Vol-120-Iss-22

GW fails to meet tenure requirement for fifth-consecutive year as faculty probe officials for transparency

sity’s annual core indicators report presented at a Faculty Senate meeting earlier this month.

Officials fell short of meeting a Faculty Code clause requiring 75 percent of regular faculty to be tenured or on a tenure track for the fifth-consecutive year.

The percentage of regular faculty who were tenured or on a tenure track dropped steadily over the past decade — from 77.8 percent in 2014 to 71.5 percent in 2023 — and has remained below 75 percent since 2018, according to the Univer-

Faculty senators said officials should be more transparent about University finances and consider if their failure to meet the Faculty Code clause for five years indicates that the 75 percent requirement is no longer feasible.

The clause states that no more than 25 percent of regular faculty in any school should be nontenured or not on a tenure track. The code also states that at least half of faculty in all departments should be on a tenure track.

Provost Chris Bracey said

personnel headcounts adjust based on “a variety of financial factors,” but the “strategic addition” of tenure-track faculty lines across schools and colleges will remain a “critical consideration” in the University’s fiscal and academic plans and scholarly endeavors.

Bracey declined to say whether officials expect to see the percentage of tenure and tenure-track faculty increase in 2024. He also declined to comment on whether officials are considering amending the Faculty Code clause, considering the University’s failure to comply with the requirement for five years.

“We remain committed to strengthening our scholarly community through attracting and retaining talented tenuretrack faculty who will make significant contributions to, and achieve excellence in, our teaching and research missions,” Bracey said in an email.

At the senate meeting earlier this month, Bracey attributed the drop in tenure and tenure-track faculty to the hiring freeze during the COVID-19 pandemic, when officials prioritized contract faculty hires during online learning amid falling student enrollment.

James Bishop IV closes curtain on GW career

The last four years of men’s basketball have seen a lot of upheaval.

Following the conclusion of the 2021-22 season, officials fi red Head Coach Jamion Christian, who had failed to reach a .500 in any of his three seasons coaching the team.

The team’s second

and third leading scorers, guards Joe Bamisile and Brayon Freeman, each transferred to other schools, leaving the program with a gutted roster that newly hired Head Coach Chris Caputo was tasked with fi lling. He found a “crutch,” however, in one holdover: guard James Bishop IV. A self-described quiet guy, he transferred to GW in 2020

following a quiet freshman season at LSU. And in a college sports ecosystem where players are quick to transfer and coaches are fast to leave, Bishop, year after year, has stayed. The on-court success was to be expected. He had already led GW in scoring his fi rst two years on the team and had the high school resume to earn him a Power 5 scholarship.

Off the court, however, might have been where Bishop was most important to the basketball program.

The soft-spoken, evenkeeled Baltimore, Maryland, native was a veteran presence and a leader to players and coaches alike, a constant in years of losing streaks, coaching changes and transfer portal uncertainty.

“For me, he was really a crutch,” Ca-

puto said following the team’s A-10 Championship loss against La Salle, Bishop’s last game in the Buff and Blue. “As you’re trying to build a program, trying to build new players, you’re trying to do a number of different things. To have a guy you could lean on a little bit in certain situations was certainly just a blessing.”

See BISHOP Page 8

Incoming

student GPAs reached decade-high in 2023

The share of incoming students with top high school GPAs surged in 2023, according to a report presented at a Faculty Senate meeting earlier this month.

The percentage of students who have enrolled at the University with a high school GPA of 3.9 or above reached a decade-high last year, increasing from 18 percent in 2014 to 34 percent in 2023, according to the report. Provost Chris Bracey and experts in higher education administration said grade inflation during the COVID-19 pandemic could have caused the rise in average high school GPA among first-year students.

“This is an indication that we’re continuing to improve academically in terms of the quality of students that we matriculate year over year,” Bracey said at the meeting. “That said, I will be fair here, this may also be an indication of grade inflation.”

The number of incoming students with a GPA of 3.39 or lower dipped from 33 percent in 2014 to 14 percent in 2023, according to the report.

Bracey said incoming students’ rising average high school GPAs serve as a “good indicator” of high-performing students’ interest in attending GW. He said officials track the high school GPAs for admitted students as a measure of academic performance because the University’s test-optional admissions policy made it impossible to compare all applicants using SAT and ACT scores.

GW has been a test-optional university since 2015.

A 2022 ACT study reported a rise in high school GPAs and a drop in standardized test scores that suggested grade inflation was present. The average American high school GPA rose from 3.17 in 2010 to 3.36 in 2021, while the average ACT score, graded on a scale from 1 to 36, dropped from 21.4 to 20.17, according to the study.

Bracey said grade inflation may contribute to the rise in average high school GPAs among first-year students, but the growth in retention rate for first-year students suggests they are prepared for college-level work. The University retained 91.9 percent of the class of 2026’s first-year students, a 3.9 percent increase from 88 percent of students who enrolled in 2019.

“If it were due to just grade inflation, you would expect that retention rate to be lower,” Bracey said at the meeting.

Experts in higher education administration said flexible grading policies and a shift to a pass/fail system in some high schools during the pandemic may have inflated applicants’ GPAs because the metric may not factor in all their coursework.

Dan Goldhaber, the director of the Center for Education Data & Research at the University of Washington and the CALDER Research Center, said the center’s researchers collected evidence showing an uptick in grades during COVID-19. He said the average GPA for high school students has grown slightly over the last decade because of factors like “grade compression,” meaning little variation in the grades students receive despite disparities in quality of work.

“There is evidence, not just our evidence, but evidence from other sources that suggests grades have been creeping up over at least the last decade,” Goldhaber said.

Muslim Students Association expands programming for Ramadan

BROOKE FORGETTE

STAFF WRITER

JENNIFER IGBONOBA

CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR

The Muslim Students Association will expand its programming this month in observance of Ramadan with a charity gala, iftars and a temporary student prayer room.

The MSA will host iftars, the meals Muslim people eat each evening to break their fast during Ramadan, and a charity gala to raise money for various issues affecting the global Muslim community. Senior Raheel Abubakar, the president of the MSA, said the organization wanted to focus on more religious-based programming for this year’s Ramadan compared to past years’ focus on the month’s overall significance.

“One of the most important parts of Ramadan outside of fasting is also becoming more close to your faith,” Abubakar said. Officials have been renovating the musalla, or place of prayer, on the fourth floor of the University Student Center prior to the start of the semester, which students say will modern-

ize the space after years of use wore down the room’s carpet. Abubakar said continuous order delays for items like prayer mats and decorations prompted him to reach out to Cassandra Lammers, the director of the student center, about possible meeting space accommodations for Taraweeh prayers — which occur during Ramadan after Isha, the evening prayer — because of the musalla’s small space and ongoing renovations. Abubakar said Lammers helped organize a meeting with himself and officials in the Multicultural Student Services Center, the Division for Student Affairs, the student center, and the Student Government Association earlier this month. They designated room 433 as a temporary musalla for students to pray during Ramadan because of its large space.

Abubakar said MSA board members have added mats and furniture and dimmed the lighting to soften the atmosphere.

“I have heard very positive feedback from the community, which is very nice,” Abubakar said. “I think a lot of people like that we fi nally have more room. They like the ambiance in the

room, they think it’s comfortable, and I think that it’s been generally well-received.”

Abubakar said the organization will host a charity gala April 4 in the City View Room inside the Elliott School of International Affairs to fundraise for issues like the civil confl ict in Sudan; earthquakes in Afghanistan; the humanitarian crisis in Gaza; and the repression of Uyghurs in China and Rohingya people in Myanmar.

“There’s a lot of places where we want to help the community around the world,” Abubakar said. “One of the pillars of Islam is something called Zakat, which is charity, giving back. I think it’s important for us to try and encourage that during this month.”

Abubakar said the MSA will continue co-sponsoring iftars with other student organizations throughout Ramadan with different regional themes, including “A Night in the Middle East” with the Arab Students Association and Students for Justice in Palestine on Thursday and “A Night in Africa” with the African Student Association and Ethiopian-Eritrean Students Association on Sunday.

“Islam is such a wonderful faith that there is so much information about it that there’s always more to learn,” Abubakar said. “Learning it and constantly learning more about it is part of the faith. Always expanding and trying to incorporate more of the faith in your life is a part of being a Muslim, and we want to make sure that if our organization is about making being a Muslim easier on campus, that involves education.” African Student Association President Deseree Chacha said the group is partnering with the MSA for an iftar on March 31, which will have food from multiple African countries. She said her organization suggested African restaurants like Koite Grill and Wow Chops as catering options for the event, and the MSA is in the process of confi rming the selections are halal.

