Vol-120-Iss-23

International graduate student enrollment jumps after pandemic drop

students studying at GW has been “significant,” Bracey said. China has been the top country of origin for international students in the U.S. for more than a decade.

International graduate student enrollment reached a post-pandemic high in 2023, signaling a recovery from the 2020 drop in enrollment.

International graduate student enrollment rose from 875 students in fall 2022 to 1,138 students in fall 2023, a 30.1 percent jump that surpasses pre-pandemic enrollment of 1,029 students in fall 2019. The uptick follows a trend that started in fall 2021 when the international graduate student population increased from 508 to 765, a 50.6 percent increase, which follows a sharp decline in graduate student enrollment in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Provost Chris Bracey said in a March Faculty Senate meeting that the rise in international students can be attributed to officials diversifying the University’s marketing to students outside the United States. The reduction in Chinese

Bracey said the increase at the graduate level is largely due to international enrollment in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, which increased from 586 enrolled international graduate students in 2022 to 726 in 2023.

“It’s important to appreciate that we’ve recovered to near pre-pandemic levels for graduate students, mostly attributable to SEAS, and much of this progress has occurred through diversifying our international student markets and attracting new students from throughout the world,” Bracey said at the meeting. Bracey added that international enrollment from India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan and Nigeria has been increasing. In 2021, officials announced they would develop outreach and recruitment strategies for international students, including the creation of “microtrend committees”

to monitor short-term changes in the potential student market to account for an enrollment drop in international students. Committee members attended virtual college fairs and online forums to better connect with students from across the globe following the pandemic enrollment decline.

Mary Churchill, the director of the higher education program at Boston University, said COVID-19, Brexit and U.S. diplomatic relations are possible reasons for the growth in international graduate student enrollment.

Churchill said China’s zero-COVID policy, which aims to limit the spread of the virus as much as possible and closed China’s borders for three years, which was in place for longer than most other countries, reduced residents’ travel to and from other countries. As a result, international student enrollment from China dropped significantly nationwide and is only recently increasing due to a gradual relaxation of COVID-19 policies within the country.

A target of an alleged smear campaign is suing the University and the director of GW’s Program on Extremism for falsely identifying him as an Islamic extremist in exchange for undisclosed compensation from the United Arab Emirates, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday. In the 67-page lawsuit filed in D.C. District Court, Farid Hafez — an Austrian political scientist and visiting professor of international studies at Williams College — alleged that Lorenzo Vidino, the program’s director, fed false statements to the press that accused him of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the UAE considers a terrorist organization. The lawsuit accused GW of complicity in an alleged UAEled smear campaign overseen by Swiss private intelligence firm Alp Services, letting Vidino use the program as a “platform” for his unlawful work, and accepting undisclosed funding from the UAE.

“On information and belief, the defendants took advantage of plaintiff, Dr. Farid Hafez, by hiding behind the edifice of academic freedom and integrity when in fact

they were engaged in skullduggery for a foreign power,” the lawsuit states.

Hafez is suing Vidino, GW, the program and Alp’s owners and senior employees for at least $10 million in outof-pocket and punitive damages, lost business opportunities and relocation costs. He requested a jury trial for all allegations against Vidino, GW and the program.

Vidino and a University spokesperson did not return a request for comment. Hafez’s defense attorney, David Schwartz, said Vidino, GW and Alp Services conspired to “destroy adversaries” of the UAE, including Hafez, by damaging their reputations. The lawsuit alleges that Hafez was arrested, detained and had his house raided by German, French and Austrian authorities. Schwartz said it was the result of fictional materials like reports, press releases and presentations supplied by Vidino that claimed Hafez was involved in the Brotherhood.

“That’s just plain wrong,” Schwartz said. “It’s actionable, I think we have a very viable case and my client is going to be seeking justice in this case against people that conspired against him, his good reputation, basically placing him as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Peers remember junior, aspiring immigration attorney who died at 20

Senior Charles “Charley” Poor, an international affairs student with a focus in economics, died last month after accidentally drowning while on spring break. He was 20.

Poor was a member of GW Club Boxing with a talent for cooking. His peers and professors remember him as a bright student, loving friend and determined boxer who was never afraid to try new things and lit up any room he walked into.

“He was his authentic self all the time,” senior Nicolas Camargo said. “He wasn’t pretending to be someone else, so to me that indicated not only was he comfortable in his own shoes, but that he felt that he could be himself here and he wasn’t afraid to show that.”

Poor was born April 2, 2003, in San Diego, California, and graduated in 2021 from Moline High School, a public high school in Illinois near the state’s border with Iowa. He was on track to graduate from GW a year early.

Camargo, who is also a Hatchet reporter, said he was one of Poor’s suitemates during the fall semester of his junior year before studying abroad in the spring. He said the first time he met Poor was likely during move-in, and their other interactions usually consisted of watching TV, playing video games and hanging out with any friends that Poor brought to their room.

“He was a good roommate,” Camargo said. “He would always cook food for us. He’s the type of guy

who even after a sh*tty day, he’d always be in a good mood and he’d lift your spirits. You could have the worst day at your classes or at your internship and he’d be there.”

Camargo said Poor would always make additional servings of food for guests after cooking for his girlfriend, Mikaela Jackson. He said he was surprised the first time Poor made one of his signature feasts when the pair first started living together.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is really generous,’” Camar- go said. “It’s one of those small memories. It’s stuck with me.”

Camargo said Poor made delicious fried chicken and cooked other items like rice, beans, desserts and other dishes “more diverse” than what he or his roommates could.

“Cooking was definitely — I don’t know if you call it passion or like a hobby of his — but he had a gift for it,” Camargo said.

Camargo said Poor would stay up late playing his favorite video games, “Call of Duty: Black Ops” and “Grand Theft Auto V,” along with their other

roommates last year. Camargo said a week before spring break, he played video games with Poor’s current roommates while he was gone and reminisced on the times last year when they and their other roommates would be sitting on the couch doing the same thing.

