The legacy of Trey Razanauskas

second all-time among CWRU runners. He also holds the second-fastest times in the outdoor 10K, at 30:49.55, and outdoor 1,500m, at 3:54.57, both set in spring 2019.

Though he consistently excelled at running, Razanauskas encountered, and eventually surmounted, numerous challenges along his journey. At the 2019 NCAA National Championships, Razanauskas placed 118th overall. When the pandemic disrupted athletic programs in March 2020, his discipline and work ethic throughout that year and through 2021 prepared him to return to CWRU for one final season in the fall of 2021. Along the way, he overcame injuries and illness, always keeping his goals in mind.

after placing 13th at the meet in 2018, fourth in 2019 and third in 2021. At the NCAA National Championships in 2018, Razanauskas placed first on the team and 64th overall. This past year, he placed 45th overall and led the Spartans to a 19th-place finish out of 32 teams, the best finish for the men’s team in 35 years.

Off the track, Razanauskas excelled academically as well, earning multiple inductions into the Van Horn Society for achieving a cumulative grade point average of 3.8 or higher while studying economics and philosophy.

On Nov. 20, 2021, at E.P. “Tom” Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Kentucky, fourth-year Trey Razanauskas ran for a time of 24:25.7 on the 8K course, the fastest time ever run by a member of the Case Western Reserve University men’s cross country team at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III CrossCountry Championships. He capped off his collegiate career with a 45thoverall performance, having had his friends, family and teammates supporting him every step of the way.

Razanauskas, of Zelienople, Pennsylvania, leaves a legacy at CWRU that is second to none. In addition to holding the school record in the 8K, Razanauskas also set school records in the indoor 5K run with a time of 14:40.40 and in the outdoor 5K run with a time of 14:24.9. His indoor 3K time of 8:35.45, set in spring 2020, is

Beyond his individual accolades, Razanauskas elevated the stature of the men’s cross country team at CWRU. When Razanauskas transferred to CWRU from Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania in the fall of 2018, CWRU men’s cross country had not qualified as a team for the NCAA Championships since 2012. Spearheaded by Razanauskas’ leadership, the team made three straight appearances at the meet between 2018 and 2021, the longest streak of consecutive appearances since the 1970s. His athletic honors are remarkable beyond just his record times. Razananauskas earned All-UAA Second Team honors in 2018 and First Team honors in both 2019 and 2021. He earned three Great Lakes all-region honors

New resources for students at the Mather Center

Phuong Nguyen News Editor

An ever-changing semester is starting, and the Flora Stone Mather Center For Women in the Tinkham Veale University Center has prepared plenty of new resources for students.

The Mather Center violence prevention and education initiative is currently accepting custom workshop requests, which can be sent through the violence-prevention entity, It’s On CWRU. The center has historically been known for conducting workshops such as financial workshops for women. Additionally, the center also offers leadership workshops, with mentors being paired with students, having discussions about women in leadership positions and in workplaces. One ex- ample is their financial literacy workshop: how to plan for the future, how taxes work, with the workshop made mainly for freshmen, but other years are also welcome to join.

Recently, the center has also hired staff who are advocates from the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. There are many workshops with topics revolving around training bystanders. In addition, the workshops will also include information and resources for people who have experienced sexual assault. The workshops are not only for students and staff outside of Mather, but there will also be ones which focus on creating a safer and more welcoming environment for traumatized individuals within the center itself. The center plans to focus a lot more on Title IX is- sues, which they did not have resources for in the past. However, with a new direct link to the Rape Crisis Center, the topics can expand exponentially with incredible specificity.

The Mather Center has hosted many in-person events in the past, with great numbers of students attending. However, with events being online, Mather Center staff are afraid that the community bonding atmosphere will not be as prevalent as in previous years. The workshops are still available in the end, with topics ranging from sex and health to sexuality. Recently, the Mather Center hosted a collaborative event with University Hospitals, with experts coming in to talk about HIV and how to practice safe sex. There was also a table with petitions protest-

Razanauskas is a leader, a fighter and a friend. His support and encouragement brought out confidence in the teams he led while he was at CWRU. In my two seasons of being his teammate, I will remember his humor and his ability to make anyone feel welcome. His disciplined work ethic inspired me and others on the team to be great at everything we pursue.

