.

“For me, that was really eye opening.

Like, ‘Oh, there are very concrete differences you can have when you have a union that’s legally recognized,’” Mallaby-Kay said.

Mallaby-Kay worked on the platform committee this summer, which developed GSU’s updated demands. “We’re excited about this platform because a lot of work went into trying to develop things that are

sort of wanted by our whole union and for us, the democracy and representing all graduate’s voices is incredibly important,” she said.

While GSU successfully bargained for the abolition of the University’s Student Services fee in January, the relationship between GSU and the University remains strained, according to both Mallaby-Kay and Colaneri.

“This year, we are very hopeful that we can have a more productive relationship,” Colaneri said.

Michael Stablein, the rally’s emcee and a graduate student worker in the history department, riffed on the University of Chicago administration’s vocal commitment to free speech. “Speech is free at the University of Chicago,” Stablein called into the microphone. “Apparently, so is graduate labor.”

Stablein encouraged the crowd to let Levy Hall, the administration building, hear what graduate student’s free speech sounds like. Cheers, jeers, and shouts poured out of the crowd—some less than courteous.

Graduate student workers can sign their union authorization cards and learn more about GSU’s new 2022 plans at https://uchicagogsu.org/.

ARTS University Alum Dwight Sora Reflects on Acting, Aikido, and How the Pandemic Changed His Ambitions

By ABIGAIL POAG | Arts Reporter Dwight Sora (A.B. ’95) is mere feet from the audience. Clad in a baseball cap and blue jeans, he sits in a pale green armchair on a wooden platform set apart from the main stage. He is so close to the audience that the minutiae of his performance become visible: the moments he changes his facial expression or shifts his grip on the fiddle in his hands.

In his first in-person show since before the pandemic began, Sora performed as accountant Martin Kinflein in Gift Theatre’s At the Vanishing Point—a series of vignettes following the residents of a Midwestern town. After months of pandemic delays, rehearsals for the

play, written by Naomi Iizuka and directed by Lavina Jadhwani, commenced in early 2022.

Sora, whose only pandemic-era public performance was in a Zoom reimagining of the play The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, was excited to act in a physical space again.

“When the set started being put together, it felt like being on a playground,” Sora told The Maroon. “It felt great just to move in three dimensions.”

The sparse design of At the Vanishing Point’s set directs the audience’s focus to the actors, who monologue one by one, relaying a series of loosely linked recollections from

their lives. In addition to a smaller platform situated to the right of the main stage, the set consists of a thrust stage dotted with objects, including a record player with a box of discs and a projector that casts ghostly snippets of old photographs onto the wall behind the actors.

In his monologue, Martin reflects on his fiddle-playing father’s encounter with the devil. This “hint of the supernatural” appeals to Sora, who was drawn to fantasy during the pandemic. Recently, he has been revisiting favorite books from youth, including Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, a fantasy novel that is also set in a small Midwestern town.

“Everyone has had their own way of dealing with [the pandemic], and for me, [that has] been a lot of reading up on history, reading up on myth,” he said.

During table discussions, Sora pointed out the play’s focus on the theme of memory, noting that many of the characters wonder what “they hope to remember or be remembered for.”

At the Vanishing Point’s exploration of legacy and loss resonates with Sora. In the play, Martin’s father died at 104. Sora’s own grandmother passed away last year at the age of 102.

“I have thought about the fact that whatever stories lived in my grandmother are now CONTINUED ON PG. 3

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“I didn’t go to any drama program.”

CONTINUED FROM PG. 2 effectively lost except for whatever she has passed down to me or my mom,” he said.

For Sora, the pandemic has offered an opportunity to reflect on his career, a process he said had “slightly blunted [his] ambitions—in a good way.” Instead of actively searching for the next big project as he would have earlier in his career, Sora has focused on enjoying his time performing in At the Vanishing Point.

“At this stage, I’m literally just happy to be here,” he said. “I have zero expectations for myself, which has made it very easy to just be as big and full as I can because I’m not thinking about trying to get the next job. It’ll come when it comes.”