“That’s what my thoughts turned to when I heard the news,” Camargo said.

Camargo said Poor had a “go-getting, try it out” attitude and would always give new experiences his best shot.

“There were more than a few times when I was making my bland cornflakes and whatever, and I saw that he was frying something bizarre with egg and I gave him a look,” Camargo said. “He was adventurous in that sense.”

Camargo said he and Poor took U.S.-China Relations with Bob Sutter, a professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs, in fall 2022. He added that Poor was “sharp” and knew the course material well.

Antonella Galindo Merlo, a junior majoring in international affairs and an aspiring immigration attorney, died last month in a car accident while studying abroad in Melbourne, Australia. She was 20.

Galindo was a member of Sigma Kappa sorority, pre-law fraternity Phi Alpha Delta and GW FUEGO, a Latin dance team, and interned for multiple foreign affairs organizations while studying at GW. Her friends and professors remember her as a positive and caring person and a hardworking student with a bright future as an immigration attorney.

“She loved music, she loved dancing and she just really loved being alive,” junior Maria Teresa Furtado said. “Everything that she did was so magical. She always looked at the positive side of things and being around her was so energizing. It was impossible to be unhappy around her.”

Furtado was roommates with Galindo during her first, second and third years at GW. She said Galindo was born in the District but moved to Ecuador when she was two months old, where she lived until she was 10 and her family moved to Virginia for her father’s job.

Furtado said Galindo took a gap year after high school where she spent a lot of time being alone and taking hikes with her dog, which sparked her interest in spirituality and Buddhism. It was one of the most fundamental years of her life in developing herself as a person, Furtado said.

“She’s also super spiritual and just has the best

energy and vibes and she believed a lot in the oneness that we have with the universe and reincarnation and the cycles of life,” Furtado said. “She taught me a lot about the ego and being a good listener.” She said she and Galindo often talked about the future, like how Galindo was going to be the “cool, single, fun aunt” to Furtado’s future kids because she didn’t want to have children of her own. Furtado said Galindo made her a book of letters from people she knew, printed and cut out pictures of her family and friends and wrote Furtado a seven-page letter for her 20th birthday last semester.

“In the letter, she talks about how she is so proud of me and how much she loves our friendship and how she can’t wait to keep doing life with me and, obviously, her life was cut short but being her friend was probably the best thing I have ever been and will be,” Furtado said.

Senior Teja Christopher said she would regularly have movie nights with Galindo and Furtado in their room in West Hall, talking for hours about life and their future goals.

Galindo was passionate about the intersection between international law and global issues like conservation of the environment, immigration and human rights and was working toward becoming a lawyer, according to her LinkedIn. She concentrated her international affairs studies on security policy and minored in psychological and brain sciences while interning for the Embassy of Ecuador, the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.

“She was someone who she always had the right thing to say, and it really didn’t matter the amount of time that we would go without seeing one another,” Christopher said. “I always knew that I could rely on her a lot because she was just such a positive person.”

Christopher said Galindo gave her life-changing advice last June when they were sitting on the couch in Sigma Kappa’s townhouse, or the “SKouse,” after someone had made a negative comment about Christopher.

PHOTO ESSAY

Biological sciences student names

ancient amphibian species after Kermit the Frog

In 1984, researchers in Texas found the skull of an ancient amphibian species, but the specimen remained unstudied for decades as it sat in Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History storage. Four decades later, a GW doctoral student determined the skull belonged to an undiscovered species and gave it a familiar name: Kermitops gratus.

The 270 million-yearold skull — a new genus of amphibian, a broader classification category that includes related species — earned its name for its resemblance to the beloved Muppet Kermit the Frog. Cal So, the study’s lead author and a GW doctoral student, said the skull’s features set it apart from other ancient amphibian ancestors, which led researchers to determine it belongs to a new genus and expanded experts’ knowledge of the ways that modern amphibians like frogs and salamanders could have evolved.

“This bone kind of shakes up our understanding of the evolution of modern amphibians,” So said.

So, a biological sciences student, said the skull has several characteristics that have not been seen in amphibamiformes, a group of ancient animals with bone structures similar to modern amphibians. He said the most notable new characteristic of the bone is the ridge on the back of its skull.

So said Kermitops’ skull has a complex, roof structure, unlike modern amphibians with a smaller, more scaffolding-like enclosure around their brains. He said the skull’s complex structure was a surprise because existing evolutionary models pro-

jected the skull to be far simpler since the models only used data from previously known genera.

“What we essentially find is that in this group, where we expect to find things to be simplified, we see that there is actually more complexity,” So said. “It literally is more complex because Kermitops has more bones in its skull than the rest of its group.”

Determining a new species in paleontology is a challenge since researchers cannot study live specimens and rarely have complete skeletons, meaning experts often have to use subtle differences in bone structure to discern differences between species.

So said the researchers decided to name the genus “Kermitops” because its wide eyes resemble Kermit the Frog. He said the group also hopes the name will pique people’s interest in amphibian paleontology.

“The reason we named it after Kermit the Frog was because we kind of thought it did look like Kermit the Frog, especially if you’d look at some of the images that we featured in

our article,” So said. “But we also wanted to draw attention to the ways that scientists can be observing and interpreting things in natural history and science in a similar way as artists.”

So said more work needs to be done to find and analyze more specimens in this genus to create a more precise evolutionary model.

“That’s part of my expectation,” So said.

“If not somebody else, you know, disproving me, I’ll probably go on to disprove myself as I identify, try and dig up more information about and discover more about amphibian evolution.”

Experts in paleontology said the study has added valuable data to the field for determining the evolution of modernday amphibians. Jason Anderson, a professor of biology and veterinary anatomy at the University of Calgary, said the study reshaped evolutionary tree models by showing that amphibamiformes were more diverse than researchers previously thought, which helps researchers understand the origins of presentday amphibians.

