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Volume 55, Issue 69 | Monday, may 10, 2021 | ndsmcobserver.com
Anti-racism series wraps up Final Klau Center lecture features students, alumnus reflecting on activism By AIDAN O’MALLEY News Writer
The Klau Center for Civil and Human Rights hosted four students and one alumnus Friday afternoon in the final panel of its “Building an Anti-Racist Vocabulary” lecture series. Junior Miranda Cuozzo, seniors Matthew Aubourg and Frankie Tran and recent graduate Malik Zaire joined the live Zoom session to share their histories and perspectives of student activism at Notre Dame. Senior Mikyala Vaughn, unable to join the live discussion, participated in a prerecorded interview. Cuozzo, an architecture major and Africana Studies minor, is the vice president of the Notre Dame chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students. She is also a founding member of Frontline, a multicultural student advocacy group dedicated to generating discussions of inequality on campus. Before coming to Notre Dame,
Cuozzo said she conceived of racism as a historical and individual phenomenon, but upon her arrival, she began to understand its greater systemic roots. “I started to realize that the way I grew up was not the way that everybody else grew up,” Cuozzo said. “When I came here and started meeting people who had pools in their houses and regularly went to different countries for vacation, I was able to identify these differences and start to understand that there’s a systemic reason why our experiences are so different.” Cuozzo’s work on racial justice began in the classroom with “Realities of Race,” a one-credit seminar she took through the Center for Social Concerns in the spring of 2019. The seminar included an immersion component in Chicago and St. Louis, where Cuozzo interacted with local minority communities and learned more about systemic racism. The seminar also served as the inspiration for Frontline. “All of the students in [the
By ALYSA GUFFEY Notre Dame News Editor
AIDAN O’MALLEY | The Observer
Friday’s “Building an Anti-Racist Vocabulary” panel marked the final lecture in a semester-long series hosted by the Klau Center.
seminar] kind of realized that these conversations were important, and we didn’t want them to stop when we got back to campus,” Cuozzo said. “But we also recognized that those of us who elected to take this seminar did that for a reason, and we couldn’t just be having these conversations among ourselves. We needed to broaden it out to the rest of the Notre Dame community.” Since its founding, Frontline has worked to bring cultural
clubs together and promote communication between them. Frontline also organizes “Let’s Talk About Race,” an annual event hosted as part of Notre Dame’s Walk the Walk Week. Senior Matthew Aubourg, who studies environmental science and sustainability, was also a student in “Realities of Race.” But his most recent work in the fight for racial justice came later — after see LECTURE PAGE 4
Students prepare ND reaches 90% for finals week fully vaccinated By TRINITY REILLY News Writer
Finals week at Notre Dame will be held differently this semester, as reading days will take place on May 12, 13 and 16 — Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday — and examination days will take place on May 14, 15 and 17 through 19 — Friday, Saturday and Monday through Wednesday. While the new schedule makes finals week longer, giving students more time to study and prepare for finals, many have expressed frustration at having to take exams on a Saturday. One such student is sophomore Lyla Senn, who said she has two finals scheduled for that day. Senn said she typically appreciates having finals earlier in the week so that she has more time to spend
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with friends before school goes on break — but she was shocked to find out she will now have to take finals over the weekend. “I didn’t believe it at first and then it was very upset,” Senn said. “When the professor said that our final was on Saturday, I was like, ‘Are you kidding?’” Senn noted that the University has not given students many breaks this semester and said finals week reflects that pattern. There were a total of two “mini-break” days included in the spring semester, on March 2 and April 21— a Tuesday and a Wednesday, respectively. Students also were given a break for Good Friday, on April 2. “It’s just been such a brutal semester,” Senn said. “I feel like they’re taking the one day a week see FINALS PAGE 4
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New minor explores health
Observer Staff Report Universit y President Fr. John Jenk ins announced in an email Friday afternoon that 90% of Notre Dame undergraduate and graduate students have documented their second Pfizer or Moderna dose or their single Johnson & Johnson dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. In accordance w ith prev iously promised changes, Jenk ins said additiona l protocols w ill be rela xed. Namely, fully vaccinated students w ill no longer be required to complete week ly sur veillance testing or ex it testing beginning Monday, May 10, $15 in f lex points w ill be
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added to ever y student’s Irish1 Card Friday evening and Senior Week events w ill continue as planned since 90% of the senior class has been vaccinated. Jenk ins congratulated students for reaching the vaccination goa l, but encouraged them to continue follow ing hea lth protocols through the end of the semester. “It has been a tremendously cha llenging year, and I thank you for a ll you have done to ma ke it successful,” he said in the email, “Your being vaccinated at such a high rate w ill not only protect you, it w ill ma ke the campus, the loca l communit y and your home communities safer.”
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The College of Arts and Letters will offer a new minor program — health, humanities and society — beginning in fall 2021. The minor will explore the social and historical nature of American medicine and healthcare and how it relates to being a physician or patient. Anna Geltzer, assistant director of the University’s Reilly Center, said the development of the minor has been in the works for years, and hopes to have health, humanities and society ultimately become an academic major. Geltzer explained that many students had been discussing the need for a curriculum that focused on the cultural aspects of medicine to supplement the technical aspects that were already being taught. “You really do need to prepare people for understanding the context of the practice as well as the practice itself,” Geltzer said. Vania Smith-Oka, professor of anthropology, will serve as director of the minor. In her previous work and courses, she has explored how doctors are trained. The minor includes two core courses: American Healthcare in Perspective and Contemporary Concerns in Medicine, a seminar course. Geltzer, who is teaching American Healthcare in Perspective this fall, said talking about the context around healthcare is important for those attending medical school. “Understanding the history of the system and the system the context and comparative perspective is really, really crucial because the system is what shapes your experience as a physician, the same way that it shapes your experience as a patient,” Geltzer said. The second seminar course will explore a variety of topics from see MINOR PAGE 4
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