Sora did not initially intend to become a professional actor. He tried his hand at acting in high school but never took his stage work seriously. Entering college, he knew only that he wanted to pursue writing in some capacity.

While living in Burton-Judson Hall during his first two years at the University of Chicago, Sora performed in the dormitory’s then-an-

nual musical “for fun.” He played oboe in the pit for the dormitory’s production of Sweet Charity as a first-year, later portraying a baseball player in Damn Yankees as a second-year.

It wasn’t until after Sora graduated from UChicago with a degree in East Asian languages and civilizations that he really got into acting. He was invited to perform in an amateur production with Scrap Mettle SOUL, a community outreach and performance project, while volunteering with the Japanese American Citizens League of Chicago post-graduation. An audience member involved with the Stockyards Theatre Project invited Sora to audition for the company’s play The Rape of Nanking citing their difficulty finding Asian-American actors. Sora is Japanese- and Korean-American.

Despite having no résumé, headshot, or professional monologue, Sora auditioned with an excerpt from the Scrap Mettle SOUL production. He got the role he desired and began performing in his first professional production in 2002.

While he was in The Rape of Nanking, Sora connected with many of the production’s other Asian-American cast members, whom he credits with launching his career.

“That was my cheat,” he joked. “I didn’t go to any drama program. I never went to conservatory. I basically stole all this information from people who had done it already.”

Although Sora now acts primarily in Chicago’s storefront theaters—local theaters known for their intimate size and connection to the surrounding community—he has also done commercial, voice-over, and film work, including a small role in a 2012 remake of the action film Red Dawn.

Sora’s acting career at times overlaps with his practice of aikido, a Japanese martial art he began learning while studying abroad at Waseda University in Tokyo as an undergraduate. In addition to performing as an onstage fighter in a Lyric Opera of Chicago production, Sora has served as a fight choreographer for productions at Porchlight Music Theatre and Mercury Theater Chicago.

Sora said that aikido is a “healthy distraction” from his acting work and that it helps keep him grounded. He is currently an instructor at the Chicago Aikido Club, where he has been promoted to a third-degree black belt.

Recently, Sora has been cast in the indie short feature “Searching for Woo,” which began filming in June.

He expressed hope that At the Vanishing Point would strike a chord with audience members who, like him, found solace in revisiting old memories during the pandemic.

“Hopefully [watching this play] is part of resuming that sense of connection with other people—exchanging stories and memories,” he said. “Even though this play wasn’t designed for a post-pandemic year, it’s oddly appropriate.”

At the Vanishing Point played at The Gift Theatre from May 1–22.

Phoebe Bridgers Provides an Outlet for Sadness

By CRISTINA RODRÍGUEZ ROJAS | Arts Reporter “The next song is a bummer,” Phoebe Bridgers warned the crowd before performing her heartbreak anthem “Moon Song.”

But all of us in the audience already knew the melancholy that was in store for us. Moving through a set list composed primarily of slow-tempo songs, Phoebe Bridgers allowed us all the experience of the therapeutic power of sad music.

On June 4, Phoebe Bridgers’s Reunion Tour concert at the Huntington Bank Pavilion brought together a sea of Bridgers fans in Dr. Martens and skeleton costumes. Replacing Charlie Hickey as the opener, Claud, breakout indie-pop artist and Chicagoland native didn’t disappoint. On their first show joining Bridgers on tour, Claud dazzled their hometown with hits like “Soft Spot,” which has accumulated over 9 million streams on Spotify. Forty minutes later, after Claud’s set, Phoebe Bridgers stormed the stage in a white suit, rocking out her career-defining single “Motion Sickness,” the most popular single out of her debut album Stranger in the Alps.

Among the concertgoers, there was an understanding that we would all cry at some

point, since Bridgers’s specialty is bringing together all the lovers of heartbreak and existential angst tunes. Bridgers’s willingness to give in to her emotions, even the most undesirable ones, spread amongst the crowd as we sang along to her signature songs “Funeral” and “Smoke Signals.” Fans’ palpable emotional connections to the material created a surprisingly intimate atmosphere at such a large venue. Being in a space to sing about loneliness in a room full of people who can for sure say they have felt the same way as you is ultimately why you go to a Phoebe Bridgers concert. It is an opportunity to feel closer to the music that pulls at your heartstrings—all in the company of an army of fans whose favorite activity is unpacking their sorrows.

