The Flat Hat September 1 2020

Vol. 110, Iss. 4 | Tuesday, September 1, 2020

The Flat Hat The Weekly Student Newspaper

of The College of William and Mary

KALLACO CONFUSION Students, staff ramp up concerns over College’s COVID-19 testing protocols

A D F G N I PEND ROVAL APP

ALEXANDRA BYRNE // FLAT HAT CHIEF STAFF WRITER my move in date. This was extremely frustrating.”

After emailing a number of administrators, Larimer was contacted by Senior Associate Dean of Students Mark Sikes.

“I was then contacted by somebody from the Deans’ office who told me that I could expect my results that night and basically walked me through my options,” Larimer said. “This phone call from Dean Sikes was lifesaving. I cannot articulate to you how helpful he was. For the first time in the process I felt like I was actually talking to a real person who understood the situation I was in.”

Though Larimer’s conversation with Sikes alleviated her frustration, she also noted a lack of any contact from Kallaco, whom she contacted but did not hear back from.

Herndon also contacted the College about her troubles with testing and found the College’s movein hotline to be helpful. Despite being able to ultimately move in, Herndon questioned the partnership with Kallaco.

“I think the University could have been more up front about the fact that there are concerns about the validity of Kallaco’s tests, and that not much is known about the company,” Herndon said. “I think they also GRAPHIC BY CARMEN HONKER / THE FLAT HAT could have been more clear that test results may not actually be available efore new students moved into campus Aug. 12 and in advance of until well over 72 hours after delivery. I think they made a good decision returning students’ anticipated arrival in Williamsburg after Labor by allowing students to take other tests, but I think they could have been more Day, the College of William and Mary has partnered with VCU Health proactive in making sure students know how to access other tests.” to administer COVID-19 testing to all students returning to campus for the fall According to Chief Operating Officer Amy Sebring, multiple factors played semester. According to the College’s health protocols, all students must test negative into delayed Kallaco results, including faults made by students while taking and before returning to campus or risk being turned away upon arrival. sending the tests and administrative delays on the College’s end.

VCU Health contracted with Kallaco Health & Technology to administer “The turnaround time for test results for our first students arriving on campus testing. Recently, Kallaco has come under fire from some students, who have was tight and we did experience testing delays,” Sebring said in an email. claimed their tests are not being processed quickly enough. Students and faculty “Some of those delays were due to delays in W&M shipping students the test members at other Virginia universities have also intensified questioning of kits, students completing the required registration, incomplete samples being Kallaco’s credentials and the tests’ accuracy. presented for testing and delays in the lab response time, consistent with what College biology professor and virologist Kurt Williamson warned that proper we have seen nationally due to high demand.” tests are extremely important. Williamson echoed the concerns raised by faculty Sebring mentioned that Kallaco worked double-time to meet the College’s demand, of Virginia Commonwealth University and George Mason University that the tests pointing to the call center and backup testing options as steps taken to ensure students students received are not FDA authorized for home collection of samples. were able to meet their move-in deadlines. Sebring does not anticipate the same issues “Yes, students should be concerned,” Williamson said in an email. “Students as returning students prepare to move in during early September and said that Kallaco’s should be asking questions right now.” turnaround time now consistently lies within a 72-hour window.

In response to these allegations, Kallaco spokeswoman Amy Cheronis The College is not alone in experiencing concerns regarding Kallaco testing. A widely emphasized the company’s reputability. circulated Aug. 20 letter from faculty at GMU and VCU urged the Virginia Department of “Kallaco was created by U.S. healthcare executives who saw firsthand what the lack Health to investigate Kallaco’s credentials as a company. of testing could do to highly-impacted areas while they were working in New Orleans “It seems odd to us that this young IT company, which has been awarded when COVID-19 struck,” Cheronis said in an email. “They were able to deliver testing sole source state contracts with a potential value of over $4 million, has been to one of the first, and hardest hit, areas of the city. They believed this lack of available entrusted with the critical COVID-19 testing for up to 28,500 students at our testing was going to quickly and dramatically affect businesses and universities across universities,” the letter said. the country. Members of the Kallaco team have worked in healthcare for decades, In an email to GMU faculty that was obtained by The Flat Hat, members of the faculty supporting universities, hospitals and employers in many different capacities.” senate said VDH declined to investigate, as the department was not involved in the Testing is a major component of the College’s plan for returning to campus. contract’s negotiation.

Many students and faculty are still uneasy about the new company, and In a different email obtained by The Flat Hat, President of the Faculty Senate of question whether test kits are being processed quickly and accurately enough to Virginia and VCU Professor Carmen Rodriguez said that she asked the president be effective preventative measures against the spread of COVID-19 on campus. of the faculty senate to sign the letter, but was in a hurry to send the letter to Late Tests and Move-In Troubles VDH. No members of the College’s faculty senate ultimately signed the letter.

Many students at the College did not enjoy smooth experiences with Kallaco’s According to the company’s LinkedIn page, Kallaco was founded in April 2020 COVID-19 testing.

by John Spivey. The for-profit, New Orleans-based company describes itself as a “My experience with testing was stressful and slightly complicated,” Sarah comprehensive software solution for testing and monitoring of employee and student Larimer ’23 said in an email. “I had sent in my test the day I received it because I health. It identifies its clients as employers, universities and hospital systems. was approved to move in early. Based on the original time frame given for results Spivey holds a PhD in American studies from the University of Kansas, according (within 36 hours), I should have had plenty of time between getting my results and to his website. His past business ventures focus mainly on technology and healthcare then leaving for VA. However, it took around 80 hours for me to get my results. This services. Spivey is concurrently the CEO of both Kallaco and his private consulting was hugely problematic for me.” firm, Spivey & Company.

Larimer, who lives in Chicago, had to begin her 14-hour drive to Williamsburg While Spivey has dabbled in the healthcare industry, he is primarily an executive without having received her test results. Though Larimer received her negative with no scientific background. According to Kallaco’s website, San San Ng, who holds a result before she moved in, others were not as lucky.

PhD in human genetics and has a background in clinical testing, is the company’s Chief Soon after Larimer arrived on campus, Residence Life informed students via email Scientific Officer. Other members of the executive team include various advisors and that they could use negative results from third-party providers, a shift from the College’s consultants from partner companies. previous mandate that all results had to come from Kallaco.

As a new company with little public information, students have expressed “I think that all the testing protocols were done with the best interest of the students skepticism about the College’s partnership with Kallaco. in mind, but with everything changing so quickly in the course of a week, adaptive “I have some serious concerns about the Kallaco tests, given that there is not much measures didn’t change at the same pace,” Larimer said. “I was super lucky, my results information about the company on their website,” Herndon said. “I am not a scientist came in negative and I was able to keep my move-in time. But I had to go against the and am certainly not capable of determining whether or not the tests are reliable, but I school’s recommendation of not leaving home until I had a negative test. And I have think the school should have screened the company better before hiring them.” no idea what I would have done if I didn’t test negative. I think that the changes they The faculty from VCU and GMU also expressed concerns over the tests themselves, recently made are a good step, but didn’t come in time for a lot of students.” claiming that some tests were not given FDA Emergency Use Authorization.

Maggie Herndon ’22 had been expecting to move in during Labor Day Williamson echoed these concerns. weekend, like most upperclassmen, but was informed by the College Aug. 7 that “I have heard from at least two students who have told me that the tube for she could move in early. swab storage was labeled “NOT FOR DIAGNOSTIC PURPOSES” which matches Many students attempted to communicate their problems with testing to the College. up with the experiences described at the other schools,” Williamson said. “Yes, Larimer initially encountered difficulties when interacting with administrators. we should be concerned.”

“I had mixed interactions when it came to contacting the school,” Larimer said. “So when I first contacted the school I was told to be patient and that I could always change See KALLACO page 8

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CAMPUS

The Lemon Project hosts panel, gives construction update Discussion reveals Memorial to the Enslaved details ALEXANDRA BYRNE FLAT HAT CHIEF STAFF WRITER

The Lemon Project held a panel discussion Tuesday, Aug. 25 to update students, faculty and staff at the College of William and Mary on progress made on the proposed Memorial to the African Americans Enslaved by William and Mary. Construction on the memorial, for which a concept was selected in April 2019, is slated to begin in January 2021.

The final design was presented to the Board of Visitors earlier this week as described in a press release from the College. The memorial has successfully reached its $2 million fundraising goal, half of which was raised by donations from alumni and community members, with all private donations matched dollar-for-dollar by the BOV. Discussion around erecting a memorial began with a course in 2014 taught by Director of the Lemon Project and history professor Jody Allen Ph.D ’09 and art senior lecturer Ed Pease.

Students in the class were asked to develop a memorial concept as a final project. Soon thereafter, the Lemon Project Committee on Memorialization was formed to brainstorm ideas for a Memorial to the Enslaved on campus.

“As we finished the class and decided to create this committee on memorialization, the big question was, ‘how does this work?’,” Pease said. “How do we choose someone or how do we find the right person to design it? It was a pretty unanimous decision early on to do a competition.”

The committee hosted an international competition, inspired by the one conducted for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. It received 80 submissions from 16 states and four continents. In April 2019, the committee announced that the winning design was “Hearth”

by William Sendor ’11.

“Hearth” is intended to invoke a brick fireplace.

The names of the enslaved, or citations if a name is unknown, will be inscribed on bricks that protrude from the structure.