TOM RATH | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Fifth-year senior James Bishop IV looks back on his record-breaking career with the Revolutionaries.

Death of GW Hospital resident sparks calls for improved workplace culture

ERIKA FILTER NEWS EDITOR

William West, a resident at GW Hospital, died by suicide March 1. He was 34.

West was completing his ophthalmology surgery residency at GW Hospital. He was from Sandy, Utah.

West’s obituary states that medical professionals should not need to sacrifice so much of their well-being to succeed in the medical industry.

“In his final words, true to his character, William wanted to protect other medical students and residents dealing with similar challenges,” West’s obituary reads. “We hope systemic changes can be made to support aspiring medical professionals better. This is critical.”

The School of Medicine and Health Sciences residents’ and fellows’ union, which members voted to form last April, sent a letter to GW administration calling on the University to prioritize the well-being of residents. The letter calls on officials to dismantle the culture in residency programs that discourages residents from car-

ing for themselves.

“In memory of Dr. William West, we are moving forward with a renewed sense of purpose,” the letter reads. “We urge the University to work with us to honor Will’s legacy by building a future where all of us can thrive.”

Harold Frazier, the associate dean for graduate medical education, wrote in a response to the letter last week that GW’s Resiliency and Well-Being Center has been “very engaged” in providing support through the grieving process. He wrote that they will continue to work with the program and with individual residents.

“The University is committed to identifying constructive ways to address these concerns, including through programmatic discussions with residents and through collaborative efforts with the union and larger university community,” the message reads.

In lieu of flowers, his family is accepting donations to the Dr. Lorna Breene Heroes’ Foundation, which is dedicated to the professional wellbeing and mental health of health workers.

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

March 28, 1994

DC to finalize homeless services provider for Aston conversion

The District is in the final stages of selecting a provider to oversee the conversion of a former GW residence hall to a homeless shelter.

Department of Human Services Deputy Administrator Anthony Newman said during the inaugural Community Advisory Team meeting last week DHS selected an organization to operate The Aston shelter in the fall and has been in the process of negotiating a contract. The team, comprised of local governing groups, neighborhood associations and District agencies, will oversee the conversion of The Aston into a homeless shelter, which is slated for this summer.

Newman said he hopes the provider will be present for the team’s next meeting, which will be announced at a later date.

Yimka Odebode, a spokesperson for Friendship Place, a Districtbased housing provider for people experiencing homelessness, said Friday that the organization was “being considered” as a provider for The Aston.

The Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commission called to form the CAT in a resolution passed in June. Ward 2

Councilmember Brooke Pinto, who represents the area encompassing the proposed shelter site, presented the suggestion to the DHS, which is leading the conversion project. In July, District officials finalized the creation of the team in an agreement between Pinto, DHS Interim Director Rachel Pierre, Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services Wayne Turnage and City Administrator Kevin Donahue.

The CAT consists of 15 members. ANC Chair Jim Malec and Richard Livingstone, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Community Relations

and Services, co-chair the team. 2A06 Commissioner Joel Causey, whose single-member district encompasses The Aston, will serve alongside Malec on the team. Causey is currently on a leave of absence from the ANC to support his father through medical issues, according to an automatic response from his email. The ANC elected Courtney Cooperman and Chris Labas to the team in November, using a ranked-choice voting system to decide between the 12 candidates. Malec said it was the first time a D.C. government body has used ranked-choice

voting. Pinto serves on the team alongside her two appointees — Shane Menzel, the general manager of Yours Truly hotel, and Dan Hawkins, a local resident.

Livingstone said at the meeting that a representative from Miriam’s Kitchen, a homeless services provider located just south of The Aston, will attend the CAT meetings to represent a services provider in the area surrounding The Aston. Livingstone also said The Aston’s provider will select a “homeless services consumer” to join the team.

SCREENSHOT BY ERIKA FILTER

Community Advisory Team members held their inaugural meeting at the Wilson Building on March 11.

Student engineers to build community library for town in Uganda

An engineering student organization will build a community library to serve a town in Northern Uganda later this year.

GW Engineers Without Borders is working on engineering calculations, grant applications and fundraising to build a community library in Yumbe, Uganda, next winter break, having designed the layout for the space last semester. Junior Isabella Elmore, a co-leader of the project, said the library will house a solar-powered computer lab, a women’s health and early child development center, a rainwater collection system and a printing center, with the goal of enhancing education in Yumbe, particularly for women and girls.

Elmore said Nested Savings, a nongovernmental organization that works to alleviate poverty in Uganda’s West Nile region, reached out to EWB in 2019 to build a new library in Yumbe after they found that a small library the organization previously built increased students’ test scores. Elmore said Nested Savings and Yumbe wanted to work with EWB to build a larger library that could serve as a community center and improve education and health, beyond just serving as a location to store books.

“We realized that they wanted something a lot bigger and more holistic,” Elmore said.

Elmore said members of GW EWB are seeking $50,000 in grants and donations to cover travel costs and building supplies so they can begin construction in Yumbe on their design. She said members have begun applying for grants like those through the Clinton Global Initiative and other educational organizations.

Elmore said the group initially

planned to travel to Yumbe this summer to begin construction, but a lack of funding forced them to push the trip to winter break.

Elmore said eight EWB members plan to lay the structure’s foundation and build the computer lab and women’s health center during winter break. The group will go back to Yumbe in 2025 or 2026 to build the new book storage portion of the building and convert Nested Savings’ old library into a printing center if they secure travel funding, she said.

Progress on the project halted during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic because it prevented EWB members from taking an assessment trip to Uganda, an EWB requirement that Elmore said is essential to ensure the project will help the community long term.

But Elmore said she visited Yumbe in August and interviewed local religious leaders, members of government, educators, women and children. Through the interviews, she learned about problems the community faces, like low literacy rates and women having children at a young age, to understand how they can address them in the library’s design.

She said the women’s health center will support pregnant women and allow teenagers with children to continue studying and the computer lab will help residents learn skills in computer technology, empowering them to get jobs as computer technicians. Individuals in West Nile, Uganda, aged 20 and above have an average of 5.46 years of education, according to data from the Global Data Lab.

“The biggest thing is sustainability,” Elmore said. “We want to build something that is going to be used going to last and it will actually help things.”

Junior Tamar Todd,

the proj-

ect’s co-lead, said after Elmore returned from Uganda the group began examining interviews from the trip to determine top priorities for the library and create the general layout for the library last semester. She said the group went into the University Yard to plot the building’s dimensions and see the layout in full-scale to finalize the design. Todd said this semester she and a team of 10 to 15 students have been performing calculations to determine the weight the foundation can support to determine building materials and make the library’s design compliant with national EWB standards and both

Students prep for Smith Center swimming pool removal

Limousine, which provides the Mount Vernon Campus Express shuttles, to offer additional transportation for athletes to and from the facility.

Students in water sports said the planned removal of the Smith Center pool next fall will add difficulties to their practice and meeting logistics.

Officials plan to demolish the Smith Center pool — used by the club and varsity water polo and swimming and diving teams — around Labor Day to build a new basketball court and exercise facilities. Athletics Director Tanya Vogel said Wednesday at a local governing body meeting that the pool, eight lanes and 25 yards, which is below the Olympic size, is “insufficient” for the “high-quality, championship-level programs.”

She said GW has spoken with unnamed local offsite venues for the past year and are close to finalizing a contract with one less than 15 miles away from campus, though she did not specify whether club teams would fall under the contract.

“We have the terms agreed, in principle, with a local facility that has an Olympic-sized pool with deep water, which is very good news for all of those programs,” Vogel said.

The men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams won the Atlantic 10 Championship for the third-straight year in February.

Vogel also said they are working with Reston

She said many teams at GW use off-campus facilities for their training, like the baseball team and gymnastics team. Vogel said the gymnastics team practices every day at a facility in Chantilly, Virginia, more than 20 miles away from campus, along with the tennis and track teams, which use facilities in Southeast D.C. and Georgetown, respectively.

“It’s very common to have teams going off campus,” Vogel said.

Senior Karol Mlynarczyk, who is on the men’s swimming and diving team, said it may be more difficult to schedule practices around classes with the added commute time to the new pool.