Bridgers’s strengths as an artist shine the most in her candid lyrics and soul-stirring vocals. Thankfully, these attributes are never outshone by the show’s production. Images of a pop-up book turning its pages lit up the large screen behind Bridgers, each page illustrating the themes of the song Bridgers would play next. The drawings’ connection

to the material enhanced the performance’s intimate atmosphere, bringing Bridgers’s world closer to the fans who find solace in her art. These visuals gave the stage a glimpse of her lyrical imagination without ever being a distraction.

Although Phoebe shied away from long monologues between songs, her shorter interventions composed some of the night’s most memorable moments. In them, you could tell Bridgers knows who her audience is and the things that matter most to them; Phoebe congratulated all LGBTQ+ attendees for Pride Month. Before playing “Chinese Satellite,” she spoke about the importance of abortion rights and protections for transgender youth. Bridgers shared that she has had audience members walk out of her show when she makes such statements, a surprising anecdote considering her fan base’s progressive demographic. I laughed a bit, thinking about what my conservative mother’s reaction would have been at that moment. I did borrow money from her for these tickets, which, in my head, was funneling right-wing funds to support queer entertainment.

Even though Phoebe Bridgers has assem-

bled a fan base that wears their anguish as a badge of honor, they were still energized when the time came for her more upbeat songs. We went from sobbing due to the pains of unrequited love in “Moon Song” to relentlessly shouting the words of “ICU.” Right before playing the electrifying Grammy-nominated single “Kyoto,” Phoebe said, “This one is for everybody’s dad,” inviting all of us with parental trauma to sing lyrics like “I want to kill you if you don’t beat me to it” at the top of our lungs. However, the biggest screams of the night came with the track “I Know the End,” a song released during the coronavirus quarantine that finally got to live up to its potential with a live audience.

During the song’s explosive ending, fans pushed their vocal cords to the extreme, screaming just as Phoebe does in the recording. Moments of release such as these are the epitome of a Bridgers concert, allowing everybody present to embrace the anger, pain, and joy that Phoebe’s music evokes. Outside my bedroom, I can’t think of a safer space to sob than at a Phoebe Bridgers concert.

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SPORTS Contract Extensions, a Backup Center, and Missed Opportunities: The Chicago Bulls’ 2022 Offseason and Season Preview

By AUSTIN ZEGLIS | Sports Reporter The Chicago Bulls took a giant step forward in the 2021–22 season, finishing with a 46–36 record and making the playoffs as a number six seed after four straight seasons of missing the postseason entirely. Now, as the offseason wraps up, relative inaction on the part of the Bulls calls into question whether last year’s accomplishments will translate to an equally successful 2022–23 season.

Free agency season saw the Bulls bring in Andre Drummond and Goran Dragić as veteran bench pieces. That didn’t hurt, but what did was the sight of other teams making much bigger moves. Two teams who finished below the Bulls in the Eastern Conference last year made blockbuster trades in free agency.

The Atlanta Hawks traded forward Danilo Gallinari, three unprotected first round picks, and a 2026 pick swap to the San Antonio Spurs for Dejounte Murray. The Cleveland Cavaliers traded a package including Collin Sexton, former Bull Lauri Markkanen, and three unprotected picks to pair Darius Garland with guard Donovan Mitchell in their backcourt. After these moves, the league could see Cleveland and Atlanta leapfrogging Chicago in the Eastern Conference standings this year, calling into question whether the Bulls will be able to finish in the top six and avoid the play-in tournament reserved for the seventh through tenth seeds.

Zach LaVine has been an integral piece of the Bulls system for four years now, and another great season from him would be a huge step towards a potential playoff run for the Bulls this year. Averaging 24.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 4.5 assists

per game on 48 percent shooting from the field and 39 percent from the three-point line, LaVine’s dynamic athleticism and proficient shooting earned him a five-year contract worth around $37 million this year and more than $215 million overall.