Allen welcomed student participation in the ongoing research process to uncover more names or citations of the enslaved.

“One of the things we’re still doing is looking for as many names of the enslaved as we can find,” Allen said. “The names will actually go on the monument.

We’re up to 186 names or citings because a lot of times people are named for a skill. We’re finding some almost every time someone goes into the archives to look. There are opportunities for student research. We want student input.”

Once the initial concept was selected, the building committee met with numerous architectural firms, who presented ideas on how to realize Sendor’s vision. The committee selected Baskervill, an architectural firm based in Richmond, Va. “I know we’ve kind of been quiet and invisible so it looks like we haven’t been working, but we really have been working, it’s just behind the scenes,” Chief Diversity Officer Chon Glover said.

Principal Architect at Baskervill Burt Pinnock said that once construction begins, it is projected to last nine to 11 months. The 20-ft-tall memorial will be located on the College’s historic campus on the south side of the Sir Christopher Wren Building, breaking one of the walls surrounding the campus.

It will be the first new construction on the historic campus since the Rockefeller renovations of 1932.

Executive Director of Historic Campus Susan Kern noted the importance of the memorial’s placement.

“Strategically, it breaks through a 1932 wall that was put there to define the boundaries of W&M’s historic campus,” Kern said. “The wall came up as a symbol to the community that there were walls around W&M to keep them out. One of the things that this memorial does is break through that wall and impose an intervention into how we tell history here. It is challenging the visual order of campus that has been in place for almost 100 years. It is that important to us.”

The memorial will also stand directly across Jamestown Road from the College’s admissions office. The office, which is a starting point for campus tours, marks a central location that receives significant foot traffic.

Elaine Godwin ’22 reflects on the recent Democratic National Convention and evaluates presidential nominee Joe Biden’s performance. page 4

See LEMON PROJECT page 2

Inside Sports

Inside Variety

DNC uncovers major differences within Democratic party

Flathatnews.com | Follow us:

Love and candles

Isabelle Tan ’22 spent her quarantine turning her candlemaking hobby into a bonafide side-hustle — raising over $700 for charity. page 5

Amid sports lull, recruiting provides hope

Zoe Beardsley ’22 says Tribe Athletics fans should retain optimism for the future of men’s and women’s basketball. page 7

Page 2

The Flat Hat

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Williamsburg advocacy group organizes protest A Williamsburg-based advocacy group organized a protest Saturday, Aug. 29, to hold a seven minute moment of silence for Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back seven times by police Officer Rustin Sheskey. Students and community members safely gathered on the streets of Richmond Rd. and Jamestown Rd to participate in a sit-in. Cars were redirected by the Williamsburg Police Department. Protest organizers put appropriate physical distance measures in place by protest organizers, marking out places six feet apart for participants to stand at to ensure the safety of all involved and comply with campus COVID-19 regulations.

Following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other individuals who have died at the hands of police brutality, the national conversation regarding police brutality and institutional racism in the United States was amplified. This movement has been sustained on national and local levels over the past few months through the efforts of community organizers and individuals who have remained engaged in the issue, despite decreased mainstream media coverage.

In the Williamsburg community, the Williamsburg Action and Peaceful Protests Williamsburg groups have emerged as leaders and organizers of local advocacy efforts by planning public protests, including the one seen last Saturday, disseminating anti-racist material, and guiding efforts to contact local, state, and national leaders.

The Williamsburg Action group has organized various protests throughout the past few months and has also shared important information about engaging in antiracist advocacy.

They have also collaborated with the 757 StudentAthlete Coalition for Social Change to organize a Unity Walk with SAAC representatives from W&M, Hampton, Christopher Newport, Old Dominion, Virginia Wesleyan and Norfolk St. NEWS BRIEF BY MAGGIE MANSON / FLAT HAT POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

A THOUSAND WORDS

ADMINISTRATION

Rowe announces cuts to administrative salaries Changes constitute COVID-19 response plan, evoke student reactions AIDAN WHITE FLAT HAT STAFF WRITER

Five months after evacuating students due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the College of William and Mary’s administration has announced a plan of action to offset the economic effects of the pandemic at the College. Part of the plan includes cuts of the salaries of College President Katherine Rowe and two top College administrators.

However, some members of the College community expressed discontent that the plan did not do enough to address the needs of the faculty and staff at the College.

In a statement released Aug. 11 and signed by Rowe, College Provost Peggy Agouris and Chief Operating Officer Amy Sebring, the administration laid out four steps they will be taking to prepare the College for additional expenditures related to COVID-19. The first of these is leadership salary reductions. Agouris and Sebring will voluntarily reduce their compensation by 12 percent, while Rowe requested a 15 percent salary reduction at the Board of Visitors meeting. Aug. 25. These salary reductions will be in effect until the end of the calendar year.

According to Sebring, these steps were decided on after a decision-making process which involved university leadership, members of Rowe’s cabinet and the Board of Visitors.

Sebring said that the process was guided by four principles: preserving the College’s core learning mission, ensuring that university leaders would be the first impacted, protecting College employees who make less than $50,000 annually and focusing on temporary actions.

“The president, provost and myself wanted to take salary reductions that would provide both significant savings and be well above any possible reductions that may have to be asked of other employees,” Sebring said in an email.

However, Sebring also said that the combined four-month salary reductions being taken by Rowe, Agouris and herself will only yield about $55,116 in savings for the College. For context, President Rowe earned $671,621 last year according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, while Agouris has an annual salary of $400,000 and Sebring has

an annual salary of $330,000 according to the Washington Post. According to OpenPayrolls.com, the average salary of College employees in 2019 was $77,286. The statement also announced a voluntary furlough program, new retirement resources for employees and temporary reassignments, which will involve 50 or more employees being reassigned to areas including business operations, communications and emergency management.

Ten days after these first four steps were announced, the university suggested via mass email that any further furloughs or lay-offs would be the result of individual student failure to adhere to COVID-19 guidelines.

“Do not be the reason that valued W&M employees are furloughed or lose their jobs,” Dean of Students S. Marjorie Thomas said in an email sent to students Aug. 21.

“

The system is prioritizing someone who is the public face of the university rather than the people who keep the school running.

“

FLAT HAT NEWS BRIEF

— Aida Campos

When compared to other public universities in Virginia, Rowe’s administration is implementing higher salarycutsthansimilarschools.Forexample, University of Virginia President Jim Ryan is only taking a 10 percent reduction of his $1,188,910 annual salary, while Virginia Commonwealth University announced that President Michael Rao will be among those furloughed if employee furloughs become necessary, according to the Richmond-Times Dispatch.

The initial steps announced by the College come nearly two months after the William & Mary Worker’s Union publicly called for the salaries of Rowe and other top administrators to be reduced by 20 percent. They also called for the College to rehire the non-tenure-eligible faculty whose contracts are not being renewed this year, which includes all of

the College’s language house international fellows.

According to the union, a year-long 20 percent reduction in Rowe’s salary alone would cover the stipends of four international fellows and the salary of at least one NTE position.

“We’re very concerned about the administration’s plan for workers in the coming year,” graduate worker and union’s organizing committee member Frances Bell said. “They’ve told us several things during the summer that sound very positive and then when you get into them they’re actually very limited.”

One such concern of Bell and the union is that the College’s promise to protect employees who make less than $50,000 a year only applies to salaried employees and not to those who are paid hourly wages. They also take issue with the administration’s repeated slogan of “chop from the top.” The administration began using this phrase over the summer to stress that when considering expenditures to cut, they will focus on larger expenditures and salaries first. However, Bell says that the administration’s policies do not actually reflect that. “‘Chop from the top’ is very limited,” Bell said. “It only applies to university-wide actions, and so that means that staff can actually be furloughed or given pay cuts at the departmental level without any of their bosses having to take cuts first.”

Sebring declined to comment whether university leadership considered public activism on behalf of groups like the Workers’ Union when developing the first steps announced Aug. 11.

Aida Campos ’20, a recent graduate who co-founded UndocuTribe ­ — now renamed WMFIRE — and served as the editor-in-chief of Underground magazine, was also disappointed with the initial steps laid out by the College. She said that some students feel that President Rowe’s salary reduction is performative and that the voluntary furlough program does little to actually help the College community.

“The system is prioritizing someone who is the public face of the university rather than the people who keep the school running,” Campos said. “When we’re asking people to volunteer to be furloughed, or we’re not letting them know and just laying them off, it’s very clear that we need to rethink who we’re valuing.”

PARKING

College issues new parking, transportation policies for fall Plan redesignates lots across campus, outlines expanded shuttle routes OLIVIA KOENIG FLAT HAT STAFF WRITER

MATT LOWRIE / THE FLAT HAT

CORRECTIONS AND NOTICES An article in the Aug. 12 issue, “College history shapes student action, demands for change,” incorrectly stated that Lyon G. Tyler held a position in the Confederate Army. Tyler did not occupy a leadership role in the army, but instead upheld the institution of slavery after the Civil War. The Flat Hat wishes to correct any fact printed incorrectly.

Corrections may be submitted in email to the editor of the section in which the incorrect information was printed. Requests for corrections will be accepted at any time.

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One of the many changes occurring at the College of William and Mary for the fall semester is an array of updates to on-campus parking and transportation.