“We’re still figuring this out,” Mlynarczyk said. “Definitely it’s going to be harder, but how much harder, we don’t know.”

Mlynarczyk said there are about 50 people on the swimming and diving team, but the pool in Lerner Health and Wellness Center only has three lanes, making it too small to accommodate the team. He said the pool on the Mount Vernon Campus does not have diving boards, which makes it difficult to accommodate dive exercises. “We don’t know what the future will bring, the next year or the next few weeks,” Mlynarczyk said.

Junior Logan Kalish, the coach of the club water polo team, said the Smith Center pool’s shallow end is somewhat uncommon, but he has not found it to be an issue.

“It’s really nice to have a pool on campus, especially one that’s capable of holding water polo things and swim things,” Kalish said.

He said needing to commute to a pool off campus would make it difficult to organize practices because athletes sometimes run late.

“You can’t really do that if we’re gonna be at an off-campus pool because we’ll have left already,” Kalish said.

First-year political science student Louise Kamaka, a member of the club swimming and water polo teams, said not having a home pool for games and meets will likely cost more money for the club teams because now they have to pay to travel to other schools’ swim meets more frequently.

She also said the Vern pool cannot be used yearround because as an outdoor pool, it gets cold in the winter and would be unsafe to practice in, even if it was heated.

“The Vern pool is not going to be a viable option for us,” Kamaka said.

Kamaka also said the pool in the Lerner Health and Wellness Center will not work for practices because it is not big enough to fit water polo nets on each side.

American and Ugandan building standards.

“This is a good project for a good cause, and I’m very proud of the students that we’re working with on the project,” Todd said She said the organization will continue refining the design and double-checking calculations until they earn enough money to travel to Uganda and build the library later this year. Todd added that EWB is working with a Ugandan engineer who is helping them facilitate construction costs and building the structure. She said the organization plans to stay in contact with the engineer so that he can check in on

the library after it’s implemented to ensure the structure is serving the community as intended.

She said they also plan to continue to monitor the project by staying in touch with a librarian who will work in the building and through Nested Savings but that EWB’s goal is to design the building so that the community can run it self-sufficiently.

“We should still be able to check in with everyone just by email and video calls and that kind of stuff but the hope is that once we actually get it implemented, things are working properly, that they’ll be able to maintain it and keep it running themselves,” Todd said.

Law school reshapes bar prep support ahead of exam changes

DELANEY HAUSCH REPORTER LIYANA ILLYAS REPORTER

GW Law has established support programs and a committee to aid students studying for the bar exam as the school plans to adapt to a more situational and application-based exam in 2026.

Over the past year, the law school formed a Bar Exam Support Committee and launched two pilot programs — one to support students taking the bar for the first time and the other to assist those taking the exam for the second time. The efforts are part of a mission to better support students through the process of preparing for the bar exam and ready them for the new iteration of the test, the NextGen exam, set to be unveiled in 2026.

Andrew Realon, the law school’s associate director for student academic development, said the school formed the committee to maximize the amount of GW Law students who pass the exam, which hovers at about a 50 percent pass rate. The group identifies current students who may need additional support when preparing for the test and then curates those resources for them, Realon said.

“All of our current students and recent graduates receive robust support from the law school as they prepare for the bar exam,” Realon said in an

email. Realon added that the group launched a pre-bar review pilot course that currently instructs 120 students. He said that the law school worked closely with an alum who has an “expansive” bar exam tutoring portfolio to create the pilot course. Students will review legal concepts, answer practice questions with an instructor and take mock exams, Realon said.

“The goal is to prepare students to fully understand the considerable effort that it will take to be ready for the bar exam,” Realon said in an email.

The law school also offers resources like bar preparation workshops, a bar admissions readiness self-audit and a multistate bar exam readiness assessment to prepare its students and alumni seeking membership to various state bars. Realon said the law school supports recent alumni in the D.C. area preparing for the bar exam by offering weekly lunches and encouraging email messages.

The NextGen exam will assess lawyering skills, not just knowledge mastery, like the current test, Realon said. He said the National Conference of Bar Examiners is currently conducting several rounds of field testing for the NextGen exam, which is still in development.

“As information about the exam is disseminated, we will make our faculty aware so that they may calibrate their courses accordingly,” Realon said in an email.

Officials will administer and proctor the NextGen exam in-person over one and a half days, and examinees will take it on their own laptops. The test will differ in content and item format from the current bar, the Uniform Bar Exam, which has served as the exam since 2011 and is memorization-heavy and covers 14 subjects, as opposed to the eight subjects and seven skills on the NextGen, which will have more situationally focused questions. The UBE is administered on paper over two days.

Third-year law student Jasmine Masri said past assistance from GW Law about the bar exam included a stipend that covers law school-related costs. She said current support includes one of the law school’s pilot programs offering third-year law students weekly bar prep, which officials implemented this year.

Acquiring funding to pay for prep courses and registration fees is one of the largest obstacles that students face when preparing for the exam, she said. Fees to take the exam can range anywhere from $250 to $1,000, depending on what state students take the test in, according to a 2022 Reuters report. Students also shell out thousands of dollars for bar exam prep courses, the report states.

“Getting that funding for students who don’t have an employer is always one of the biggest challenges,” Masri said.

COLIN WAGNER | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

From left to right, GW Engineers Without Borders project leaders Isabella Elmore and Tamar Todd and President Lily Sarnowski stand outside of the Science & Engineering Hall.

KAIDEN YU | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Students hit speed bumps in effort to charter political institute

JENNA LEE STAFF WRITER

A group of students is working to establish an institute that offers research, internship and networking opportunities for political science students at GW by fall 2024.

The student-led institute — which was inspired by institutes of politics at the University of Chicago and Harvard University — would connect students to political and social science research, offer volunteering and internship opportunities with government organizations and host speaker events catered toward political and social science students if approved by the University. But leaders said they have faced difficulties getting officials to approve the charter that would officially establish it as an institute at the University.

“Schools around the country had an institute of politics, but we didn’t and we were in D.C.,” junior and institute founder Manav Raval said. “It felt like we weren’t utilizing those opportunities for students that would benefit the students and so I decided that these other schools have this, why not try to integrate it within GW itself.”

Raval said the group filed for nonprofit status with the IRS and became a registered nonprofit in the District in December. After receiving the designation, he began talking with deans in the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, the Elliott School of International Affairs and the School of Media & Public Affairs.

He said the organization needs a signature from one dean from any school to submit a charter

proposal to officials, but he said the deans have been hesitant to sign. He said they are worried the institute will not receive funding because the group is student-led. Raval said the institute is currently “in the process” of securing donors.

He added that the deans advised him to involve faculty before they would consider signing because professors could maintain the organization’s stability as students graduate. He said members have since gotten 10 faculty from schools like CCAS and Elliott, who would advise each of the is-

titutes’ five departments: student programs, student task forces, research, partnerships and events.

“We want to immerse students in politics and related fields, but we also want to promote politics in a practical sense,” Raval said. “We want to, on top of everything, encourage action and we want to instill in students the drive to tackle real-world problems.”

Senior Elizabeth Paul, who serves as the institute’s executive adviser, said the group originally wanted to establish an institute in fall 2023 but officials told them last spring and again in the fall to work

SGA senator, mental health assembly co-chair stages presidential bid

MARR ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

Student Government Association Sen. Ethan Fitzgerald (CCAS-U) announced his bid for SGA president Sunday.

Fitzgerald, a sophomore majoring in political science and organizational sciences, said if elected, he will work to expand student health resources by further extending Lerner Health and Wellness Center hours and continuing to subsidize the cost of the University’s contraceptive vending machines to $5, down from $15. He said he also plans to continue the push toward adding a voting student to the Board of Trustees, despite trustees rejecting the SGA’s request in November.

He said he has had “preliminary” discussions with Dean of Students Colette Coleman and trustees to

discuss the logistics of adding a voting student to the Board but declined to comment on which trustees he’s spoken with. Fitzgerald also sponsored a bill last month that will add a question to this year’s SGA ballot that asks students if they want the Board to include the SGA president and vice president as voting members. “Electing a president who is focusing on that will show the Board of Trustees that this is an issue that students generally care about,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald, who served as the co-chair of the inaugural Mental Health Assembly, said he plans to renew the assembly next year to allow the SGA to continue working with the Student Health Center staff on making strides to increase mental health resources for students on campus. He

said the assembly worked this year with Counseling and Psychological Services to join TimelyCare, a telehealth provider that offers students nine hours of free therapy per school year. Prior to the rollout of TimelyCare, GW offered fulltime students unlimited, free visits with AcademicLiveCare, a telehealth provider that offered counseling, urgent medical care, therapy and psychiatry appointments.