In the draft, the Bulls selected Arizona guard Dalen Terry with the 18th overall pick, adding to the collection of guards the Bulls have been accumulating seemingly as an insurance policy for the injured Lonzo Ball. Terry, along with some combination of Goran Dragić, Alex Caruso, Coby White, and Ayo Dosunmu, will have to pick up some of the slack next to Zach LaVine in the backcourt.

The six foot seven guard made some great winning plays and showed a lot of potential in the Summer League.

While he may need some time to develop his long-range shooting, Terry is a great athlete who can get to the basket quickly and defend almost any position.

Ball, who tore his meniscus in January, was a crucial part of the Bulls’ early season success in 2021, adding great perimeter defense and intelligent passing. The Bulls had cruised to a 27–13 record before Ball injured his knee, then tumbled to a 19–23 finish in the second half of the season. Ball is set to undergo surgery on his knee on September 28 in Los Angeles and will be reevaluated in four to six weeks, making it unlikely he will be available for the season opener against the Miami Heat on October 19.

Bulls fans are hoping for a breakout season from 2020 fourth overall pick Patrick Williams, who was poised to take a big step last year before he injured his wrist in an Oc-

tober game against the New Orleans Pelicans. After playing a little on the back end of last season, including a couple of 20-point performances against the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the playoffs, the former Florida State forward should contribute great defense on all levels this year.

I was unimpressed, to say the least, by center Nikola Vučević last year. While many wanted to see the seven-footer be a strong force in the paint, Vučević played more like a stretch five and left a lot to be desired given the Bulls’ lack of big bodies down low. He wasn’t a fantastic shooter, either—he posted a 51.8 percent effective field goal percentage, the sixth lowest on the team and his lowest since his 2017–18 season with the Orlando Magic. Unless we see an improvement in Vučević’s performance down low in the paint, the 31-year-old’s future with the team may be called into question.

Aside from bringing back Zach LaVine, the Bulls’ biggest offseason move was bringing in Andre Drummond as their backup center. The Bulls will be the sixth team in four years for Drummond, who was traded by Detroit in 2020 after six years of service and two All-Star selections for the Pistons. The 31-year-old has been one of the league’s top rebounders since joining the league, but the Bulls hope that talent won’t fade as Drummond gets older—his 9.3 rebounds per game last year marked his first season averaging less than ten since his rookie year.

Another All-NBA season from DeMar DeRozan would also greatly improve the Bulls’ chances at making a playoff run. DeRozan had a bounce back season last year, even generating some MVP buzz in the middle of the year when he had an

eight-game streak of over 35 points on 50 percent shooting in February.

He finished the season with averages of 27.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 4.9 assists per game on 50 percent shooting from the field and 35 percent from three. This came after Bleacher Report named DeRozan the worst free agency signing of the 2021 offseason. This August, Bleacher Report put him on their list of most overrated players of the last ten years, which DeRozan responded to by way of a notorious clip from a Grand Theft Auto cutscene. Could this be a similar chip on DeRozan’s shoulder that fuels him to another incredible year?

There are many things that could go wrong for the 2022 Chicago Bulls: Lonzo Ball could miss more time, Patrick Williams could fail to meet expectations, defensive woes from last year could carry over to this season, and more. And compared to the talent that other Eastern Conference teams brought in, Andre Drummond being one of the marquee moves of your offseason is mediocre to say the least. But maybe I’m selling them short—if Lonzo Ball gets healthy quickly, the trio of DeRozan, LaVine, and Ball could outperform last year’s finish, and Chicago could finish as a top-five team in the East. Even so, the most realistically successful scenario is that DeRozan and LaVine power the Bulls to a seventh seed finish in the East behind the Milwaukee Bucks, the Philadelphia 76ers, the Boston Celtics, the Miami Heat, the Brooklyn Nets, and the Toronto Raptors. Otherwise, success from teams like Atlanta and Cleveland may push the Bulls farther down in the play-in tournament or out of the postseason completely.