Announced to students and staff via email and the College’s website, one of the most notable changes includes the reallocation of 154 total to visitor parking spots, including 25 spaces in the Morton Hall lot, 25 spaces in Dawson Circle, and 35 spaces in the Old Dominion Hall lot, all popular and often hotly contested parking spaces during the school year. These new visitor spaces will be managed through the Passport parking application, with additional in-person kiosks available for payment, and will also be used for departmental visitors and guests.

Along with these changes, other changes include a redesignation of the Zable Stadium lot from resident parking to solely faculty and staff parking. Additionally, residents in the Graduate Complex will no longer be permitted to utilize the second and third levels of the parking deck on Ukrop Way. The new changes also outline expanded in-house shuttle routes complementary to WATA’s Green Line service. Parking

and Transportation aimed to create two shuttle lines that will best serve the College community by forming routes that accessed the most indemand locations at peak times of use. The weekly late-night services will be discontinued; however, students at the College will still enjoy free service with their student identifications. The updated shuttle routes now include service from the Graduate Complex to the School of Education.

Daniel Speer ’22 recently accepted a position with the Parking Appeals Ccommittee and works for Parking and Transportation as a mobility driver.

He is hopeful that the expanded service to the School of Education will encourage more students to buy Long-Term Storage decals and decrease the number of cars on the main campus of the College.

“No late-night service is going to hurt grads, even though it serves the Grad complex still”, Speer said.

“I’m personally glad it will run to the School of Ed again, because I can ride it to the Lot 3 Long-Term storage lot if I have my car.”

Parking and Transportation has a longstanding, often contentious relationship with the student body.

Many students are raising concerns

over the continuous decrease in available parking spots throughout campus, the costs of parking decals and accessibility issues. These recent changes have come with pushback from students — especially on social media.

Joe Tapia ’21 expressed his frustrations with Parking and Transportation on the Collegerelated meme page, “Swampy Memes for Twampy Teens.” Tapia emailed William Horacio, director of Parking and Transportation services, inquiring about any planned discounts on parking decals as a result of the delayed move-in dates, and shared his frustration with the changes, as well as his negative experiences with on-campus parking in the past.

“My experience with parking echoes that of many other students’ experiences; there never seems to be enough priority for those students who desperately need vehicles,” Tapia said. “The current pricing model incentivizes students to not own vehicles, and punishes those with vehicles. Every aspect of campus life should further enhance the student experience, and in so many ways W&M fails at this.”

Director of Parking and Transportation services William

Horacio described how thus far, these changes have been fairly well received. He explained how parking services throughout campus are continuing to evolve, and many changes are yet to come.

“This is only the first phase of a much more elaborate adjustment to the parking system,” Horacio said. “It is the most comprehensive change in over 25 years. The next phase aims to eliminate some practices that are not in line with the best use of the limited inventory of spaces, and ultimately we aim to restore an element of choice to our customers.”

Horacio continued by stressing the financial support that is necessary from parking revenue.

The various fees required for purchasing a parking pass is used for funding a variety of auxiliary services associated with the College.

Additionally, Horacio clarified interim policies towards parking relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Service has been put on hold until we are able to transport fuller loads,” Horacio said. “Our COVID response posture only allows us to transport a maximum of 3 passengers. This limit renders the service inefficient and impractical to run at this time.”

Visit flathatnews.com to read more about this story.

Panel provides updates regarding new monument to enslaved people Lemon Project showcases final design, discusses timeline for Old Campus memorial LEMON PROJECT from page 1

“We’re hoping that the Memorial will serve as a new pathway and a new welcoming to the campus ...”

Glover said.

The committee hopes the memorial will act as not only a site of remembrance, but also a site of gathering.

Allen said that she envisions the space as a new site of tradition for students, one for gatherings, studying, poetry readings and ceremonies.

For descendants of those who were enslaved by the College, Allen said it will be a space for them, too.

Though they did not offer specifics on programming for the use of the memorial, the panelists emphasized that the memorial would be more than just a structure.

“The entire process has also been backed by the idea that the memorial is not the only thing,” Kern said. “A physical memorial is only part of scholarships, of courses, of endowed professors, of institutes that study this history. It is the beginning of memorialization, but it certainly isn’t the end of this conversation.”

Pease then expanded on the planned educational programming surrounding the new memorial,

mentioning that the committee hopes to put together an exhibition that showcases all the submissions that were received in the competition. He also noted the significant number of tourists and visitors that will visit the memorial.

“So often, when a visitor or a tourist comes to a place like W&M, it is so easy to see it as this beautiful park-like campus and wonderful buildings,” Pease said.

“The memorial weaves more of a complete history together.”

With historic campus remaining largely unchanged for centuries, the panelists emphasized both the

necessity of the memorial as well as the fact that it is long overdue.

“The campus right now reflects the population, in terms of the iconography, of the 18th and 19th centuries,” Allen said. “The people on campus now — it’s a much more diverse group of people and the landscape should reflect that. It says, ‘these 186 people who lived and toiled at W&M for no compensation for 172 years must be remembered.’

That’s what this does — it remembers them; it acknowledges them; it humanizes them.”

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opinions

Opinions Editor Chloe Folmar Opinions Editor Alyssa Slovin fhopinions@gmail.com // @theflathat

The Flat Hat

| Tuesday, September 1, 2020 | Page 3

STAFF COLUMNS

Students respond to political conventions

DNC uncovers disagreement, major differences within Democratic party

RNC forecasts improvements, positive change in Republican leadership

Elaine Godwin

Gavin Aquin-Hernández

FLAT HAT OPINIONS ASSOC. EDITOR

FLAT HAT VARIETY EDITOR

Last week, the Democratic National Convention took place in Milwaukee, Wis., and the wide cast of speakers present, including official nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, offered insight into many problems currently plaguing the country. Topics ranged from universal healthcare, coronavirus response and racial tensions, including the call for defunding the police in light of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Although it may have appeared as if the Democratic party was united on policy, the only thing that they can actually agree upon is taking down President Donald Trump in the looming election.

It is well known that presidential candidate Joe Biden comprises a more conservative side of the Democratic party, and his policy ideologies are consistent with this. Considering that the majority of Democrats tend to be from a younger generation, such as college students like ourselves, Biden is finding himself becoming more and more progressive as the main competitor to Trump’s far right presidency.

This progressiveness has been heightened with the country’s coronavirus response; both sides of the political spectrum have become disappointed and disillusioned with how events have unfolded. Indeed, our college experience this year hangs precariously on the rate and quantity of coronavirus cases, and this issue is understandably in our best interest to maintain both safety and the College of William and Mary’s best course of education. Economic stimulation to protect jobs is implicit in coronavirus response, and Biden has frequently discussed improving the minimum wage, which would directly impact jobs that college students hold without completed degrees.

Perhaps the most beneficial policy changes that the DNC discussed was its ideas and values on college funding and financial support to students. Many students at the College struggle with paying tuition, and although some opportunities exist now, the Democratic party wants to increase this in terms of loan forgiveness, grant amount and tuition-free public college for lower-income families. Furthermore, the Biden administration would focus on vital cultural and educational institutions, such as historically Black colleges and universities. Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke about education in tandem with child care during the DNC, which has been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and her previous role as a teacher has caused many to ponder the possibility of her becoming education secretary within the Biden administration.

Despite this appearance of agreement within the Democratic party, there is much strife and discontent on key issues, climate change being one of them. Biden has declared a plan for over a trillion dollars to be spent on clean energy development and usage for the United States, and a good portion of his nomination speech at the DNC was spent discussing these concerns, in part because he has previously been more lenient on climate change policy.

Biden has not called for a ban on fracking, wherein even Kamala Harris, his pick for vice president, has called for such in an attempt to rectify the climate situation.

The media this summer has focused a great deal on the #BlackLivesMatter movement, as many African Americans and people of color are being disproportionately harmed and killed by the police. During the opening night of the DNC, Biden spoke about how some cops were good, ultimately upsetting many progressives and activists within the party. Indeed, the majority of the movement is calling for defunding of police in some manner, but Biden has repeatedly rejected this while other prominent Democrats petition for it. In relation to his lack of progressive support for BLM, Biden has remained rather mild on immigration issues. It is very concerning that Biden has not truly addressed the long-terms immigration changes and deportation policies outside of the first 100 days, considering many college students today may have undocumented status.

Altogether, Biden has many stances that differ wildly from other speakers of the Democratic National Convention, they are essentially unanimous in their support of him over President Trump. This is very reminiscent of Trump’s initial presidential campaign, as many Americans were searching for something different, even if they didn’t 100 percent agree with his policy ideals. Now, many Americans are tired of the way in which the current administration has handled national and international affairs, and hope Biden will change this; again, individual policies do not necessarily align with their own.

“Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,” former first lady Michelle Obama said during the DNC. If the Democratic National Party hopes to win in the quickly approaching election, more agreement must be reached than simply on this matter. Students on this campus, regardless of their political affiliations, Democrat, Republican or otherwise, deserve strong candidates with specific, detailed and widely agreed-upon policy platforms respective to their party association.

Email Elaine Godwin at sgodwin@email.wm.edu.