He said he built relationships with University administrators, including Laura Finkelstein, Sherry Leung, Kelley Bishop and Elise Greenfield as senator, and he has already spoken with campus stakeholders to make sure his initiatives are feasible. He said relationships with administration are vital to advancing student interests as they “sign off” on many initiatives.

with the Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service or apply to be a student organization, despite some officials saying their idea was too expansive to be a student group. Paul said the group now has faculty involved and exists as a registered nonprofit, but securing University approval for the institute remains out of their hands.

“We’ve done all this prep,” Paul said. “We have officially gotten our nonprofit status and that should help us secure some types of partnerships and donors. But really, at this point, we are waiting

on the approval of other people, whether that be donor parties or the University.”

She said the group has started brainstorming alternative plans for the institute, like operating as a nonprofit separate from GW. But she said it will be difficult to function at the level members are hoping to by the fall without having the resources that institutes at GW have, like their status and funding.

“The problem is that donors want to see the University approve us to feel willing to donate but the University wants to see donors to be willing to approve us,” Paul said. “So it’s hard to balance how to get one or the other when they’re dependent on each other.”

Paul said she envisions the institute would be similar to the Nashman Center, which exists as its own entity while still receiving funding from the University.

Raval said, if approved, the institute would offer students the opportunity to apply to conduct social science research in small groups under the advisement of a faculty member.

Raval added that the institute would hold research symposiums where students can showcase their studies as well as an Institute of Politics Fest at the end of each academic year, where the organization can recap the programming the institute conducted throughout the year.

“There’s a difference between getting taught something and then applying it to a real-life situation,” Raval said. “So if they feel interested, they’re going to be taught how to do a lit review, how to do an abstract, a needs assessment, stuff of that sort, and then in the end, we hope to publish it internally.”

SGA cabinet member announces bid for president

FATTIZZO

A Student Government Association cabinet secretary and Residence Hall Association board member announced his bid for the SGA presidency Tuesday.

Nicky Beruashvili, the SGA’s executive secretary for internal relations and RHA director of national affairs and national communications coordinator, said he plans to strengthen the SGA’s relationship with student organizations, improve sustainability on campus and advocate for increased funding for Counseling & Psychological Services and the Office of Advocacy and Support. Beruashvili said his three years of experience on the RHA and position on the executive cabinet have prepared him for the presidency because he brings a familiarity with SGA orga-

nizational procedures but a new perspective on policy.

Beruashvili, a junior majoring in international affairs and political science, said he wants to improve the SGA’s communication through town halls and newsletters with students and officials to address health and safety concerns, like campus dining, mental health and sexual assault. He said the SGA tries to fix problems internally without consulting student organizations and administration, and he wants to include student organizations in more senate committee meetings and hear their feedback on SGA initiatives. Beruashvili added that he plans to improve relationships with organizations like GW RAGE and GW Students Against Sexual Assault and work with them on goals like abortion pill access through the Student Health Center.

“I know communication is a big thing that we might be lagging and people will say that and that is one thing that I want to tackle,” Beruashvili said.

Beruashvili said his experience in RHA, which he represented at national conferences and alongside other university chapters, will help him promote the SGA on campus and connect with students. He said in his SGA position he handles human resources, which will help him cultivate personal relationships with Greek life and club sport organizations to ensure they aren’t isolated from the community, as well as between the executive cabinet and senate.

“It has prepared me to get to know people, communicate, set events and invite advocacy initiatives, as well as interact with regional partners outside of our school,” Beruashvili said.

Cyclist group launches new crash-tracking survey after rise in DC traffic deaths

A cycling organization this month launched a new crash tracker and reporting form that aims to gather more data on traffic accidents and close calls in the District.

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association’s form allows respondents to report crashes, dangerous locations, dangerously parked vehicles and near misses for bicyclists, pedestrians, scooters and motorized vehicles. The form’s submissions are meant to improve road safety after D.C. experienced a 16year high of 52 traffic fatalities in 2023, including 11 in Ward 2, after deaths dipped in 2022, according to District Department of Transportation data.

WABA previously had a crash tracker and reporting form, but the old version wasn’t accessible or easy for young people to use, WABA Advocacy Director Jeremiah Lowery said in a December 2022 interview with the Washington Post. The new form is more phone-friendly and allows users to pinpoint incidents on a map and share their information with their local representatives and department of transportation, according to website archives.

Lowery said the tool is the only one in the region that gives respondents the ability to report near misses and send their reports to their local representatives and department of transportation. There have been 10 traffic fatalities and 61 major injuries in the District as of March 24 this year, nine of which occurred in Ward 2, according to DDOT data. Three minor injuries involving pedestrians, two minor injuries involving vehicle drivers and one major injury of a vehicle driver on the 2200 Block of

F Street on Feb. 8 took place on the Foggy Bottom Campus this year.

Christy Kwan, the volunteer co-chair for DC Families for Safe Streets, said the data the form will provide is valuable because some people don’t feel safe going to the government to report traffic incidents. She said she hopes the near-miss reporting function can identify risky areas before a traffic incident happens, hopefully preventing deaths and major injuries.

“Many of us who have been involved with Safe Streets work because either we lost a loved one or someone was injured,” Kwan said. “We find that we wish we had known ahead of time that certain intersections or quarters were dangerous.”

Launched in 2014, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Vision Zero program pledged to end all traffic fatalities and serious injuries in the District by 2024 by identifying and addressing vulnerable aspects of the city’s transportation network. Traffic fatalities have increased since then, and an audit by the D.C. Office of the Chief Financial Officer last March found that Vision Zero failed because it lacked adequate funding and staffing.

Kwan said officials could make the area around the Foggy Bottom Campus safer for cyclists by working to slow down vehicles, including by shrinking the size of lanes and penning legislation to allow vehicular technology that prevents repeat speeding offenders from surpassing the speed limit. She cited the deaths of Shawn O’Donnell, a 40-year-old woman killed by a construction truck on the corner of 21st and I streets in July 2022, and Nijad Huseynov, a graduate student who was struck and killed in October by the driver

of a car while biking through the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and L Street, as evidence that greater Foggy Bottom is unsafe for bicyclists.

“I don’t like saying that because I want people to find the joy in biking, to find the joy in going through a walkable environment,” Kwan said. Prior to their deaths, residents expressed safety concerns about the intersections where O’Donnell and Huseynov were killed. Nine days after O’Donnell was killed, officials installed a traffic signal at

the corner of 21st and I streets that experts said could have prevented her death — four years after local leaders first urged improved safety infrastructure at the intersection. Participants in a memorial for Huseynov said there had been concerns that the intersection where he was killed was unsafe for cyclists because of vehicles drifting into the bike lane while turning left.

Lowery said the data from the crash tracking and reporting tool, especially the near-miss incidents that government forms don’t allow people to report, will improve WA-

BA’s advocacy for safer transportation by preventing incidents before they occur. He said the ability of respondents in the form to pass their information along to their elected officials is particularly helpful for advocacy.

“Our tool is the only tool in the region that does that,” Lowery said.

DDOT collects data on reported traffic incidents like their location, mode of travel, impact on those involved and if speeding was involved to determine what areas of the District need more traffic safety features.

HANNAH

ANNA

STAFF WRITER

JENNIFER IGBONOBA | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Founder of the GW Institute of Politics Manav Raval leads an executive board meeting.

Milken researchers find widened racial disparities in pollution-related illnesses

CRISTINA STASSIS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Despite national efforts to curb air pollution, racial disparities from pollutioncaused illnesses have worsened, according to a Milken Institute School of Public Health study published earlier this month.

Researchers examined air pollution and its associated health impacts like asthma and lung cancer from 2010 to 2019 and found that disparities in air pollution-related health complications have increased in that period. Gaige Kerr, the lead author of the study, said pollution-reducing legislation like the Clean Air Act has benefitted white communities more than communities of color because the regulations don’t resolve the history of government officials disproportionately placing pollutive factories and highways in minority neighborhoods, causing the disparity between the groups to increase.