“We have the new anatomy of Kermitops, and we have the new tree that their analysis entails,” Anderson said. “So it now has a new cluster of organisms that lead towards, say, the origin of modern amphibians, if that’s what it is that you’re interested in.” Ben Kligman, a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, said that compared to other amphibamiformes, the Kermitops’ lengthened snout and shortened rear skull bones make it different enough from its closest relatives to consider it a new species and genus.

“There’s a whole bunch of different details of its anatomy that are unique and definitely warrant naming it as a new genus and species,” Kligman said.

Kligman said the study showed that researchers can find meaningful data from fossils that have already been collected and are in storage. He said the discovery is promising since researchers can use specimens currently in storage to make new advancements like this.

Biden-Harris campaign official discusses youth engagement

EMMA KHODAVERDIAN REPORTER

The national youth engagement director for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign discussed youth engagement in elections and political campaigns at the Elliott School of International Affairs on Thursday.

Eve Levenson — the head of the Students for Biden initiative, who graduated from GW with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 2022 and a master’s in public administration in 2023 — said the campaign is working to mobilize young voters ahead of this year’s elections. Levenson’s keynote was part of the Blue Wave Forum, a networking event hosted by the GW College Democrats to connect students with professionals in the political space.

Levenson said she began her work in politics in high school interning with Jewish World Watch, a nonprofit dedicated to helping survivors of genocide and mass atrocities, which taught her about how lobbying organizations operate. She said did not realize the power of young people to create political change until she successfully lobbied Representative Ted Lieu (CA36) for legislation to address mass atrocities.

“The impact that we can have is really significant. It also showed me that value of like intergenerational work,” Levenson said. After the Parkland school shooting in 2018, Levenson joined the gun violence prevention organization, March For Our Lives, and rose up the ranks to be its policy and government affairs manager. She said the Parkland shooting illustrated both the tragedy of gun violence and the positive response from elected officials to youth orga-

nizing to prevent future shootings.

“We saw people respond to young people speaking out and really like listening to them and giving them that platform,” Levenson said. Levenson said she continued gun violence prevention advocacy once she began studying at GW in 2018 and training members to lobby elected officials and connect them with political campaigns for the March For Our Lives chapters in the Mid-Atlantic region. She said she took her fall 2020 semester off during the COVID-19 pandemic to devote her time to working on political campaigns, which prepared her to work for the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign. “A lot of my work has really focused on how we build coalitions and partnerships within the youth space and really like bridging some of those gaps and that is a lot of what I think led me to my current job,” Levenson said.

She said the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign is working to create more opportunities for youth to continue to get involved in the campaign, including contacting voters.

Levenson said in an interview with NPR earlier this month that the Students for Biden initiative is creating volunteer chapters in high schools and colleges across the United States to engage in “relational organizing,” as well as informing young voters about the strides made by the Biden-Harris administration.

She said she makes sure the campaign is doing intentional voter outreach to young people — who hold immense power in this upcoming presidential election — with campaign materials and messaging.

“This is obviously an extremely important election, we also know that young people are going to be very decisive this election,” Levenson said.

AUGUST FRIEBOLIN REPORTER

DANIEL HEUER | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Doctoral student Calvin So sits surrounded by fossils in Bell Hall.

RACHEL KURLANDSKY | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Biden-Harris 2024 Youth Director Eve Levenson speaks at the GW Democrats event.

SARAH HOCHSTEIN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

SARAH HOCHSTEIN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

SARAH HOCHSTEIN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

SARAH HOCHSTEIN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

SARAH HOCHSTEIN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

SARAH HOCHSTEIN | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Century-old student-run magazine ‘The Ghost’ resurrected for class project

Students resurrected a centuryold, controversial satire magazine in an online edition that features relatable GW student moments, book reviews and original cartoons.

During its original stint as an independent student-run publication in the 1920s, The Ghost was popular with student audiences but met with hostility from University officials and the D.C. community for pushing the boundaries of female expression of their sexuality in the 1920s. Sophomores Caroline Moore and Cathy Pickett, the co-editors in chief of the magazine, said they decided to revive a digital, biweekly version of the magazine to spotlight GW history through excerpts from the original publication while serving as a modern-day humor platform with relatable “only at GW” jokes.

The pair published the magazine’s first edition Sunday.

“We just want to show exactly what the students are going through, and we just want people to read this and be like, ‘Oh my gosh, yeah, that’s so me,’” Pickett said.

Moore and Pickett said they first learned about The Ghost in GW, Slavery and Race, a class that looks through University archives to analyze the controversial history of the University like the original Ghost, a magazine that featured racist cartoons and jokes. When brainstorming for the class’ final public engagement project, Moore and Pickett said they initially joked about reviving The Ghost but eventually settled on it as a serious idea. They plan to continue publishing their version of the magazine beyond the end of their course.

Pickett said she admires the original Ghost because she thought

it portrayed a more “authentic” student life experience, unlike other GW-sponsored mediums like the GW Cherry Tree yearbook. Pickett said their version of the magazine will serve as a platform for students to joke about relatable student experiences, like how long it takes to pay with GWorld at CVS, while also including some analysis of the instances of racism and sexism in the original editions.

“We want them to not only have a little laugh, we also want them to learn about the past and really think critically about the fact that GW does have a history,” Moore said.

Moore, who is also a writer for The Hatchet, said The Ghost will feature an “Overheard at GW section” to report funny conversations from other students and a quote of the week that includes excerpts from the original publication. Pickett said their first edition featured a book review of “I Didn’t Know I Needed This” — a woman’s coming-of-age story in modern date life — and a mock letter from University President Ellen Granberg about students posting photos with the cherry blossoms.

“This is an important moment for us to come together as a GW community, and I encourage you to show your support for each other by continuing to comment on people’s posts,” the letter said.