HEADSHOTS BY KAYLA PAYNE AND GRAPHIC BY ANGELA VASISHTA / THE FLAT HAT

INDEPENDENT GRAPHIC

For just four days on national television, it seemed as if the COVID-19 pandemic disappeared and that our economy returned to pre-pandemic levels overnight. As appealing as this alternate reality is — one where all of our nation’s most pressing problems evaporate into the thinnest of air — it fails to materialize into anything tangible. An extremely polished production, the 2020 Republican National Convention was incumbent President Donald Trump’s coup de grâce to secure a second term after a noticeably turbulent election year, which admittedly has followed an equally turbulent first three years. In an attempt to attract the same coalition of voters that secured President Trump’s victory in 2016, the RNC’s slate of speakers were chosen to motivate voters beyond the president’s base, raising to prominence the issues of law and order, the fight against socialism, cancel culture and a general condemnation of President Barack Obama’s foreign and domestic policies.

Unlike the Democratic Party’s general image of disunity, lack of inherent leadership and factional warfare, with this year’s RNC, the Republican Party has shown us that it has rallied for the most part around the president. Even powerful GOP leadership that may have disagreed with Donald Trump in the past, such as Sen. Mitch McConnell, have ultimately displayed party loyalty. This is certainly a gamble, as linking one’s fate in an electoral year to a deeply polarizing candidate isn’t necessary the safest play in the book.

However, what I found to be the most interesting elements of this year had little to do with the President’s attempts to close up the wounds of his scandals.

Rather, the presentation of “everyday folk” or “the common American” and their problems was a step in the right direction for the President. Serving as segments in between speeches, Donald Trump spoke to paramedics, nurses, small business owners and law enforcement; these moments served to humanize a leader that very few of us regularly think of as a “good” person.

Another one of my “astute” observations — something talked about by every TV news commentator and print journalist — was the very noticeable fact that almost nobody shown in the televised crowd was donning a facemask or practising responsible social distancing. Maybe some might say that I’m overreacting but considering that an excess of 177,000 Americans have died from the novel virus at this point, the broadcast of an event of this scale to millions of viewers where countless public officials are blatantly disregarding public health and safety seems negligent and irresponsible.

Of the speakers chosen to speak at the convention — and there were many — two that definitely deserve more attention are the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and First Lady Melania Trump. These two influential women chose to take a conciliary tone and reach out to Americans as a whole.

When one looks at the current social and political climate that we live in — one where unarmed Black people are more likely than members of other racial groups to get shot by police officers, one where public health is politicized, one where immigrants in a country of immigrants are demonized, one where the equality for LGBTQ+ people isn’t always a guarantee, amongst other pressing and innumerable issues — it’s nice knowing that even some of the issues that matter to most people are becoming bipartisan.

In the First Lady’s speech, Melania Trump talked about her experience growing up in Yugoslavia and immigrating to the United States in search of opportunity. Additionally, the First Lady spoke about her antibullying campaigns, offered recognition of racial unrest and America’s uneasy past after the death of George Floyd and expressed acknowledgement of the financial and health struggles that many Americans are having during the ongoing pandemic. These statements are especially notable — and ironic — when one considers President Trump’s words and actions in these areas.

In Haley’s speech, after highlighting her credentials as the former governor of South Carolina along with her stint at the United Nations — a locale that she described as “a place where dictators, murderers and thieves denounce America ... and then put their hands out and demand that we pay their bills,” she criticized the Obama-Biden administration and cautioned against a Biden-Harris one. She likewise sought to dispel the growing idea that the United States is “irredeemably racist” by talking about her upbringing in an Indian Sikh immigrant family in South Carolina — as a “brown girl in a black and white world,” as Haley put it. Instead she described the United States as a “work in progress,” that can be made freer and better for everyone.

In a rebuke of anarchy across the United States, Haley spoke of the possibility of racial reconciliation, citing the 2015 Charleston church shooting by a white supremacist in her own state and the subsequent bipartisan and multiracial efforts to remove Confederate symbols from the state capitol. In Haley’s words, “What happened then should give us hope now. America isn’t perfect. But the principles we hold dear are perfect. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that even on our worst day, we are blessed to live in America.”

One thing is for certain, despite the strange but well put-together display that was the RNC, there are certain messages from those four nights that will resonate with a wider variety of Americans than just the President’s base. If Donald Trump can act on the messages of support for working-class Americans in addition to dialling back his rhetoric on race, four more years in office may just be in his reach.

However, if a Biden-Harris ticket does indeed win this year, it certainly seems like Nikki Haley has given us a preview of her 2024 presidential campaign. Who knows — maybe a compassionate and a superblyqualified Indian American woman at the helm might be what the GOP needs to rejuvenate itself and find its footing amongst younger and non-white voters in this new era of politics.

Email Gavin Aquin-Hernández at gaaquin@email.wm.edu.

University closures engender fear at the College GRAPHIC BY SKYLER FOLEY / THE FLAT HAT

The Flat Hat

Page 4

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

GUEST COLUMN

STAFF COLUMN

New memorial for enslaved people provides important step forward for campus Shane Moran

FLAT HAT GUEST WRITER

Tuesday, Aug. 25, the College of William and Mary took to Facebook to announce that the Memorial to the African Americans Enslaved by William and Mary had met its fundraising goal of $2 million. A post which I read with pride and excitement was read differently by many alumni and Williamsburg community members. The majority of the comments supported the monument, but many comments were written with coded language to mock both the aesthetics and the purpose of the monument.

The College has been trying to figure out the best way to honor its formerly enslaved peoples, as well as educate the community on the topic for a long time. This process has never been absent of controversy. We know it is impossible to honor enslaved people and educate people about them in a way that makes everyone feels comfortable.

Still, the arguments made in these online comments stood in contrast to what we might expect. It was not about what way would be better to honor these individuals. Instead, the argument was about whether enslaved people even deserve a monument at all.

The College has approved a design to honor those enslaved by the university. The monument names all of the College’s known past slaves and purposely avoids including slave-owner names. This deliberate action grants these individuals their independence from those who held them in bondage. These names include those who worked the land to bring the College wealth, those who worked in the kitchens to nourish the students and faculty, those who worked as servants to ensure the students and faculty had shined shoes and clean clothes and those who worked in a variety of other capacities.

Such labor allowed students and faculty to focus on education and not farming and housework. It allowed them to study philosophy and language.

Such contributions to the development of those students’ skills are directly related to what made it possible for Thomas Jefferson to write the “Declaration of Independence,” and later become the third president of the United States. The contributions of enslaved people are what has allowed for the creation of the “Alma Mater of a Nation.” Professors at the College educated five presidents, but the enslaved workers provided the labor necessary for the College to even function.

Undermining the contributions of those who were enslaved is a despicable act rooted in racism and classism. Many of the commenters believed that labor was not as valuable as ideas and capital.

The contributions of enslaved people are what has allowed for the creation of the “Alma Mater of a Nation.” Professors at the College educated five presidents, but the enslaved workers provided the labor necessary for the College to even function.

They pointed out that history typically honors only those who have had ideas and capital; therefore, enslaved people’s lack of these qualities disqualified them from being honored. It is important to remember that slaves did not have those things by force. They were denied humanity and denied wages. Such denial in itself makes them deserve recompense.

The College, a place of education that was intended to help people reach their full potential, denied enslaved people their potential. The College did not allow a group of people to dream, to earn money or to participate in society. To put it quite simply, the College owned people and forced them against their will to do all the tasks that would allow their students to become the heroes that this country honors today.

This is why the construction of the monument is crucial. The Memorial to the Enslaved does not only honor the previously enslaved people. It also redefines what the College decides are important societal contributions.

The notion that big ideas and capital are the only important contributions perpetuates problematic systems of classism, racism, and sexism It is what entitles students to feel they can throw trash on top of overflowing garbage cans. It is what allows students to call members of the Williamsburg community “townies.”

It is what creates the never-ending othering of those who are not students or faculty. It is what created the institution of slavery and allowed for its persistence. Such thinking is outdated, and all members of our community should work to overcome this way of thinking.

This change begins with the Memorial to the Enslaved. This is what it truly means to look to the past to find the future at the College moving forward.

Email Shane Moran at smmoran01@email.wm.edu.

St Andrews offers unparalleled social options compared to Williamsburg That’s four places to buy alcohol. This state-sanctioned boozing is perfectly normal in the U.K., and it offers some of THE FLAT HAT the cheapest drinks in town.

Observant readers will recognize that I’ve neglected the The College of William and Mary has its strong suits. subject of schoolwork for six paragraphs. This is because Unfortunately, night life is not one of them. With draconian class time, unlike drinking, is not a strong suit of the alcohol laws, it would seem that our country is doing a University of St Andrews. good job at honoring the legacy of our puritan ancestors by For starters, everyone signed up for a class is put into making sure that nobody has any fun at all. This, my friends, one massive lecture group, which is are often taught by is precisely why the St Andrews Joint Degree Program was dry British professors. This becomes very dull. In the created.

U.S., especially at the College, there’s much more of an The University of St Andrews, founded in 1413, is a attempt to entertain students, to be lively and public university in Scotland, a nation where the engaging. This is not the case in the U.K., where drinking age is 18 and its citizens regularly students have their field of study relatively consume more alcohol per person than in fixed. By contrast, U.S. college students arrive Russia — and who can blame them? St Andrews undecided about their major, so American is farther north than Moscow, and only 3.5 professors teaching introductory courses are degrees south of St. Petersburg, meaning that often putting their best foot forward to get during the winter months the sun sets sometime students to major in that particular school. around 3:30 p.m.