“When we found this result, that actually the gap between white America and Black and Brown America widened over the last decade with respect to rates of pollution-associated diseases, we were pretty surprised,” Kerr said.

Kerr, a senior research scientist in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, said the researchers analyzed data sets from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Global Burden of Disease related to population demographics, air pollutants and overall health. He said researchers used the data sets to determine disparities, comparing air quality differences in the most and least white areas. The study found that differences in exposure to two air pollutants, particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, account for the widening of health disparities.

Kerr said the study found that premature deaths caused by health complications like strokes and lung cancer are linked to long-term exposure to particulate matter pollution. The study found that decreases in pollutant-related illnesses like asthma in majority-white communities were greater than in nonwhite and Hispanic communities.

The disparity in particulate matter-related premature deaths between nonwhite and white groups increased by 16 percent, but the disparity between white and Hispanic or Latino communities rose 40 percent within the past decade, according to the study.

Experts often use pediatric asthma rates caused by exposure to nitrogen dioxide — an air pollutant composed of oxygen and nitrogen formed from fossil fuel combustion — to analyze the environmental health of certain areas. Legislation has been trying to prevent pollution-related illnesses like pediatric asthma, but the study found the gap in pediatric asthma rates between white and nonwhite communities rose by 19 percent.

Despite rising disparities and the positive trend in pollution-related illnesses, the study found overall death rates related to particulate matter have declined by 28.5 percent from 2010 to 2019 across the United States. New cases of pediatric asthma have declined by 39.8 percent in the same period, according to the study, even with positive trends of cases across the country.

Kerr said there are large systematic gaps in pollution-related health issues between zip codes because some neighborhoods have access to green spaces, nutritious foods and health care, while others don’t. He said these imbalances are often

CRIME LOG

THEFT II/FROM BUILDING

Guthridge Hall 3/15/2024 – 7:30 a.m.-12:23 p.m.

Closed Case

A female student reported money stolen from her room.

No further action.

PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS

1959 E St. NW (Residential)

3/17/2024 – 2:40 a.m.

Closed Case

GW Police Department officers responded to a report of an intoxicated female student. Emergency Medical Response Group responders arrived on scene and after medical evaluation, the student refused any further medical treatment.

Referred to the Division for Student Affairs.

THEFT II/FROM BUILDING

Guthridge Hall

Reported 3/17/2024 – Unknown Date and Time

Open Case

A male student reported money stolen from an unsecured desk drawer. Case open.

THEFT II/FROM BUILDING

Ames Hall (Mount Vernon Campus)

Reported 3/18/2024 – Unknown Date and Time Open Case

A male faculty member reported computer accessories stolen from his office. Case open.

THEFT II/BICYCLES

linked to racial disparities.

“Some people just don’t have access to the resources that others have, and as a result, it’s more challenging for them to enjoy the same good health that many communities, largely communities with higher amounts of wealth, more white, nonHispanic folks are able to enjoy and obtain,” Kerr said.

Provost mum on progress of compliance to tenured faculty ratio

From Page 1

“That decline, as you might imagine, is a function of the pandemic more than anything else, where we actually had a hiring freeze, and then cautious rebuilding post-pandemic,” Bracey said at the meeting.

Murli Gupta, a professor of mathematics and a faculty senator, asked Bracey at the March meeting if officials will allocate more funding for tenure and tenure-track lines in the coming years to meet the “stated policy” outlined in the code.

Bracey said funding for tenured positions comes from the University’s “permanent resource base,” which will grow as enrollment increases. He said the Board of Trustees approves tenure-track searches.

“As we expand enrollments, we will then be in a position to do more investment on the faculty side,” Bracey said at the meeting.

Bracey declined to comment on what the “permanent resource base” consists of, or how it is affected by enrollment.

About two years ago, Bracey said he was “confident” the percentage of ten-

ure and tenure-track faculty would experience the “beginning of an upward trend” in the coming year after officials failed to meet the 75 percent requirement for the third-straight year. He said in summer 2021 that officials approved 44 new tenure-track searches to help reach the 75 percent minimum.

Bracey declined to comment on how many tenuretrack positions officials filled from the 44 searches, and if the Board approved additional searches since summer 2021.

Faculty senators said officials should consider what percentage of tenure and tenure-track faculty makes fiscal sense for the University and communicate funding concerns with departments.

David Rain, a faculty senator and the chair of the geography department, said he would like to see more funding allocated to tenure and tenuretrack lines to help support “strained” departments and programs. He said trustees should work with the administration and faculty under the principle of shared governance to address budgetary concerns.

Faculty senators and trustees approved a set of

shared governance principles in spring 2022 that state that faculty should have a role in “key decision making.” In May 2023 senators submitted a resolution to clarify faculty’s role in University decisions after the Board announced plans to arm some GW Police Department officers without notifying the entire senate.

“As a senator, I speak for my faculty when we call for transparency about finances from the administration — especially as we go into the process of developing a new strategic plan,” Rain said in an email.

Rain said more tenured and tenure-track faculty in the geography department would reduce waitlists for popular classes and grant students more access to upper-level courses that currently only accept seniors due to staffing shortages. He said an environmental science faculty member left the department two years ago and has not been replaced despite more than 50 students now studying Environmental and Sustainability Science. Rain said more tenured and tenure-track faculty would help build “institutional memory” in departments.

“There’s often not a giant factory refinery in a predominantly white, wealthy, let’s say, suburb right,” Kerr said. “They’re located in more historically excluded or marginalized communities within our urban areas.”

He said particulate matter comes from sources like wildfires, refineries and petrochemical plants and disproportionately appears in communities that experience zoning and land-use changes in urban areas, like building large highways.

Kerr said increased highway construction in the 1950s and 1960s harmed communities of color and low-income communities because they face more diesel vehicle traffic, a main driver of nitrogen dioxide pollution in cities. He said former President Dwight Eisenhower and following administrations constructed the interstate highway system during this time and many Black, Brown and lowincome communities were “sacrifice zones,” meaning officials routed large, busy highways through them.

New FAFSA

International House

Reported 3/18/2024 – Unknown Date and Time

Open Case

A male student reported his bicycle stolen. Case open.

THEFT II/FROM BUILDING

South Hall Reported 3/21/2024 – Unknown Date and Time

Closed Case

A male and female staff member reported bean bag chairs stolen from a lounge. No suspects or witnesses.

—Compiled by Max Porter

form met with mixed reactions from students

DYLAN EBS STAFF WRITER

Students said completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid this year was more burdensome than in previous years, despite federal attempts to simplify the financial aid process.

After Congress passed legislation in 2020 to reduce the number of FAFSA questions from 108 questions to as few as 18 for some applicants, Department of Education officials said the updated form would ease the burden on applicants. Despite the reduction in the number of questions, six students said the application process took longer than in previous years due to intricate questions and processing delays, while a few students said the process felt simplified.

Some colleges in the D.C. region, including the University of Maryland and George Mason University, have extended their enrollment deadline to give prospective students more time to choose a college because of the FAFSA processing delays. GW’s May 1 decision deadline has not changed.

Fatima Vazquez, a graduate student in the Museum Studies program, said her younger siblings in college struggled to complete this year’s FAFSA because the Department of Education didn’t recognize her parents’ Taxpayer Identification Number — an ongoing issue for her despite multiple attempts to contact the Federal Student Aid office.

Vazquez said her parents don’t have Social Security numbers, which hadn’t been an issue until this year. In prior years, Vazquez said her family was able to complete the form and bypass the SSN question by entering in zeroes where the applica -

tion asked for their Social Security numbers. “What we’d feel most comfortable with is trying to have a person to speak to because it could end up being that we do the workaround and that it’s still going to be delayed,” she said.

The Department of Education has identified 33 issues from completing this year’s FAFSA, according to an alerts page on their website, including students being unable to proceed past the student identity and information page and parents unable to access the form as a contributor.

Of the 33, the department has resolved 17, while 10 of the 16 ongoing issues have a workaround listed. Federal Student Aid officials scheduled to release the new form in early December last year but waited for the end of the month to implement changes like a Student Aid Index that will indicate financial need.

Sophomore Margaret Light, who studies international affairs, said the new questions were more particular than the old form, causing her application process to take longer to complete because her parents had to ask more questions about her finances to finish the parent section of the form.

“The new questions

also were a lot more specific about things that I personally didn’t know, like concerning my parents’ finances, and I felt those were a lot more difficult,” she said.