Pickett said the edition featured cartoons from the original publication from one of their favorite student cartoonists, Winifred DeVoe, who was a student at GW in the 1920s. Pickett said the cartoon depicts a female student choosing between fraternity brothers she wanted to go on a date with for the evening.

“That’s just kind of Winifred DeVoe’s way of saying that women should be able to date as many or as

few people as they’d like,” Pickett said. The Ghost originally released its first issue in 1921 but was taken over by the University in 1928 for pushing the boundaries of women’s sexual expression in the 1920s. Former University President Howard Hodgkins and former Director of Student Activities Bryan Morse pulled the publication’s holiday issue in December 1921 hours after it had been released over concerns that the cover art, which depicted a flapper wearing a short skirt and bra, was “extreme.”

“In some ways, it’s a really good thing they did get shut down even though I think they got shut down for the wrong reasons,” Pickett said. “I’m quite certain they weren’t shut down for the racist content. It was more women being too controversial.”

House bill shows federal interest in campus speech: experts

IANNE SALVOSA

A prestigious academic organization that GW is a member of criticized a partisan bill introduced in a House committee last month that calls on universities to disclose free speech policies and student organization funding. Free speech experts said the bill is unlikely to pass but signals a concerning government interest in controlling expression on college campuses.

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce approved the Respecting the First Amendment on Campus Act (24-14), which requests universities to adopt the Chicago free speech principles, a free speech code originating from the University of Chicago, and disclose their speech policies and student organization funding. The Association of American Universities, an organization of research universities that GW gained membership to last year, released a statement stating their opposition to the bill because of its potential to restrict free speech if passed and lack of input from higher education leaders.

University President Ellen Granberg said at a Faculty Senate meeting in November that GW uses the University of Chicago’s free speech principles.

Reps. Brandon Williams (R-NY) and Virginia Foxx (R-NC) introduced the legislation, alongside eight Republican co-sponsors, last

month as one of three bills aimed at amending the Higher Education Act of 1965, which provided more federal financial assistance and resources for universities. Williams and Foxx said in a release that the bill would prevent universities from promoting “illiberalism” and hold higher education leaders accountable to their speech policies.

The bill is largely targeted at public schools that receive federal funds, but private schools like GW would also have to divulge their free speech policies. If schools do not disclose their policies, they could have their federal aid rescinded under threat of revoking federal financial aid. The bill also would require schools to allow single-sex student organizations.

“The state of postsecondary education is in complete disarray,” the two lawmakers said in the release. “We’ve seen countless examples of institutions leveraging taxpayers’ dollars to fan the flames of illiberalism, intolerance, and radical ideology amongst students and faculty.”

Campus-wide concerns about free speech have been prevalent at GW since the outbreak of the war in Gaza. Officials suspended Students for Justice in Palestine in November after four of its members projected anti-Israel and antiGW messages on Gelman Library due to their violation of Gelman use policies and noncompliance policies. Faculty senators also passed a resolution last month urging administra-

tors to involve GW community members in creating academic freedom policies.

Officials declined to comment on their thoughts on the bill. Granberg and Provost Chris Bracey said in January that they are reviewing the speech provisions of the Code of Student Conduct to ensure harmony with other University regulations.

Free speech experts said the potential passage of the bill is not of concern to higher education leaders but shows a growing lack of trust between the government and higher education.

Geoffrey Stone, the chair of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at the University of Chicago and a professor of law, said a federal attempt to request all colleges to adopt the Chicago principles would violate their right to academic freedom.

“As much as I believe that The Chicago Principles reflect a fundamentally important policy for universities, I do not for a moment think it appropriate for the federal government to compel universities to adopt the policy,” Stone said in an email.

He said in November that the Chicago principles clarify that universities should allow community members to express themselves, even if their ideas are offensive. He said the mission of higher education is to explore different ideas, which has allowed formerly controversial subjects, like same-sex marriage and women in the law profession, to become more acceptable nationally.

Pickett and Moore said they were drawn to The Ghost because of its “cutting-edge” approach to topics like women’s sexuality, which they plan to continue with cartoons from past editions and contemporary student contributions. Pickett said The Ghost empowered female students to talk about experiences that were “taboo” in the 1920s, like dating and bodily autonomy. “We really want to convey, especially through some of the content from the original Ghost, that

women specifically shouldn’t feel ashamed about, whether, it’s their love lives or what they wear or really anything because I feel like men have been unapologetically being themselves for generations,” Pickett said.

Moore said in their effort to refresh The Ghost, they looked at current humor magazines, including the University of Virginia’s The Yellow Journal and Harvard University’s National Lampoon to inspire their formatting and design.

Moore said any student can contribute content through a form on The Ghost’s Instagram account, which garnered three submissions for the first edition.

Professors, friends remember Poor as determined, intelligent friend

From Page 1

“He doesn’t consider himself a genius, but like he is,” Camargo said. “It wasn’t as much the kind of taught genius, he’s just kind of ingrained. Since he wouldn’t get stressed about things, he would be able to calmly present something or read something and he wouldn’t get bogged down in the stress of it.”

Camargo said he hopes the vigil at the tempietto in Kogan Plaza, which the GW Club Boxing team held for Poor last month, becomes an annual occasion.

“Sometimes, when we are at GW, we are wound up so tight,” Camargo said. “We’re going so fast. We’re doing a million different things at any given time. We forget that at the end of the day none of this matters if you hate yourself while you’re doing it, and you’re so exhausted to enjoy it, and I feel like Charley was someone who enjoyed life. He enjoyed the little things.”

Camargo said he and

others who were close with Poor have been “frank and open” about their memories with him as a way to care for each other while grieving his loss. He added that he attended Poor’s vigil with one of their mutual friends, where they both signed a project board for Poor with the center portion full of pictures of him and his loved ones, as well as messages from community members on the folds.