The College challenges students through It is widely agreed that St Andrews once structured class time and assignments, which had the highest number of pubs per capita certainly have their benefits. The University of in the United Kingdom. Compared to St Andrews, where assignments are infrequent Williamsburg’s stunning bar scene, (all and class time is a minimum, forces students three of ’em), St Andrews is like another to study independently — there are even planet. You haven’t lived until you’ve been harassed whole weeks dedicated to independent by a Turkish man for stumbling into his good Halal reading. Nobody cares if you go to lectures establishment at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday night and making a or not. There are no cute little discussion scene. Which brings me to my next point. posts on Blackboard to make sure you’ve been doing the Forget Saturdays — but don’t forget the boys — in St readings. You either pass the exam or you don’t. As a whole, Andrews, the biggest night out is on Wednesday. “Why St Andrews offers a hands-off approach to teaching, whereas Wednesday?” you may ask. Good question. It all revolves the College is very much hands- on. around sports clubs, some of which have games on hump Ultimately, St Andrews fosters more day. And knowing St Andrews students, games must be independence and individuality followed by socials, cultivating the time-honored tradition than the College. As with most of getting hammered during the middle of the week.

American universities, the Because St Andrews is the Mecca of organized golf, I College is overly clogged with decided to join the Men’s Golf Club, the oldest of its kind administrators and bureaucrats — so T in the world — or so I was told. I brought my semithere’s always someone there to hold HA AT L respectable handicap of 14 to the Ham’s Hame pub, your hand. There’s always a board F HE T where I met some of the greatest student athletes or office to push papers and answer / NG E known to man. These fine gentlemen, in their your phone calls. As a result, adults ZH N dinner jackets and uniform red-striped ties, had ALE are treated like children. Look no Y more experience golfing and chinning pints further than freshman orientation CB HI P A in their little fingers than I had in my — a glorified summer camp.

GR entire being. No fraternity party could In this light, the College could have ever prepared me for the sheer learn a thing or two from our amount of culture shock and goodBritish relatives across the pond. natured malice involved in typical If the College is a tiger mom, St Andrews is British drinking games. the cool dad that buys his kid beer. And After these socials, every that’s sort of what being in the Program is sports club converges on one like — our parents are divorced with joint spot: the Student Union. Now you custody. Living with dad is great, but living with mom is might be thinking, “Huh, that’s also worthwhile. odd. Why the Student Union?” Well I just really can’t wait to go back to dad’s place, even I’ll tell you why. though his cooking sucks.

The Student Union has three bars. Three — as in one, Email Christian Borio at two, three separate bars. Plus, a nightclub with its own bar. cmborio@email.wm.edu.

Christian Borio

STAFF COLUMN

Returning students long for bygone quirks of campus life

Alyssa Slovin

FLAT HAT OPINIONS EDITOR

“Every wound can be forgotten in the right light,” or at least it can according to musician Patrick Stump in his funky hit, “Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia).” But by “right light,” I mean in the wake of COVID-19, and by “wound,” I mean every situation where we students have been annoyed by college life.

As I’m sitting in my bed, at home in New Jersey, I cannot help but think about everything I’m missing while being at home.

I miss my friends, as well as socialization without rules or worries.

I miss the ease of living on a campus with everything right at my fingertips.

However, neither of those things came without a cost. Many of those costs created opinions articles that you can find in the archives of this very newspaper and online.

Even when we — hopefully — return to campus very soon, everything will be different, cautious and restricted.

So, I miss the crazy bikers. I miss walking around campus listening to my music on shuffle, curious as to what could come up next. In this situation, I get a phone call. It’s my roommate. We just saw each other an hour ago, but we can’t get enough of each other. We’re talking about cringy things we accidentally said during class, when suddenly, someone on a

bike whizzes right by me. Maybe my hair blows slightly in the wind. The feeling is a little terrifying, especially considering that I was just about to make a turn, and I could have been hit. It’s dangerous, and bikers should be more aware of the students through which they weave, but there’s a kind of joy in knowing that you have to be aware of these occurrences. When I walk around my neighborhood at home, it’s the same every single day. I don’t have to look behind me, worrying that someone could knock me off my feet if I’m not careful. The best part of the hustle and bustle of campus is the fact that there is hustle and bustle. The campus is alive, and it feels great to be a part of that.

It’s one of the things that I miss most after being home for several months.

I also miss the occasional fire alarm that goes off at one in the morning because someone was making popcorn.

Are they annoying? Of course.

But it’s also a time when everyone comes together in joint annoyance at the guilty student. Whenever this happens, I tell the story for days. I’ll say something like, “it was only thirty degrees and we were out there for at least ten minutes.” I’m just about to go to bed when it happens.

Maybe I’m in the middle of brushing my teeth. When I walk outside, I see my friend, soaking wet, clearly right out of a shower.

We laugh together through the pain of such a situation. It’s an opportunity to take ourselves less seriously. How can you, adorned with messy hair, pajamas and slippers?

Another classic complaint is the food. Whether it’s what the dining halls are serving one night, or just the consistent culinary disappointment once mid-semester hits, everyone

gets sick of the food. But that food was the same food that we all ate with our freshman halls throughout orientation, the same food that you eat with your best friends every night, and the same food that’s always there to eat whenever you need it. Don’t get me wrong — many of the meals that Sodexo serves could be greatly improved. But I would be lying if I said that I didn’t miss the experience of trekking to the Caf and spending an hour relaxing with my friends as opposed to reading textbooks for class.

In this case, maybe it’s December. I put on all my layers — scarf, hat, coat, fuzzy socks and boots — just to get to the dining hall to take a lot of it off.

On the way, we see some wild sights, such as a girl wielding a lightsaber and performing tricks, or maybe just a particularly loud squirrel. The walk is long and cold, and the food doesn’t really make up for it. But the company does. As much as I love eating food that my family or I make, what is a meal without a little fun? And, for the record, I’d eat Sadler Center’s gross pizza right now if it meant having a group meal again.

Complaining is so easy, and usually, we have valid points about which to complain. I’m not suggesting that we stop doing that, or that we should be grateful for these annoyances that come along with college life. By all means — do so to your heart’s content.

But, as I’m sitting at home, thinking about whether or not we’ll make it to campus next week, these are the quirks about the school to which I hold on and certainly hope will be able to happen once again. Hopefully when on campus classes resume in Williamsburg, I’ll find myself enjoying them again.

Email Alyssa Slovin at amslovin@email.wm.edu.

variety

Variety Editor Gavin Aquin Hernández Variety Editor Matthew Kortan flathat.variety@gmail.com

LOVE& CANDLES

The Flat Hat | Tuesday, September 1, 2020 | Page 5

COURTESY IMAGE / ISABELLE TAN @BIGLOVECANDLES

Isabelle Tan '22 fosters activism through candlemaking, raises money for LGBTQ+ causes in Norfolk, Va during pandemic ASHANTI JONES // FLAT HAT VARIETY ASSOC. EDITOR During the height of the various movements for social change this summer, Isabelle Tan ‘22 felt a call to action to help. She answered it by starting to sell homemade candles — with a twist.

“I was really inspired by all these people doing all these different things to donate money — using their creativity and sharing their craft with other people while also getting to donate to these great causes,” Tan said. “I saw a lot of people donating to really big organizations, which is great, but I felt that a lot of local organizations were not getting that much coverage.”

Tan began making candles to gift to her friends as a hobby while in quarantine, but in July she decided to start selling her candles through her new business Big Love Candles to fundraise money to aid those in her community. Big Love Candles’s current cause collaboration is with the LGBT Life Center of Norfolk. Tan appreciates all the work they do in her area — especially during the pandemic — and shared that she felt a special connection to the Life Center after speaking with someone who received assistance from the organization. Through candle sales, Tan was able to donate $731.20 to the LGBT Life Center.

“I actually had this experience with this [person without housing],” Tan said. “I was walking down the street, and we just sparked up this conversation; he was talking about how he was struggling with AIDS, and how it was difficult to get transportation to his HIV treatments … I was just thinking how important it is to focus on local organizations. I chose the Life Center because that was actually the place he used.”

Big Love is not just the name of Tan’s business, but a way of life for her. Tan draws inspiration from several notable revolutionaries, poets, novelists and social pioneers that preach the importance of love and compassion within all social movements to achieve lasting change against oppressive systems. She characterizes this idea as “big love” and tries to promote it in her daily life and business.

“I'm a really big Bell Hooks fan and her book all about love talks about revolutionary love and how love is the basis of all revolution,” Tan said. “I’m also a Christian, and for me, Christianity is about loving people, so I wanted the candle business to be representing love and fundraising money to

give love and uplift causes that promote those same values of loving everybody equally, no matter what their identity is. I feel like that is our duty as people.”

Tan showcases the concept of big love in her business by “educating others on the revolutionary acts of scholars, activists, and artists within BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized communities and donating to causes with ‘Big Love,’” per their mission statement. She emphasized how important it is to her that love be the focal point of her business because without love, no change could be accomplished.

"Christianity is about loving people, so I wanted the candle business to represent love and the fundraising money to give love and uplift causes that promote those same values of loving everybody equally, no matter what their identity is."

–Isabelle Tan '22 “I wanted to emphasize that love is what we need to interact with other people and that's how we need to go in first with compassion towards other people,” Tan said.

When oppressed people are saying that they are struggling, it’s not like they want to be struggling. You need to lead with compassion when people are expressing these experiences that they have because if we do not lead with love and lead with judgment, no work will ever be done and no progress will ever be made.”