First-year student Davina Kennedy said she was surprised by the shorter application when she completed her FAFSA because she assumed there would be more questions.

“It was much easier,” she said. “After filling out probably two pages, it was like ‘Oh, you’re done,’ so then I was even checking with my friends like, ‘Did I do it right?’”

Junior Zael Hurtado, who studies international affairs, said he is still filling out his application because he’s waiting for his parents to finish their section of the form. He added that he was told by GW’s financial aid office to wait a “week or two” to fill it out because of unspecified changes made to the whole form in March.

He said GW should do more to inform financial aid applicants on how the processing delays will affect their application.

“Just advertising services more openly, and sending out emails like ‘Don’t forget this is the changes to FAFSA, this is what we’re doing, this is how it’s going to affect our back-end processing system,’” Hurtado said.

COURTESY OF GAIGE KERR

Gaige Kerr served as the lead author of the study, which found communities of color faced disparities in illnesses caused by pollution.

WHAT THE UNIVERSITY WON’T TALK ABOUT THIS WEEK

GW can reverse sudden decline in cross-school studies

GW was once committed to the idea of academic and interdisciplinary exploration — the University has a decade of growth in crossschool studying to show for it. But that progress, a clear way to promote intellectual curiosity in students and diversify the school’s focuses, has dropped off: Cross-school studying declined 30 percent this past year.

Amid the lowest rate of cross-school studying that GW has seen since 2016, it seems the cost of tuition and extra credit hour fees may be preventing students from pursuing a cross-school education and exploring academics to their fullest potential. Undergraduates are being funneled down a narrower path because branching out in their studies isn’t as accessible as it should be.

Between a whopping $64,700 tuition for the 202324 academic year and additional fees for exceeding credit limits, students looking to broaden their focus face serious barriers. GW ranked 35th on the list of most expensive colleges in the U.S. in 2022, and tuition is already set to increase by $2,720 for the 2024-25 academic year.

across schools.

Experts in higher education administration and interdisciplinary studies have linked both tuition costs and a national STEM focus to the recent drop in students pursuing majors across schools — a reality that is currently unfolding at GW.

Students and faculty criticized former University President Thomas LeBlanc’s 20/30 Plan, which aimed to make STEM majors the largest educational focus at GW. LeBlanc’s plan was never implemented since undergraduate enrollment dropped during COVID-19. Now, though, the University runs the risk of accidentally fulfilling LeBlanc’s dreams of an unbalanced STEM-student majority, particularly as undergraduates grow weary of tuition costs and slink away from a liberal arts education.

The mounting financial burden on students demands action. The University needs to evaluate what it’s asking of its undergraduate students, especially when their education choices boil down to fiscal barriers.

GW also charges more money for fewer credits compared to other D.C. schools. While Georgetown University appears to charge more for individual credits, it doesn’t cap students until 20 credits. And while American University

GW charges most undergraduates an additional $2,170 per credit hour after they reach the 18-credithour limit. The majority of the courses offered at GW are at least three credits, which means it costs $6,510 to add a single class to the schedule. Students enrolled in multiple schools where course requirements don’t overlap often need to exceed the 18-credit cap, and those expenses add up quickly.

With construction looming, remember DC’s iconic cherry trees

Underdogs can get left out, picked last or feel a little weird — and some are chopped down. Meet Stumpy, a small, short, warped cherry blossom tree situated by the Tidal Basin.

An internet icon, Stumpy will be cut down after this year’s Cherry Blossom Festival as construction work to address rising water levels at the Tidal Basin commences. Stumpy may not be the strongest tree, but it’s a shame to lose it.

This may be Stumpy’s last hurrah, but it’s not just Stumpy: The National Park Service plans to chop down about 150 cherry trees and 300 trees in all. The low-level deforestation comes after rising water levels have weakened the flood walls of the Tidal Basin, which need to be replaced. The project, set to take place until 2027, is meant to combat the effects of climate change.

Ironically, the NPS’ plans to shore up the Tidal Basin’s trees will

mean harming the area in the short-term — think the loss of habitat space for birds and insects or fewer plants for bees to pollinate. However, the agency has said it will plant more cherry trees as replacements as part of the project. And these trees are part of both local and international history: In 1910, Japan sent 2,000 blossoms to D.C. as a sign of diplomacy. Stumpy may not survive a move, but it would be great if it and its fellow trees could avoid the wood chipper to be turned into mulch. D.C. is home to a number of places where the trees could be relocated, like the National Arboretum and the Botanic Gardens. Or, the trees could be the centerpiece of new parks or bring a splash of seasonal color to previously barren areas. While not native to D.C., the cherry trees have become part of its ecosystem and its culture. So, while Stumpy may not live to see next season, its memory — and its underdog story — should. Long live Stumpy!

—Jenna Fox, a first-year majoring in political science and communication, is an opinions writer.

also caps credits at 18 per semester, it charges less per additional credit taken than GW. Not to mention both schools’ annual tuitions are considerably less expensive than GW — by more than $25,000.

GW claims to provide an all-encompassing educational experience, balancing both professional and liberal arts degrees and requiring students to take GPAC requirements that ensure they develop abilities that “transcend disciplinary boundaries.” But instead of nurturing intellectual curiosity and interdisciplinary collaboration, GW risks prioritizing financial gain over the holistic development of its students.

Provost Chris Bracey said this drop in crossschool studying may be because students are becoming “narrowly focused,” but the situation is more chicken-and-egg. GW students might not be so narrowly focused after all, especially when tuition costs and credit fees pile up quickly, preventing students from pursuing additional majors and minors

IGW wants to be a trailblazer in higher education — that begins with fostering a culture of intellectual exploration and interdisciplinary collaboration. This University has a responsibility to make diverse educational experiences accessible to all students. Whether through increasing credit hour caps or decreasing additional credit fees, something has to give.

Tumbling toward cruelty in Georgia

flew home to Georgia for spring break, but Washington was never far away.

Ethan Benn Opinions Editor

I’d left campus to see my family, friends and dogs, get a muchneeded haircut, catch up on some doctor’s appointments, and vote in Georgia’s presidential primary, though not necessarily in that order. So, off I went.

As my flight touched down in Atlanta a few days before the election, I glimpsed Air Force One out of the window. Somehow, I’d missed that President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump were both in town — or at least the state — for dueling rallies. They’d each win Georgia, clinching the nominations of their respective parties with a majority of delegates.

Of the more than 872,000 votes cast, I’m stuck on a single one: my mom’s. She’s a college-educated white woman in the Atlanta suburbs who’s pro-abortion rights, anti-gun and supports diversity training while opposing illegal immigration and inflation. She’s voted for Al Gore, Barack Obama, Trump and Biden. Her politics aren’t red or blue, and she’s ready for a change.

“Did you vote for Nikki Haley?” My sibling and I asked her when she got home. We’d thought she’d had her fill of both Trump and Biden, and Haley — for better or worse — represented something new, even if she suspended her campaign a week earlier.

“No, I voted for Trump,” she said, putting her bag on the kitchen table.

Guessing our fellow citizens’ political affiliations is something

of a national pastime. In 1941, journalist Dorothy Thompson wrote “Who Goes Nazi?” for Harper’s Magazine. (Just stick with me here.) If anyone knew who had the makings of a future fascist, it was Thompson — she was the first American journalist expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934.

Imagining herself at a party, Thompson scanned the guests: a frustrated intellectual, spoiled brat and tyrannical labor leaders would all “go Nazi,” while a hardworking engineering student, aristocratic editor and observant butler wouldn’t. Why?

“Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi,” Thompson wrote. “Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.”

The problem with Thompson’s self-described “macabre parlor game” is that nice people do “go Nazi.” Or in our time, otherwise upstanding people — friends, family, community members — vote in ways that are anathema to our values. But I’m not interested in arguing whether liberals or conservatives have a monopoly on morality. Evil is ordinary, and that’s what makes it terrifying. The American electorate isn’t made up of mustache-twirling villains. Real people extend their compassion just as easily as their cruelty; the nicest among us can rationalize death and destruction abroad or shrug off suffering at our southern border.

In a Gallup poll conducted in January 2023, 40 percent of Americans were dissatisfied with immigration levels into the U.S. and wanted a decrease. It’s fine to have that opinion. But what concerns me is how quickly that view can manifest human misery. And what if such cruelty, from

razor-wire fences to “negligent” conditions in detention centers, is the point?