“We just reminisced about the good memories we had, the good times,” Camargo said. Elizabeth Chacko, a professor of geography and international affairs, said she had Poor in her Population Geography class this semester and was “shocked” when she read the news of his death. She said she enjoyed having him in her class.

“He was intellectually curious, asked great questions, was not afraid to voice his thoughts and views on the course materials and was seemingly always in a cheerful mood,” Chacko said in an email. “I am sad that the life of a bright

young man with a promising future was cut short in such a cruel twist of fate.”

Junior Ian McHugh, an economics student and one of the co-captains of GW Club Boxing, said he met Poor last year when he joined the group and watched him grow his fundamental boxing skills, like his footwork and form when throwing punches. He said Poor was dedicated to the sport and always eager to gain more experience.

“He fought in an event we participated in last spring at our boxing gym, and as someone who has stepped in the ring competitively before, I can tell you that it takes a lot of courage and willpower to do that sort of thing,” McHugh said in a message.

Poor is survived by his parents, Robert and Santina Poor; his brothers, Lewis Poor and their wife, Julian Oxford-Lannholm, and Martin “MJ” Poor; his grandmothers, Wanda Poor and Joan Stava; his girlfriend, Mikaela Jackson; and aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.

Peers honor Galindo as passionate student, lover of nature

From Page 1

“She literally said to me, ‘You have the power to control how you view a situation, so you should not ever doubt yourself and the person that you are simply because of the opinion of somebody else,’” Christopher said. “That is something that has stuck with me so much.”

Christopher said she and Galindo, who loved the outdoors, often went on walks together. She recalled seeing many pictures on Galindo’s Snapchat story of what she believed to be nature surrounding Galindo’s home in Ecuador.

“They have a beautiful balcony and it was overlooking a bunch of trees and you could see mountains in the distance and stuff,” Christopher said. “She would spend a lot of time sitting on that balcony. There was a hammock up there, if I remember correctly. She would just sit there and just really be one with nature.”

Galindo’s family started

a GoFundMe in her memory to raise money for the Ecuador Manta Rays Project, which supports giant manta rays in the country threatened by fishing and hunting. The caption states that Galindo loved the sea, finding her love for manta rays after learning to scuba dive, and she had a tattoo of one on her side.

The GoFundMe has raised more than $12,500 of its $10,000 goal as of Sunday.

Junior Zoë Feigel said she met Galindo through Sigma Kappa and quickly grew close to her because they were neighbors in West Hall during their first year at GW. She said Galindo invited her to a sleepover in their first month as friends.

“She really made me feel like there are people out there that are supportive and caring and this was the right choice for a college,” Feigel said. “She really helped me find a community.” She said Galindo cherished spending time at her grandparents’ house on the coast of Ecuador or “anywhere there was a dog.” She

said Galindo was also a fan of Latin music and dance and was a hardworking student with a passion for Latin immigration law. “She touched a lot of lives of many people, and this loss is so devastating to our entire community,” Feigel said. “She’s such a radiant person that going back to campus, it’s going to be very difficult.”

Tom Guglielmo, the department chair and an associate professor of American studies, said Galindo sat in the front row of his 100- to 120-person lecture, Modern U.S. Immigration, in fall 2023 and was always raising her hand with a smart and thoughtful comment on the readings or lecture material.

He said Galindo wrote a paper analyzing Oscar Martinez’s “The Beast” — a report on the experiences of Central American migrants — that he described as one of the greatest undergraduate papers he had ever read. Galindo is survived by her father Alvaro Galindo, her mother Ana Maria Merlo and her older brother Alvaro Jose Galindo.

RAPHAEL KELLNER | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Co-Editors-in-Chief Cathy Pickett, left, and Caroline Moore, right, of The Ghost.

JERRY LAI | PHOTOGRAPHER

Officials distribute Census surveys to residence halls

ELLA

The U.S. Census Bureau is distributing surveys to University residence halls to prepare for the 2025 American Community Survey.

Community coordinators distributed copies of the mandatory American Community Survey Group Quarters survey to randomly selected residents in Fulbright Hall and The Dakota in February and in 1959 E Street last month. The survey asks residents about their ethnic background, education, disability status, work and income to gather data for the upcoming 2025 American Community Survey.

Community coordinators in Fulbright Hall and 1959 E Street sent emails to select residents Feb. 15 and March 21, respectively, stating students had to deliver the surveys to the Campus Living & Residential Education office in Amsterdam Hall by Feb. 28 and March 31, respectively. A community coordinator in The Dakota distributed copies of the survey to randomly selected residents in the lobby of the building in February.

The American Community Survey Group Quarters collects data from group housing facilities like residence halls, nursing facilities and military bases to ensure communities receive a “fair share” of federal funds, according to the Census Bureau website.

Tom Edwards, the Census Bureau’s respondent advocate for household surveys, said the survey is sent to a “small percentage” of the national population every year. He said collecting data every year allows officials to see how demographics are changing annually.

“When used in conjunction with the most recently available decennial Census counts, information from the ACS documents how we live as a na-

tion, including our education, housing, jobs, and many other issues,” Edwards said in an email.

The University sent mandatory surveys to all residence halls in April 2010. Then-GW Director of Government Relations Kent Springfield said at the time that Census Bureau employees would contact students who didn’t complete the survey. Edwards declined to comment on which residence halls received surveys and how many surveys were collected for reasons of confidentiality. He said Census Bureau officials randomly select a sample of group quarters facilities every month and select a random sample of residents from those facilities to complete the survey.

“Each resident that may have been selected in a particular residence hall on campus was chosen at random as part of a randomly selected sample,” Edwards said.

Edwards said the data the surveys collect from the University and group quarters facilities across the United States will be a part of data tabulations

that the Census Bureau will release in 2025.

“Your response represents people who live in facilities like yours,” Director of the Census Bureau Robert Santos said in a letter attached to the survey.