Tan incorporates the education portion of her mission statement through the actual names of the candles. Each new candle is inspired by the people she believes best embody the concept of big love.

“Each candle is named after a certain activist or poet or novelist and these are all people that I admire and that promote the big love mission statement,” Tan said. “I’ve taken a lot of classes having to do with the studies of race, ethnicity and the history of activism so a lot of the time I use people that I have learned about from these classes like Bell Hooks, Audre Lorde, Yuri Kochiyama and all these great people that started the stepping stones to where we are now.”

Tan’s candles are made from 100 per cent natural ingredients and upcycled materials. The scent profiles of her candles are based on different characteristics of the activists for which they are named.

“I would sit down with their name and thinking about the person, what they stand for and their values and think ‘what scent embodies this person?’” Tan said. “Audre Lorde has eucalyptus and lemongrass because I think she’s very fresh and promotes a lot of newness, so I think eucalyptus and lemongrass feel very cleansing. James Baldwin’s scent is honey and cinnamon because whenever I think of him I think of warmth.”

As much as Tan has been able to do for others with her candles, she also feels she has benefitted as an artist.

“I’m always very self-conscious about what I put out into the world, like with music and all that; I’m always critiquing myself but this has really affirmed me as a creative,” Tan said.

“Seeing people buy a product I made and put time into has boosted my confidence as an artist which has been really cool because I was not expecting that going in. I did not really consider candle-making an art going in, but it takes creativity. It was just so exciting seeing people support the cause I was supporting and feeling passionate enough to open their wallets and donate money to help.”

Big Love Candles hopes to re-open for sales some time in September. Tan plans to continue with her existing line of candles and potentially add new fall and winter inspired collections. In the meantime, a number of strong candidates are vying for the next big cause collaboration.

The Flat Hat

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Page 6

SOLIDARITY THROUGH ART Aguas Art Ink enters into virtual theater world, seeks to be agent of change COURTESY IMAGE / AGUAS ART INK

AIDAN WHITE // FLAT HAT STAFF WRITER With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing most of the world to shut down, as well as uprisings against racial injustice seeking to end America’s long history of racialized violence, it seems unlikely that anyone would look around and decide to try something new. But that’s exactly what Asian & Pacific Islander American Studies and theatre professor Francis Tanglao Aguas is doing with his new virtual theater company, Aguas Arts Ink. The story of Aguas Arts Ink began in March when the College announced that students would not be returning to campus after spring break, and that Aguas had to transition to teaching his course “Sex & Race in Plays & Films” in a virtual format. His new pedagogical methods involved having his students read “Rolling the R’s,” an autobiographical play by R. Zamora Linmark about growing up in Hawaii, out loud over Zoom.

Aguas first had the idea to try out virtual theatre when one of his students, Xavier Soto Burgos ’20, pointed out that the Zoom readings felt like watching the play live. Burgos, a New York City resident, was drawn to Linmark’s play by his feeling of connectedness to the source material.

“One of the biggest things that jumped out to me was that I found so many similarities in people growing up in Hawaii with kids from the Bronx in New York City,” Burgos said. “I thought that was amazing.”

Inspired by his students’ reactions, the idea of a global arts company began germinating in Aguas’ head.

“That really planted a seed in my head,” Aguas said. “My students’ reaction to “Rolling the R’s” in the spring of COVID germinated this idea of a global arts company.”

Aguas was also inspired by a desire to ensure that the performing arts did not become a victim of the pandemic.

“The arts have always been a place not only of expression, but of communion and exchange,” Aguas said. “The more we marginalize the arts, the more we are cut off from these platforms of dialogue, communication and community.”

As spring became summer, Aguas worked closely with Linmark to cast a virtual production of “Rolling the R’s” featuring students as well as professional actors from San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Honolulu, the Philippines, Washington, D.C. and Williamsburg.

But as the production grew, Aguas realized he needed a

stage manager. He reached out to Madison Hauser ‘19, with whom he had worked on William & Mary Theatre, Speech, and Dance’s 2019 production of the play “Our Lady of 121st Street” by Stephen Adly Guirgis. Hauser, who had just lost her job at a Florida theatre company because of the pandemic, was more than happy to get involved with theatre again.

“In these times of crisis, theater can stand up and say interesting and powerful things that can really provoke change.”

–Sumié Yotsukura ‘22

“I’ve always seen theatre as a disruptive force, a platform which inserts itself into people’s lives and reflects what’s going on in the moment,” Hauser said.

When Aguas’s production of “Rolling the R’s” premiered as a Zoom livestream May 9, Aguas Arts Ink was born. The company truly embodies Hauser’s idea of theatre as a reflection of the moment.

“We produce the work of the minoritized and marginalized to create a space of dialogue, openness, acceptance, and solidarity,” the company states on the front page of their website. “We support writers and performers who believe in shining a light on hidden stories and silenced voices. It is our mission to educate the public on the value and crucial import of artists and their place and purpose for all.”

Since “Rolling the R’s,” the company has only grown.

Aguas Arts Ink has put on four virtual productions since May, three of which were produced in conjunction with the 1455 Summer Literary Festival. The production team grew as well, with Aguas bringing on playwright Amanda L. Andrei ‘10 as a company producer. Margot Flanders ‘21, the treasurer of the William & Mary Theatre Students Association and president of the classical theatre troupe Shakespeare In The Dark, also joined Aguas Arts Ink this summer as a producing intern.

“We have ideas and are formulating things out for the next year,” Flanders said. “We have lots of plans in the works for different things, some of them are workshops, some of them are panels, some of them are shows.”

Aug. 28, Aguas Arts Ink presented “Songs of Freedom: A Civil Rights Concert in Honor of Rep. John Lewis.” Tickets for the virtual concert were sold on a paywhat-you-can basis. It featured songs, monologues, spoken word poetry, interpretive dance, and many other performances that honored worldwide struggles for freedom. The cast included current and former students at the College as well as professional actors, professors, musicians and even the Commonwealth of Virginia’s new poet laureate, Luisa A. Igloria. Sumié Yotsukura ‘22, a member of the “Songs of Freedom” cast, is excited to see how theatre finds new ways to thrive in our new normal.

“In these times of crisis, theater can stand up and say interesting and powerful things that can really provoke change,” Yotsukura said. “I think especially now, the ways that theatre performers are finding to still do theatre and still make art during the pandemic like Aguas Arts Ink are really crucial for continuing to keep spirits up and keep propelling the movement forward.”

Aguas sees the company, its performers, and the new works they cultivate as a necessary part of coming to terms with times of systemic change.

“The more threatened a society is, the more unstable, and the more flux we encounter, the more we need these spaces where people can be brave and safe at the same time,” Aguas said. “And that is what we seek to do at Aguas Arts Ink.” As students search for new ways to adapt to the rapidly changing global landscape, the team of students, faculty and alumni behind Aguas Arts Ink continue to find new platforms for the minoritized and marginalized to make their voices heard.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

ABSTINENCE? WHY NOT?

For some, human connections prove vital before beginning sexual relationships Touch Me Maybe FLAT HAT BEHIND CLOSED DOORS COLUMNIST

As an extrovert, one of my top love languages is physical touch, making quarantine not my moment to thrive. I was lonely. When we were first told to stay home from spring break, I was disappointed but not surprised. As the days turned into weeks, though, I struggled. I had one specific thought that kept running through my mind: I wished I had the mental capacity to be a “hoe.”

Later in the summer, I reconnected with some friends from high school. The four of us were sitting outside and the conversation moved to funny sex stories. Two girls were able to go back and forth with many stories, while the other two of us had nothing to add to the conversation. We had all known each other well and long enough that there was no judgement from either group, but it opened a conversation between my friend — who attends college in Miami — and me where we came to a mutual conclusion that we both needed an emotional bond with someone before sex.

It took that conversation with my friend for me to sit down and have one with myself.

Because although part of me wanted to allow myself to get on a dating app or — when it is safe again — go out to parties and bars and interact with people, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The part of me that has always won this argument, the one that probably stemmed from the fear instilled in me by my mother who started giving me the “where babies come from” talk when I was ten, pulled through yet again, putting an emotional block between myself and any kind of promiscuous behavior. It was during that internal argument when I paused and thought: why is this even something I have to think about? I felt some sort of pressure within myself, like something was telling me that I was supposed to be out screwing random guys, but there is no reason for that. It took that moment for me to finally tell myself: It’s okay to not have sex.

Now don’t get me wrong, sex is great. I was lucky enough to meet a great guy my freshman year — I’ll call him “Joey” in this story, and we dated for two months before we did anything more than kiss. He was extremely respectful and never pushed me

further than what I was comfortable with. We both came into college pretty inexperienced in bed and the most important thing with that was we were both able to laugh at ourselves.

I don’t remember every detail from our first time but there was a lot of giggling on my end from how awkward we both were. Even after we got quite a few practice rounds in, there were plenty of not-so-sexy moments that still make me look back and smile, including the countless times one of us would hit our heads on the ceiling due to our lofted beds.

It wasn’t all awkward though; we definitely had plenty of fantastic f—ks, as great as a GGV twin bed would allow for.