Some people readily goosestep into moral oblivion. But most people aren’t national socialist sycophants: they stumble into it, trading their support for the leaders they want — even if they say they loathe the cruelty their policies beget. For the sake of cheaper groceries, more secure borders or preserving democracy, they can excuse starving the hungry, refusing the stranger or dropping bombs a world away. This is not about one candidate or one party. This is about our politics — it’s about us.

Next Thursday, April 4, will mark 56 years since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I’m reminded of what Robert F. Kennedy said the day after King’s death in 1968, another tumultuous election year with conflict at home and abroad: “The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.”

Call it cruelty or hate or just plain meanness, but participating in politics as usual stains our society and ourselves — Mom, me, you, all of us. We are willing to deploy bombs and bullets, to repress and retaliate, to let others wallow in poverty and pain in a desperate search for our own satisfaction.

What Kennedy tried to express, before he also fell to an assassin’s bullet, was that our country and our politics needn’t be so cruel. Doing what is right requires more than voting for any party.

—Ethan Benn, a senior majoring in journalism and mass communication, is the opinions editor.

HARPER DONALDSON | CARTOONIST

Culture

NEW SONG: “LIKE THAT” BY FUTURE, METRO BOOMIN FEAT. KENDRICK LAMAR

School of Rock: The faculty who jam in punk bands and lead hip-hop groups

BROOKE SHAPIRO REPORTER

For most students, it’s hard to imagine their professors in any setting besides the classroom — let alone rocking out in churches or performing at the Kennedy Center.

But, from punk rock to hip-hop and everything else in between, GW faculty can be found playing music at venues across the D.C. area. These professors take their love of music outside of the classroom, whether performing is a fulltime gig or a passion project.

Lawyer by day, saxophonist by night

Besides teaching in the classroom and arguing in the courtroom, Mike Nilsson, an adjunct professor of media law, plays the saxophone on stage.

A saxophonist since fourth grade, Nilsson joined indie rock band NAYAN 12 years ago. Nilsson said bandleader Nayan Bhula recruited him after hearing him play in a different band.

The band, which was formerly known as The NRIs and consists of four other middle-aged career men, released its album, “Rock N Roll Ruined My Life,” in February, a record chock-full of groovy bass lines and roaring sax solos. Nilsson said although NAYAN often gets compared to Bruce Springsteen because of the saxophone’s presence — despite Bhula not being “Born in the U.S.A.” and the band lacking Springsteen’s Jersey roots — they take influence from all rock genres.

Nilsson said performing in NAYAN lets him pretend he’s a kid again, a phenomenon he’s passing to his son, an 11-year-old guitar player who listens to ’80s hair metal. “I’m 53, and not many people of that age get to go out and perform,” Nilsson said.

Carrying on the D.C. punk legacy

When he’s not teaching, Alexander Dent, a professor of anthropology and international affairs, revels

in D.C.’s punk rock scene with his band Weird Babies. Dent, whose roles in the band involve playing guitar and “screaming my voice out,” said he became friends with bass player and co-vocalist Josh Freed after they met through the elementary school their children attended. He said their shared love of music led them to form their band in 2015 with drummer and Department of Energy official Avi Zevin, whom Freed knew from his work in the environmental policy field.

Meet Maria Chong, the new owner of McReynold’s Liquors

Students likely noticed a new face behind the counter at McReynold’s Liquors during their last-minute Friday pilgrimages to the store.

Maria Chong, a 48-yearold from Atlanta, Georgia, bought McReynold’s from beloved former owners Matthew and Sophia Kimwon after their decade-plus of ownership of the shop ended so they could care for Matthew’s family in South Korea. The news devastated the store’s most loyal customers, GW students, some of whom flocked to McReynold’s after the announcement to wish the Kimwons goodbye and show their appreciation for years of service.

In the eyes of students, Chong has big shoes to fill. The Kimwons won the hearts of the GW community during their 11 years at the store, witnessing budding student romances, presidential election festivities and graduation photoshoots from behind the counter.

But Chong is cool, calm and collected about the business venture, with almost 20 years of experience in the liquor sales industry. She said she already knows a few regular customers’ names and faces. As the store’s owner, she plans to try her best every day, be kind to customers and enjoy working, she said.

“Customers become my best friend,” Chong said. Chong previously owned a liquor store in Peachtree City, Georgia, but said she hoped to be nearer to her children, who are 14 and 16 years old and attend boarding school in the District. She said she spent about a year searching for a business like McReynold’s, which she liked because of its proximity to GW and the White House. She said she visited McReynold’s once last September shortly after students returned to campus from summer break and noticed the “very busy” flow of business and warm customers. Once she and the Kimwons inked the sale — she declined to discuss the terms — she only needed two weeks of transition training due to her prior experience running liquor stores.

In her few weeks of ownership, Chong has already moved the check-out counter to the front of the store to open up the space and reorganized some of the shelving to make it more organized. Chong also tentatively plans to start hosting tastings on Fridays, but said she wants to clear out more room first.

Chong said she wants to keep prices as low as possible, despite inflation out of her control, and only plans to change the store’s inventory to suit the desires of her customers. Under her reign,

the store will also continue to offer a 10 percent discount on beer and wine for GW students, she said.

“People drink when they are happy and people drink when they’re sad,” Chong said. “The economy is good and bad sometimes, but people keep drinking. So I think of it as a business.”

Chong said University students represented the majority of the previous owners’ customers, but that she’s received more customers working at the World Bank as they return to inperson work.

Chong said she is eager to continue the legacy the Kimwons left behind, which has become apparent from the melancholy among the student body over the ownership change.

“I understand how sad you guys are, but everywhere you go, always come and go,” Chong said. “There’s nothing I can do about it. I didn’t ask them to leave. It’s their choice to retire. So for me, it was just a business opportunity so I took it.”

Despite her brief spell running the store so far, she said she has already met one customer who invited the Kimwons to his graduation, and another who met his girlfriend at the store — both of which indicate customers’ and the former owners’ “good relationship.”

“This store is a very memorable place,” Chong said.

With their noisy, guitar-driven sound and impassioned vocal delivery, Dent said Weird Babies draws inspiration from the lauded lineage of D.C. punk bands, like Minor Threat and Fugazi.

“We all like loud and noise, and we don’t like flatly delivered lyrics,” Dent said.

Teaching the future of hip-hop

For Dumisani Ndlovu, an adjunct professor who coaches GW’s

Hip Hop Ensemble, bringing his lifelong hip-hop passion to students was a recent undertaking.

Ndlovu said after being drawn to the authenticity of hip-hop’s subject matter, he began writing rhymes and released his debut album in 1992 with the group Zimbabwe Legit. Since then, Ndlovu has released music under the name Dumi Right and has performed frequently around the D.C. area, including at the Kennedy Center last year and at last summer’s Hip Hop Block Party at the African American History Museum.

Ndlovu said he originally brought his hip-hop expertise to GW as a guest speaker in professor Loren Kajikawa’s Hip Hop History and Culture class, before being enlisted in 2022 to start the GW Hip Hop Ensemble, a group of musical talents from DJs to vocalists who meet each week to craft songs.

From notepad to stage

While some people start bands just to cover other people’s songs, Mark Edberg, a professor of prevention and community health, said he founded his group to make his original music heard.

Edberg said he acts as a songwriter, lead guitarist, vocalist and sometimes tenor saxophonist for modern rock band Black Shag Sherpas. Edberg said they still play some original music he wrote in the 1990s for his now-defunct band The Furies, though he is the only person in Black Shag Sherpas who was a part of the older group.

“There’s just nothing like playing live music,” Edberg said.

trip to Vienna, Virginia, before sunset

This article’s intrepid authors both love the movie “Before Sunrise,” a sanguine if heartfelt romance about a couple who meet on a train to Vienna, Austria, and only share one night together. While we would’ve loved to jet away to Vienna for spring break to explore our favorite spots from the movie together, our minimum-wage internships left us trapped in D.C.

So if we couldn’t take an old-timey train across Europe to Vienna, Austria, we decided to do the next best thing: hop on the Orange Line to Vienna, Virginia.

The Vienna station isn’t marvelous. The final stop on the Orange Line is situated between two mega highways — not exactly what you want to see as a pedestrian. But after a brief flirtation with taking the bus system, we opted to wander into Vienna on foot.