Future runners at CWRU would do well to remember these words of advice from the greatest runner CWRU has ever seen:

“Never stop fighting for your dreams.” ing Ohio’s newly-approved abortion bills.

Yoshmar Pinal-Alfaro is a fifth-year student studying political science, and a former runner on the cross country team at CWRU. He strives to be curious, patient and a good listener in life.

Despite school policies requiring events to be remote, there are still many other resources for students to utilize at the Mather Center. A lactation room is available for use at the Mather Center, and condoms and dental dams are available for free to pick up. The center typically hosts events (when permissible) for student groups (with the most prominent student group collaboration in the past being Period@ CWRU).

While events cannot be held in person, the Mather Center remains open for emergencies and will continue to provide resources and events to CWRU’s campus.

CWRU Missed Connections makes complimenting others contagious

Among the countless possible honors and accolades one may collect during their time at Case Western Reserve University, a feature on the CWRU Missed Connections Instagram page might be one of the most memorable achievements for any student. If you haven’t heard of them already, @cwrumissedconnections is a student-run Instagram account that posts blurbs from students about “missed connections”—interactions with fellow students that flew by too quickly for a friendship to blossom. Most of the posts are positive experiences, whether they are about a wholesome conversation at the Tinkham Veale University Center or a noteworthy outfit spotted at Tomlinson Hall. On Sundays, the account specifically posts “Sunday Shoutouts” for the submissions that mention students by name.

The page has been a blessing in many ways, with the main goal of missed connections pages across college campuses being to make socializing easier. And con- sidering the miserable state the pandemic has left our social skills in, missed connections allows awkward, shy and quarantineafflicted people to find the person who held the gate open for them at the Kelvin Smith Library, all without having to speak to them in public.

Some missed connections submissions are oriented towards getting to know someone better after a brief shared spark—the numerous Dave’s Cosmic Subs and The Jolly Scholar posts almost all share this goal. Other missed connections posts have less of an objective, but are just as entertaining to read, as they use a myriad of colorful emojis to express an undying desperation for a specific person.

But the most common type of post— and my personal favorite type—simply compliments someone for their positive vibes. For instance, “The girl outside [insert building] with [insert clothes description] and talking about [insert conversation topic] had such a beautiful smile!” and “The person I ran into at [insert food place] had amazing [music taste/sense of style/ hair]” both follow the generic formats of so many wholesome missed connections.

Regardless of which format the missed connection follows, there is something about receiving one that makes you feel special. Seeing yourself complimented anonymously is exciting, and even finding one about your friends and tagging them in the comments can be entertaining. And the beauty of missed connections has not gone unnoticed. The page’s following speaks for itself—I’m sure all 2,499 followers have not received missed connections about themselves, yet all of us eagerly look forward to reading what interesting moments or thoughtful compliments others have to say for the CWRU community.

It sounds strange when put in perspective—the fact that I get excited for people I might not know to compliment other people that I might not know—but that’s part of the magic of missed connections. Positivity at CWRU is contagious and the sentiment of wanting to spread it is becoming contagious too.

Because of this, stumbling upon a missed connection on my feed never fails to make me smile. Knowing that someone put in the effort to fill out a Google form to selflessly compliment a stranger from what may have been a 2-minute interaction completely brightens my mood. And the submitters often opt to omit their Instagram handle from the Google form, making the act even more genuine.

As the @cwrumissedconnections page continues to gain traction and receive more submissions, I can’t help but think that the people who run this account truly make a difference in CWRU’s atmosphere, no matter how imperceptible. The more we see genuine kindness and the giddy effect it has on us, the more we are inspired to be the ones spreading it.

So, unless you’re afraid of overworking the @cwrumissedconnections admins, don’t hesitate to type out a compliment for someone you briefly met—it might cross an item off their CWRU bucket list, and if not, it can brighten their day and the campus atmosphere, as well.