On a much different note, I dated a guy in high school, we’ll call this one “Julian” — what can I say? Apparently I have a thing for guys with J names. “Julian” was hypersexual. I knew I wasn’t ready for anything, but “Julian” would slowly chip away at my resolve, and though we never had vaginal sex, we still did quite a few other things. I much later learned this was really not okay; he was manipulative, and I wish public school sex-ed had a chapter on the definition of consent. I bring this guy up because I want

it to hold weight when I say that the most attractive thing “Joey” ever said to me was “Is this okay?” His pause to check in with me did not detract from the moment at all, if anything, my saying yes only made it better.

“Joey” and I aren’t together anymore, but I have no gripes against him. I made sure it was okay with him before writing this piece, because I’m not the only person involved, and his response was “Abstinence is for pussies.” It made me laugh, because that’s how I had felt before. Then again, maybe he is right — but then what’s wrong with being a pussy? I’m not hurting anyone else and that’s what’s important.

I have nothing against sex and if I found myself in a relationship, I would gladly partake, but I personally need a relationship to be comfortable with sex. All in all, this has been my long-winded way of saying it’s okay to f—k, but it’s also okay to not. It’s your body and you should never feel pressure, even from yourself, to do anything you’re not comfortable with or ready for.

Touch Me Maybe affirms all acts of thottery, but wants you to know that it’s okay if you’re not that promiscuous.

sports

Sports Editor Zoe Beardsley Sports Editor Nathan Seidel flathatsports@gmail.com

The Flat Hat | Tuesday, September 1, 2020 | Page 7

BASKETBALL

Amid sports lull, recruiting provides hope

Men’s basketball scores accomplished freshmen as women’s team builds on historic season ZOE BEARDSLEY FLAT HAT SPORTS EDITOR William and Mary seemed perfectly poised to make its firstever berth in the NCAA tournament last season after winning its 21st regular season game for the first time in over 70 years and coming into the Colonial Athletic Association tournament as a 2-seed. Sadly, it was not meant to be, with the College losing to Elon in the quarterfinals. The loss was only the start of the bad news for Tribe’s men’s basketball program though, as three of the its top scorers graduated in 2020, including one of the most accomplished players in Tribe history, center Nathan Knight.

Though these major departures certainly have not helped the Tribe, the recruiting classes of 2020 and 2021 give Tribe basketball fans plenty to look forward to.

The signing class of 2020 was recruited to be a part of this year’s class of incoming freshman, and features guards Yuri Covington, Conner Kochera and Jake Milkereit. Covington was a standout for National Christian Academy in Maryland, averaging 18 points per game as a senior and being honored by the All-Capital Beltway Athletic Association and the Washington Post All-Met. A 6 foot 1 inch guard who flew under the radar, Covington should be able to contribute lots of offense to the team. Kochera comes in as an outstanding shooter, putting up 40 percent from 3-point range as a junior. He averaged 15 points per game as a junior and was named to the ESCC All-Conference team. Milkereit is also a great shooter, knocking down 46 percent from 3-point range his junior year. He’s a talented scorer who averaged 20 points per game and gives the College a talented combo-guard who can score in lots of different ways. These three freshmen will be playing an immediate role for the Tribe and will look to make a big impact in the coming season.

The elephant in the room for the Tribe is the loss of Knight and the hole to fill in the post. With the signing of three guards and no post players, the College will have to rely on redshirt sophomore Ben Wright, among others, to fill that void.

While the recruiting class of 2020 has already arrived on campus, coach Dane Fischer and his staff are already working hard to fill the recruiting class of 2021. So far, Fischer has gotten verbal commitments from two players, guards Tyler Rice and Julian Lewis. Rice is a talented player from South Carolina who turned down offers from Penn State and Elon among others. He comes in as a three-time state champion and a talented scorer and leader. Lewis, another guard, hails from Michigan. Lewis received lots of other D-1 offers, including Rice, Brown and Princeton, but ultimately chose the College. He averaged 12 points and seven rebounds during his junior season and adds to the roster of

COURTESY PHOTO / TRIBE ATHLETICS

Reigning CAA coach of the year Dane Fischer will look to build on last year’s success with impressive recruiting classes in 2020 and 2021 to make up for departing seniors.

talented guards playing for the Tribe.

Coach Fischer is still looking to add players to the already strong 2021 class, including a few post options.

While the men’s team suffered a disappointing playoff loss, the women’s basketball team didn’t even get to play in their tournament after it was cancelled due to COVID-19. This was a huge blow after a historic season, in which they notched a school record 21 wins. Unlike the men though, the women’s team will be welcoming back most of its players from the 2019-2020 season, including junior top scorer Eva Hodgson. This doesn’t mean coach Ed Swanson is sitting back and relaxing though. The recruiting class of 2020 features guard/forward Kayla Beckwith, guard Lanni Brown and forward Caitlin Wingertzahn. Beckwith, a talented defender and versatile player, averaged 10 points and 10 rebounds per game and was named defensive player of the year at her school.

Wingertzahn averaged 11.6 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 3.4 blocks per game as a junior and is a talented rebounder and shot blocker who will solidify the post for the Tribe. Brown, a talented scorer and facilitator, also comes from a strong basketball background, with her father, Dee Brown, playing in the NBA for 10 years and her sister Alexis currently playing in the WNBA for the Minnessota Lynx.

These three players will contribute to an already talented team, and hopefully replicate the success of the 2019-20 season.

Though basketball still seems like a far-away prospect at the moment, the Tribe recruiting classes give hope for the future and something to look forward to. These talented incoming freshman of the 2020 and 2021 classes could be the next big stars for the College, and if COVID-19 doesn’t completely shut down the coming basketball season, we will hopefully get to see them play in the coming year.

Out of Bounds: Flat Hat Sports issues NBA bracket predictions Beardsley picks Lakers, Seidel opts for Clippers; both through a 7-game Finals showdown over Bucks

NATHAN SEIDEL FLAT HAT SPORTS EDITOR Out of Bounds is a new column in Flat Hat Sports devoted to collegiate and professional sports coverage in the nation at large, especially as COVID-19 continues to impact the athletic landscape.

With Tribe fall sports off the table, many sports fans at the College are paying a little extra attention to the professional sports available to watch, especially the NBA in its Orlando bubble. Sequestered in the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex in Disney World, teams began their playoff runs just over two weeks ago and are moving from the first to the second round as this is written. Nevertheless, Flat Hat Sports wanted to weigh in on the predicted outcomes that will fill the lion’s share of the sports

fan’s appetite for the next couple months. Beginning in the Western Conference, we predicted the Lakers to squeak by the Rockets with more difficulty than some imagine. We disagree over the Nuggets/Jazz game seven outcome, but have the winner falling in six games to the Los Angeles Clippers. We then also differ over the Lakers/Clippers series, and have the winner moving on to the Finals. As for the East, we have Milwaukee overcoming an early series deficit to escape the Heat in seven games, and the Celtics

riding their depth to a six-game victory over the Raptors. The loss of Gordon Hayward will then prove challenging for Boston, and we predict the Bucks will topple them in six games. And as for the finals, we think the winner of the Clippers/Lakers series will bring home the trophy over the Bucks in seven games, but for this bracket have Clippers star Kawhi Leonard winning his second title in two years.

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COURTESY PHOTOS / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

2020 NBA Champions

GRAPHIC BY NATHAN SEIDEL/ THE FLAT HAT

7

newsinsights Kallaco raises concerns among College community

News Editor Charles Coleman News Editor Lulu Dawes News Editor Carmen Honker fhnews@gmail.com

The Flat Hat

| Tuesday, September 1, 2020 | Page 8

Self-administered tests incite student skepticism, elicit fears over accuracy

KALLACO from page 1

Cheronis told The Flat Hat that the label, “not for diagnostic purposes,” refers to the tube in the kit, which is not a diagnostic device.

Kallaco responded to inquiries by releasing a statement on its website, which included answers to frequently asked questions. According to the statement, testing for Virginia universities is conducted at Opteo Laboratories, a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments certified facility in New Orleans. A Center for Disease Control and Prevention database search confirmed that the lab is indeed CLIA certified.

In the statement, Kallaco firmly emphasized that all its testing is FDA authorized but did not specify which test was sent to students at the College or other universities.

“The testing provided by Kallaco has all of the licenses required in the U.S.,” the Kallaco statement said. “As an extra step, the testing was submitted to the FDA and the Kallaco labs have the authority to run the test under FDA EUA guidelines.”

The faculty letter claimed students received the Thermo Fisher TaqPath COVID-19 Combo Kit IFU but did not specify how this information was obtained. The Flat Hat attempted to contact Opteo Laboratories multiple times but received no response.

The FDA first granted the TaqPath test an EUA March 13. It underwent several modifications between March and July. Cheronis said students were sent the modified version. Aug. 17, the FDA released a warning saying that the TaqPath test may lead to inaccurate results, specifically with issuing false positives. The warning cites “inadequate vortexing and centrifugation of RT-PCR reaction plates” as the reason for the inaccuracies. The warning does not mention home specimen collection as a cause for false positive results.

While the TaqPath test has been granted an EUA by the FDA, it is not authorized for home collection of samples according to an FDA database.

Thermo Fisher, the company that developed the test, confirmed in a phone call that the TaqPath COVID-19 Combo Kit cannot be used with home collected samples.

Aug. 23, College spokesperson Suzanne Clavet provided The Flat Hat with a statement claiming Kallaco has assured them that the test kits were FDA approved for at home collection.