Wanting to emulate the soul-searching of “Before Sunrise,” we decided not to use Google Maps and instead decided to search for the town by walking aimlessly along the main street. We didn’t see a single other pedestrian.

After a while in the outskirts of town, about 45 minutes on foot from the Metro, we began to get the particu-

larly strong hunger you only get after wandering one of the great European cities — er, great D.C. suburbs — for hours on end. To our relief, we saw a man in a red jacket across us at an intersection and decided to cross the street to ask him for directions to the town center.

“No,” he said and promptly crossed the street away from us. With those helpful instructions in mind, we decided to walk in the direction of the town’s water tower, hoping to stumble across civilization in the seemingly sleepy suburb. After another 20 minutes of strolling, we found a Wawa. At long last, the sophisticated culture we sought.

Across from the Wawa was a small plaza called the Village Green, which was full of restaurants, grocery stores and a veterinarian. Not wanting to fall for any of the tourist traps that likely plague Vienna’s many visitors, we decided to ask a vet passing by where to eat. She recommended an Italian deli — but since it was Sunday, we were disappointed to find the delicatessen’s doors locked shut.

Our last remaining hope was a Greek grocery store. Every aisle was brimming with Greek products, from freshly baked pita bread and a variety of baklava including pistachio and walnut flavors. The cashier of the store only spoke Greek, as did many of her other cus-

tomers. A mere block away, we came upon a British pub called Hawk & Griffin. British voices emanated from its oak doors, soccer players (take that Brits) danced across the screen and Union Jacks were strung across the ceiling.

Nearby was the Polka Deli-Polish Market. The interior was small, but the smell of chocolate permeated the store alongside Polish treats like plum cake and cheese pierogies. Still recovering from the pub, we opted for a couple small chocolates filled with cream.

But outside of craving chocolate, what the deli made us realize was the sheer blend of pan-European cultures we’d come across in Vienna — Greek, Polish, British, and that’s not even counting the multitude of closed locales. When we first decided to trek to Vienna, it was solely as a bit: a search for the romance of Europe in a small Virginia town. That seemingly impossible desire turned out to be exactly what we found. Vienna wasn’t just a suburban enclave of Americana, it was also a trove of treats and vernaculars from across the Atlantic.

On the walk back home, the sun ahead of us began to set. Just as we boarded the Metro home, the sky exploded into reds and oranges. Our “Before Sunrise” trip was capped off by a sunset.

CAITLIN KITSON

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

LEXI CRITCHETT | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Mike Nilsson, an adjunct professor of media law, holds his saxophone at a show.

JACKSON LANZER STAFF WRITER

NICK PERKINS CULTURE EDITOR

JACKSON LANZER | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A sign directs travelers to the Vienna Metro station.

Sports

Lacrosse falls to Davidson; winless in A-10

SYD HEISE STAFF WRITER

Women’s lacrosse (3-9, 0-4

A-10) fell 18-9 to Davidson (65, 3-1 A-10) in an Atlantic 10 matchup Sunday.

The loss marks the squad’s third straight since beating Youngstown State on March 13 and St. Joseph’s on Wednesday.

GW currently sits at 3-9 overall and has yet to win an inconference game this season, going 0-4 in A-10 play.

GW dedicated the game to Morgan’s Message, an organization honoring former Duke lacrosse player Morgan Rodgers who died by suicide in 2019. The organization, founded by Rodgers’ family and team, promotes mental health awareness for studentathletes by sharing resources, advocating for struggling athletes and destigmatizing mental illness in collegiate athletics.

Graduate student attacker Desiree Kleberg led the Revs with three goals followed by senior midfielder Phoebe Mullarkey who added two. Solo goals came from sophomore attacker Grace Curry, senior midfielder Bailey Aaron, junior attacker Everly Kessler and graduate student attacker Emma Nowakowski.

GW’s offense found success driving to the net. Nowakowski, a transfer from High Point University, tallied the team’s only assist on the day feeding Curry early in the second quarter. Nowakowski leads GW in goals with 28 on the season.

A team captain and transfer from Quinnipiac University, Kleberg leads GW with 33 points and 12 assists. Kleberg

has scored three hat tricks in her last four appearances and six total this year.

The Wildcats took an early lead, outscoring GW 6-0 in the fi rst quarter, a deficit the Revs failed to climb back from. At the half, the score sat at 10-3 in favor of Davidson. GW recorded six goals to the Wildcats’ eight for the second stanza of the game.

Davidson’s senior attackman Julianne Carey led the Wildcats with six goals and junior midfielder Josie Lambert contributed five goals of her own. Carey became the program’s all-time leading draw taker with 113 draws in 2023 and 250 career draws going into her senior season. She ended last season ranked third in goals, assists and points with 34, 25 and 59, respectively.

The Revs recorded 13 ground balls and nine forced turnovers against Davidson’s 16 and ten, respectively. Junior Mia Caro started in net for

the Revs, saving one shot and allowing nine goals. Freshman goalie Arden Bogle of GW checked in during the second quarter and held a .400 save percentage, denying six shots and allowing nine. GW is tied for last in the conference, taking ninth place over La Salle, who is currently on a five-game losing streak. With the win, Davidson moves to 6-5 on the season and 3-1 in A-10 play, which places them in a tie for third place with St. Bonaventure. Davidson ranked fourth in the A-10 preseason poll while GW was voted sixth. The Wildcats ended their 2023 campaign 12-6 overall, marking their third-straight season with a double-digit victory column. GW fi nished 5-4 in conference play last year and 6-12 overall. The Revs look to break their losing streak next Saturday, March 30, on the road against conference rival George Mason.

Bishop reflects on moments, memories in Buff and Blue

From Page 1

GW’s on-court reliance on Bishop was clear throughout his entire tenure. In his three years as a Colonial and one year as a Revolutionary, Bishop was always in the top three in the A-10 under KenPom’s percentage of possessions used. In the 2022-23 season, Bishop was sixth in Division I in minutes per game, averaging 37.6.

The team’s reliance on Bishop was clear in a game at VCU this January. Tied at 82 with just 10 seconds left, Bishop put the game in his hands. He dribbled up the court and, though guarded tightly, wouldn’t give up the ball. Bishop catapulted up a shot from the edge of the paint, contorting his left arm to get around the defender.

The ball soared into the net with just one second left, putting the Revs up 84-82 to end the game.

“It’ll be different,” Bishop said of finishing his time at GW. “Me not being on campus and living with the guys.”

The adoration between Bishop and teammates is mutual. Guard Brendan Adams, who played his final collegiate season in 2022-23, grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, playing against Bishop in rival teams. At a game this season, a video was played where players were asked who the “dad” of the team was. The player named more than any other? Bishop.

“James Bishop’s probably going to go down in the history books at GW,” redshirt freshman forward Darren Buchanan said in a postgame press conference following the team’s Feb. 27 loss against Massachusetts. “I tell him all the time, we’re playing with a legend. So why not try to send him out the

right way?”

The 2022-23 season, the first under Caputo, was Bishop’s best statistical season. He eclipsed 40 points in two games: a career-high 44 in a November loss against Hofstra and 40 against Loyola Chicago to start conference play. After the season, after flirting with the transfer portal and despite ostensible opportunities to play for a Power 5 program, Bishop chose to return to GW for his fifth year.

“I wouldn’t change the decision to come back for anything,” Bishop said in a postgame interview after the A-10 tourney loss.

In his four years on the team, GW never finished above a .500 record. This year, a 12-game losing streak meant the team ended the season with a 15-17 record, going 4-14 against A-10 opponents.

“Bittersweet” was how Bishop described his final Smith Center game, a win to break the losing streak on the back of 27 points from Bishop. With less than a minute left and the game all but over, Bishop was subbed out one final time. As he exited the game, he embraced freshman guard Trey Autry.

When the clock struck double zeros, he stood frozen on the baseline, watching the crowd celebrate for the first time in weeks — what would be the last time.

That day, Bishop wore an ear-toear smile that lasted from the handshake line, throughout “Hail to the Buff and Blue,” well into autograph signings, and into the locker room postgame.

“I think when you’re playing and you’re in the mix of it, you’re kind of just trying to focus on day by day, just getting better and being the best you can be,” Bishop said. “But now that I’m done, I’m able to kind of look back and be proud of some of the things that I did.”

FILE PHOTO BY LEXI CRITCHETT | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Graduate student attacker Desiree Kleberg squares up defenders during a win against Robert Morris earlier this month.