Brenden Goldman, a sophomore who lives in The Dakota, said his community coordinator handed him the survey in the Dakota lobby last month. He said his community coordinator told him that 10 residents are randomly selected every month to complete the survey.

“I know that 10 people in my building received it at the same time I did,” Goldman said in a text message.

Declan McGrath, a junior majoring in public health living in 1959 E Street, said officials dropped off a packet including two mandatory surveys for him and one of his three roommates at his room door.

McGrath said the form, which was due Sunday, took him at most 15 minutes to complete. “It wasn’t that complicated,” McGrath said.

Milken receives $5 million grant to bolster routine immunization in countries facing conflict

KAMALI JOSEPH REPORTER

Milken Institute School of Public Health officials announced a partnership with global health organization PATH last month to enhance immunization in countries with conflict that decreases their population’s access to routine vaccinations.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded Milken and PATH $5 million to establish learning consortiums with universities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Pakistan and Somalia to collect data on the effectiveness of the countries’ immunization programs. Wolfgang Munar, the program’s coprincipal investigator, said researchers will share their

findings with government officials and organizations that provide vaccines to improve local immunization programs and increase vaccination rates in the countries.

“There is a lot that needs to be learned about how to manage immunization policies and programs in any country where conflict happens,” Munar said in an email.

About 2 billion people globally have never received a vaccine. Individuals are often unable to access necessary immunizations in areas with war because health services may be dangerous to travel to or are destroyed in the conflicts.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing a humanitarian crisis due to decades of civil unrest and

an unstable government and a military coup took over Niger’s government last year. Pakistan faces tensions near its border with Taliban-ran Afghanistan, while Somalia has experienced decades of civil war.

Munar, an associate professor of global health, said conflict can prevent local officials from distributing and delivering life-saving vaccines in the program’s focus countries. He said program researchers are collecting evidence on what allows safe distribution of vaccines and to understand why certain immunization programs are more effective than others.

He said immunization efficacy research intends to show local officials and organizations how to enact vaccine policies to lower

the rate of disease-related deaths.

“These are the main areas of the world where vaccine-preventable deaths remain the highest,” Munar said.

Munar said researchers established the learning consortiums in September and have begun collecting evidence on the functionality of immunization programs’ methods to deliver vaccinations and breaking down data from immunization programs like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance to identify vaccine distribution problems.

“To accomplish this, we are working together with global actors that have the necessary reach to decisionmakers in those countries,” Munar said.

SEXUAL ASSAULT

Off Campus

3/21/2024 – 11:11 p.m.

Closed Case

A female student reported being sexually assaulted by a former male student. Referred to the Metropolitan Police Department.

THEFT II/FROM BUILDING

Thurston Hall

3/25/2024 – 7:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

Closed Case

A female contractor reported money stolen from her purse located in an unsecured locker.

No suspects or witnesses.

THEFT II/FROM BUILDING

Lerner Health and Wellness Center

3/25/2024 – 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Closed Case

A male student reported his wallet stolen after leaving it in an unattended satchel. No suspects or witnesses.

THEFT II/FROM BUILDING

Mitchell Hall (7-Eleven Store)

3/25/2024 – 11:42 p.m.

Closed Case

GW Police Department officers responded to a report that two male subjects stole consumable goods. No identifiable subjects.

THEFT I/FROM BUILDING

District House

3/26/2024 – 1:56 p.m.

Open Case A female student reported her tote bag stolen after leaving it unattended. Case open.

THEFT II/FROM BUILDING

Private Property within Campus Bounds

3/27/2024 – 6:30 p.m.

Closed Case

GWPD officers responded to a report of theft at the GW Campus Store. Upon arrival, officers made contact with the female complainant who said that a male subject had stolen several items. The subject was arrested, issued a bar notice and transported to Second District for processing. Subject arrested.

—Compiled by Max Porter

Biden-Harris campaign manager talks career, Latino voters

LAUREN SIMON REPORTER

President Joe Biden’s campaign manager discussed her career and the growing Latino influence on politics at the School of Media & Public Affairs on Wednesday.

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the first Latina to manage a president’s reelection bid and a former senior advisor to Biden, said political campaign officials must recognize that Latinos are not a “monolith” but encompass a diverse set of experiences, viewpoints and needs. The Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute hosted the conversation with CBS News Political Correspondent Ed O’Keefe. Chavez Rodriguez said campaign officials have done a better job since she first started working in politics by creating targeted messages for specific Latino communities across the country, even incorporating “Spanglish” into campaign messaging.

“We’re more intentional about the communities that we’re reaching out to, how we’re choosing to show up in communities and connect with communities,” Chavez Rodriguez said.

Chavez Rodriguez said the Democratic Party shouldn’t discount Latino voters in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin because their votes could impact narrow elections. She noted that the 2020 presidential election was won by 45,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin.

“These are communities throughout our country that have significant populations, and we as the Democratic Party need to

understand that and to make sure that we’re factoring all of that into the work,” Chavez Rodriguez said. Chavez Rodriguez said, as the U.S. Latino population continues to grow, the population has not “fully” stepped into the political power they have. “I agree that demographics are not destiny,” Chavez Rodriguez said. “But I think there are more important ways that we can continue to understand the demo-

graphic shift, and what that means for our ability to build power in different sectors and then new ways within the country.”

Chavez Rodriguez, the granddaughter of labor activist Cesar Chavez, said her experiences handing out leaflets and picketing for better working conditions for farm workers with her family in California during the 1980s taught her how to organize communities to initiate change. At nine years old, Chavez Rodrguez was arrest-

ed for handing out leaflets in front of a grocery store with her family. “It was civil disobedience, and that was like a badge of honor,” she said. “Some kids have Girl Scouts, and they get badges for different things; this was my badge. Some families went on family picnics, we went on family pickets.”

Chavez Rodriguez said her grandfather’s activism for farm workers serves as inspiration for what she hopes to accomplish with her career.