“We have been assured by Kallaco that their labs are CLIA approved and the tests kits provided to all university partners have been approved by the FDA for home collection,” Clavet said in an email. “These are unprecedented times and we understand the questions. At-home collection kits are more variable and for that reason we have repeated tests where results were inconclusive. We remain in constant contact with the company CEO. The company is committed to providing concrete answers to any concern raised.”

Cheronis later confirmed that the test sent to students was indeed the Thermo Fisher TaqPath COVID-19 kit for its COVID-19 assay, but it was modified by Opteo Laboratories. The result is a Laboratory Developed Test, and in recent months, criticism regarding LDTs has increased, especially after the Trump administration rolled back the FDA’s ability to regulate LDTs last week.

“Please note that LDTs should not be used for clinical diagnoses without FDA’s approval, clearance, or authorization during an emergency declaration for that disease,” the FDA website said.

PROFILE

MATT LOWRIE / THE FLAT HAT

College policies mandated students to complete at-home COVID test.

The test that Cheronis is referring to is Opteo’s version of an LDT. It remains on a list of LDTs that have been submitted to the FDA but are awaiting EUA. As of this writing, the Opteo LDT has not been reviewed by the FDA and is listed as “not FDA authorized.”

“The collection kits used by Opteo Laboratory have been internally validated as a Laboratory Developed Test (LDT) and submitted to the FDA under the EAU guidelines,” Cheronis said. “Opteo’s EUA submission on April 15, 2020 allowed for the specimen to be self-collected via an oropharyngeal swab.”

Though the Opteo test is derived from an FDA EUA test and has been developed to allow for self-collection, the FDA has not confirmed its efficacy.

Essentially, the test remains on a waiting list for EUA. Some students and faculty worry that home specimen collection may become an issue for students completing their tests before returning to campus.

“I’m not at all sure that I did it correctly,” Gorski said, referring to her Kallaco COVID-19 test. “I mean they provided instructions but I certainly know I did a very unprofessional job. I think I know a lot of other people who feel the same way, which is obviously a problem for the accuracy of the test.”

Williamson validated this concern and said that an improper collection of a sample could result in a false negative. He said at-home testing can be done effectively, but only if the kits are designed for that purpose.

“The short answer is that if you don’t swab the right part of your respiratory tract in the right way, you could get a false negative,” Williamson said. “Some tests assume that a nasopharyngeal swab has been used — this is the “tickle your brain” swab that goes way back. Other tests assume a pharyngeal or throat swab — this is the same as a strep test, for anyone who has had that unpleasant experience. Neither of these swabs can be reliably selfadministered, and attempts to do so may end up contaminating the swab and invalidating the test. For example, if you were attempting to swab your own throat, if you accidentally hit your tongue, you will pick up enzymes that will destroy any viral particles you might have also picked up.”

Determining the Best Path Forward

Some universities requiring pre-arrival testing have chosen to partner with more established companies. Elon University and the University of

Notre Dame, among other colleges, have partnered with LabCorp, which was founded in 1978.

In contrast to LabCorp’s history in the clinical testing field, the partnership with VCU Health appears to be Kallaco’s first and largest. Among the three universities partnered with VCU Health, Kallaco claims to have administered over 10,000 tests. Cheronis said the company has administered 10,000 more outside of the universities.

“Together with VCU Health System, our health services partner, we selected Kallaco to provide those testing services using the state’s procurement bid process,” Sebring said. “While Kallaco is formally newly established, the founders have a long history in software development and the healthcare space. One of the many reasons William & Mary selected Kallaco as a partner is their relationship with a robust network of national labs.”

Mason School of Business professor Graham Henshaw said that a startup like Kallaco may be a better partner for universities than more established companies like LabCorp.

“Being an early adopter often has many benefits that aren’t possible when dealing with legacy companies,” Henshaw said in an email. “Having the direct attention of the CEO of this company will enable much faster responses to our specific needs than if W&M was just one additional customer among hundreds of others.”

Henshaw emphasized the importance of Kallaco’s team in the College’s decision to contract them.

Henshaw also explained that universities looking for testing and healthcare partnerships in the era of COVID-19 might logically be pushed towards startups.

“For a partnership like this, responsiveness is key,” Henshaw said.

“We’ve experienced that agility is required to navigate this pandemic.

I would look for a partner that could be as agile as required by the rapidly changing situation we face, which would point me in the direction of a startup.”

Nevertheless, students argue that the College faces pressing economic problems and must address the needs of its students, staff and faculty first and foremost. Compounded with concerns about the validity of tests, some still question whether the partnership with Kallaco achieves the goal of a safe reopening.

“I am concerned that William and Mary has given $194,392 (according to the Richmond Times Dispatch) to Kallaco so far in spite of the overall lack of knowledge about the company, particularly in this time when some faculty and staff have already been laid off or furloughed, and many students are struggling to pay tuition due to the economic consequences of this pandemic,” Herndon said.

Other students say that testing frustrations exacerbate an already difficult situation. For many who yearn for a problem-free return to campus, late test results are just another complication.

“There were so many hurdles for me to come back to WM this past week,” Larimer said. “I had to fight to get my move-in exception approved. And to top that off I was supposed to live in OTP so I also obviously needed to change those plans too. And at the end of all of that I had hoped that my COVID test was going to be quick and easy. I was just so annoyed how the only thing that was going to stop me from going back wasn’t even my fault.”

As this situation evolves, visit flathat.com for updated coverage.

Abolishing ignorance, creating change

Cameron Lynch ‘23 forges support group, advocates for student accountability ETHAN BROWN // FLAT HAT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Rather than returning to the College of William and Mary for her sophomore year, Cameron Lynch ’23 has spent the first weeks of the Fall 2020 semester pursuing advocacy work more than 3,000 miles away from

Williamsburg.

From her home in London, Lynch has worked extensively to organize a new support group designed to uplift immunocompromised college students, both on and off campus.

Lynch, a sociology major, began this initiative in June after she penned an open letter to the College community articulating her concerns that people were neglecting their social distancing and mask-wearing responsibilities.

As an immunocompromised student, she feared that she would not be able to safely return to campus if adherence to COVID-19 safety protocols deteriorated.

“I was seeing a lot on social media that people had stopped caring about social distancing and about COVID in general,” Lynch said in an email. “As an immunocompromised teenager, I’m still very much hunkered down. I’m still in complete isolation, so I felt very disrespected by what I was seeing.”

After publishing her letter, Lynch

heard back from multiple other immunocompromised students, who expressed similar frustrations about a lack of responsibility among some young people. who sometimes incorrectly perceive only elderly individuals as suffering from severe complications related to COVID-19. These initial conversations sparked Lynch’s decision to forge a more formalized community space with other students who were also apprehensive about returning to campus in the fall given their health circumstances.

Around the same time that Lynch began formulating plans for an immunocompromised support group, universities throughout the United States began announcing their reopening plans for fall 2020. The College released its initial Path Forward plan June 12. In their plans of return, Lynch and her peers were disappointed to see that many colleges had failed to provide substantive guidance for students suffering from chronic health conditions.

“We started realizing how not a single school had acknowledged immunocompromised students in the state of Virginia,” Lynch said. “When William and Mary released their first statement, they claimed that students with health concerns could take a semester off. I just was really upset by that reaction, because it was like, ‘you’d rather I not come at all than work with me?’”

Since not all of the College’s fall 2020 classes are accessible online, Lynch ultimately chose not to return to campus. This choice has affected her

graduation timeline as some of the classes she wanted to take were not available in a remote format. Before finalizing those plans, Lynch communicated with Student Accessibility Services, College President Katherine Rowe and staff at the McLeod Tyler Wellness Center, including Associate Vice President for Health and Wellness Kelly Crace.

Lynch said they were generally helpful in supporting her throughout her decision-making process. “... They’ve been super helpful and amazing to try to make sure there’s support for immunocompromised students right now with mental health, because I know a lot of students have been in complete isolation and will continue to be, so it’s helpful to have some of those resources,” Lynch said.

As she continued to negotiate and discuss her fall semester plans with the College, Lynch’s advocacy on behalf of herself and other disabled studentsstudents with disabilities was covered in USA Today, and she was contacted by reporters at BBC, the Washington Post and the Chronicle of Higher Education — illustrating a testament to her efforts to pressure universities into providing greater support for their vulnerable populations.

In lieu of in-person classes in Williamsburg, Lynch will pursue coursework through the Washington Center this fall, since it offers completely remote classes. Additionally, she is excited to begin a new full-time internship this fall in London working for Disability Rights UK, a British advocacy organization.

“I’m going to get a lot of the same work I’ve been doing CO U this summer

throughout the semester, which is really amazing,” Lynch said.

“I’ll be taking night classes through the center, so it gives me an opportunity to be involved in the community and still be a part of the school.”

However, arguably the most vital way Lynch will continue being an active member of the College community is through her immunocompromised student support group, which already has 15 members involved who meet through weekly Zoom meetings. Regardless of where disabled or immunocompromised students may find themselves this semester, Lynch hopes that the support group will provide some comfort for individuals who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

RT ES “This is a student-run group that aims at Y PH continuing to have a community whether remote O TO /C or on campus,” Lynch said. “Membership is AM ER open to any student that identifies as being O N LY immunocompromised, at-risk, or disabled. It is a NC H safe space for students to share their frustrations, small wins, and ways of maintaining sanity in the midst of COVID-19 and beyond.”