“My grandfather always demonstrated what was possible,” Chavez Rodriguez said. “He was a small brown man and a farm worker who didn’t come from a lot but was able to, through his own action, show others what they were capable of and what was possible in their own lives.”

Chavez Rodriguez said she was honored that President Biden chose to keep a bust of her grandfather in the Oval Office.

“It was seeing the ultimate respect paid to farmworkers by being able to see my grandfather’s bust in the Oval Office,” said Chavez Rodriguez. “One of what some would consider the most powerful places in the world, and to see homage paid to the people who put food on our table every day. It was overwhelming.”

Chavez Rodriguez said she first got involved in politics during Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign while organizing with the United Farm Workers union. She worked in the White House Office of Public Engagement under the Obama administration from 201117 and later served as chief of staff for Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign until 2019. She was director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs from 2021 until her promotion to senior advisor in 2022.

“My grandfather had this saying that there’s no substitute for hard work,” Chavez Rodriguez said. “There’s no quick way for him, there wasn’t a quick way to try to get farmworkers to believe that they could change their own conditions that it took, literally going door to door and house to house and worker to worker.”

LEXI CRITCHETT | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

LEXI CRITCHETT | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Julie Chavez Rodriguez responds to a question from CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Ed O’Keefe during the discussion

in the Jack Morton Auditorium.

It’s a mad dash for the library meeting rooms. Members of the Foggy Bottom Advisory Neighborhood Commission have struggled to offer both in-person and virtual options at its West End Library meetings. ANC Chair Jim Malec, who is now tasked with running the meetings, said he has struggled with technological difficulties like setting up microphones as well as wrapping up the meeting by the library’s agreed-upon 10:30 p.m. meeting cutoff time.

Commissioners will host an exclusively online meeting in April for the first time since July 2022, when it was online for the pandemic. While the commission will likely return to its home in the West End Library in May, some commissioners are considering alternative meeting locations.

“I really just fundamentally believe in the value of in-person meetings,” Malec said. “I think that the public has a right to come meet their representatives face-to-face.”

The ANC has hosted meetings at the West End Neighborhood Library since the building’s redevelopment in 2017 after previously meeting in GW classrooms. The ANC has a small storage room in the library for their audiovisual equipment, which was agreed upon during redevelopment. ANC regularly hosts its meetings in a back room of the library where commissioners sit at a panel of

desks that face about two dozen chairs for attendees.

The ANC usually begins its monthly meetings at 7 p.m., one hour before the West End Library’s 8 p.m. closing time. But balancing the library’s 10:30 p.m. meeting cutoff and the legislative items on agendas has proved challenging for the body. The ANC adjourned its January meeting at 10:37 p.m., and in November, they ended at 10:42 p.m.

Commissioners said public comment periods and lengthy agendas often push meetings past the three-and-a-half-hour mark.

Malec said he has had informal conversations with library staff since the fall, agreeing to end ANC meetings at an earlier time to accommodate library police’s schedules, but he has not received a formal request from the library about the meeting cutoff times. He said consistently using the library space as the ANC’s meeting location makes it easier for members of the public to attend because community attendees will not need to search through public notices to find different meeting locations.

Malec said he “wouldn’t necessarily be opposed” to hosting special and informal meetings in other spaces without the cutoff time and with a smoother technology setup. The ANC held an informal goal-setting meeting at GW’s School of Media & Public Affairs building in January.

“We have a good relationship with the library,” Malec

CROSSWORD

By Auden Yurman and Isabella MacKinnon

said. “We’re very thankful of their flexibility.” The Foggy Bottom Association, a local community organization, switched from fully virtual to hybrid meetings in various neighborhood locations, including the library, in February. FBA President John George said the group now starts its meetings an hour earlier, from 7 to 6 p.m., to ensure meetings are over by the library’s required time, but he has not noticed a dip in meeting

1.

8.

10.

14.

DOWN

1.

2.

3. DCA

4.

5.

7.

12.

13.

attendance, which has stayed at about 30 to 40 total attendees across in-person and virtual platforms.

“We knew that the library had capacity to do it,” George said.

George said before the pandemic, the group held its meetings fully in person at various locations, including GW, the library and School Without Walls. He said at the February meeting, a presenter from the new AKA Hotel expressed interest in meeting people faceto-face during in-person meetings, which the group had been considering prior.

George said the group may change its meeting locations and will hold its April meeting at the Elliott School of International Affairs to accommodate University President Ellen Granberg’s schedule so she can attend. He said at a prior meeting, library staff assisted him in setting up the technology for their hybrid meeting.

In 2019, 1,441 graduate students from China enrolled at GW. Chinese graduate student enrollment had a postpandemic peak at 690 students in 2022 and then dropped again to 631 students in 2023, according to the University’s enrollment dashboard.

Churchill said Brexit, or the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, made it more difficult for international students to enter the U.K. and halted the funding of students moving to the U.K. Churchill said the lack of EU funds caused the living expenses for international students in the U.K. to rise, leading to the students viewing the U.S. as a cheaper option.

Brexit forced the U.K. to back out of the EU’s Erasmus+ exchange program, cutting funding for students moving to the U.K. for school. The U.K. government implemented a new program, the Turing Scheme, in place of the Erasmus+ exchange program, but it does not grant international prospective graduate students funds to study in the U.K.

“With Brexit, it made it in some ways, much more difficult to go to the U.K. because it’s not an EU country anymore,” Churchill said.

Churchill said the Trump administration’s approach to international relations led to a “chill” in the relationship between the U.S. and other countries. The Biden administration has been diplomatically engaged with other countries, which has created a more welcoming environment

within the U.S., Churchill said. The Biden administration has made efforts to enable more international students to live in the country by expediting the process of getting a visa. “It really creates in the classroom just a phenomenal environment where you just bring all these different countries and different people from all over the world into a single classroom of like 20 to 30 students,” Churchill said.

Teboho Moja, a professor of higher education at New York University, said international students are drawn to the U.S. because of the anticipated return on investment from earning a degree and the heightened prestige associated with American universities.

“U.S. institutions are much, much better than most institutions around the world, generally,” Moja said. “So high standards are presented about universities in the U.S., even though it’s not every university that meets that standard.”

Moja added that most countries have a greater demand for higher education than resources to accommodate their population. Moja said a higher demand for STEM-based programs in India has drawn many students to the U.S. in particular.

“I’ve been to India several times and talking to the undergrads the students always talk about how they’re studying engineering because the parents insist that they do engineering,” Moja said. “There’s that perception that there’s security in doing an engineering degree and you are sure to be set for life if you’ve got that.”

As the saying goes, “No news is good news.” And in a reprieve from the turbulence of past years, this year’s Student Government Association has felt awfully silent.

From “open forums” to “open doors,” this year’s SGA candidates seem to recognize the student government’s lack of effective communication — or its inability to make most students care about what it does. There’s no shortage of noise, yet students are tuning out: We doubt most students read to the end of the SGA’s weekly newsletter, for instance.

And yet, SGA President Arielle Geismar, Vice President Demetrius Apostolis and senators can claim several accomplishments from the past year. They changed the name of the governing body, worked with officials to add LGBTQ+-inclusive housing and expanded contraceptive access on campus, to name a few examples.

The SGA is neither all-powerful nor powerless. It can only ask, not force, officials to implement the resolutions its members pass. But when officials, student organizations and the SGA work together, they can change the University for the better. Officials, members of GW Reproductive Autonomy and Gender Equity and Geismar collaborated

ACan next week’s elections fix the SGA?

to reduce the cost of on-campus contraceptive pills, for instance. But, you don’t have to be an expert to know this cooperation happens less frequently than it should — the SGA is better known for causing drama than marching toward progress. With its reputation as an insular, ineffective institution, is it any wonder that only 2,190 out of 25,600 eligible voters participated in last year’s SGA elections?

What anti-immigrant rhetoric costs us

combination of the words California and Mexico, my hometown of Calexico, California, sits on the U.S.-Mexico border. Mexicali, Baja California, is only 15 minutes away.

Andrea MendozaMelchor Opinions Writer

And according to Donald Trump, 15 minutes is enough to determine what makes a person a “person.”

At a rally before the Ohio U.S. Senate primary election last month, the former president talked about undocumented immigrants who are accused of crimes.

“They’re not people, in my opinion,” he said, even calling them “animals” later in his speech. I grew up watching the dehumanization of immigrants. In his State of the Union address last month, President Joe Biden called an immigrant “an illegal.” Trump’s rhetoric about the “poisoning of the blood” of the country takes it to another level. His latest words confirmed how immigrants will never truly be accepted in this country.

Border officials have said most people who cross the U.S. border are families seeking security, and research shows that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born Americans while in the country.

My family members are immigrants. My grandparents crossed illegally to the U.S. half a century ago, back when there wasn’t even a physical wall between Calexico and Mexicali. Before my father met my mother, he also tried to cross the border illegally but gained his citizenship when he married my mom. My grandparents eventually earned their citizenship, but

half of my family still cannot cross. The idea that a “border” makes me or my parents different from our family in Mexico is ridiculous. I never thought I was more human than anyone who lived the next city over — or anyone who wanted to better their lives by crossing the border.

I grew up in cars waiting to cross back to the U.S. after visiting my family, watching while groups of men tried to climb the fence. While I understood this was technically against the law, I never thought of them as “animals” or “vermin,” as Trump has referred to migrants in the past.

I still remember the rude awakening I received from my English teacher about the difference between what is legal and what is moral. She asked us: If we saw an undocumented immigrant on the side of the road, dying, would we help them?

It can be illegal to do so but immoral not to.

My citizenship came at a price: dehumanizing anyone who tried to do what my grandparents did decades ago. To be a law-abiding American, I had to be a hypocrite and forget my family did the same thing and had to treat them like I was different from them. The price of my citizenship is forgetting I am also Mexican. Being American means forgetting to see people as people.

I also remember the day my mom and I were shopping downtown, less than a 10-minute walk from Mexico. I was about 12 years old, holding a couple of grocery bags, when suddenly I heard a teenage boy screaming and crying. I turned and saw him running down the street as a U.S. Border Patrol officer chased after him, baton in hand.

I froze, sick to my stomach. He was no older than 16 or 17. Everyone around me

2023 marked the lowest turnout in a decade, but the vast majority of students haven’t voted in SGA elections since at least 2012. Forget “of, by and for” the people — the SGA represents and rewards a sliver of campus. There’s no incentive for students to weigh lofty resolutions or referenda when they’re busy juggling classes, fi ling FixIt tickets or rationing their meal swipes.

So as much as GW’s student

was just as frozen. I looked up at my mom, hoping she could take this feeling away from my stomach. All she said was, “He’s just a kid.”

I recall when I was 10 years old and in my phase of reading everything aloud. While we were crossing the border from Mexico, one of the signs listed things that were illegal to bring into the U.S. When I read “It’s illegal to smuggle aliens …,” I looked excitedly to my mom. They confirmed that aliens were real!

She explained that “aliens” referred to undocumented immigrants. As a child, I remember thinking how wrong the word felt in my mouth, how wrong it felt to call a human being that as if they were otherworldly — not a person, an unknown species.

When Trump or anyone else says that undocumented immigrants aren’t human, or are “animals” or “vermin,” I won’t think of the quarter of immigrants in the U.S. that are undocumented. I will think of all 46.2 million immigrants in the country, including myself and my family.

Just like I never thought that 15 minutes made me different from the rest of my family, I don’t believe a piece of paper makes a difference either. Something as arbitrary as distance or nationality does not define one’s humanity.

This isn’t a piece arguing about immigration laws or policies. It’s about the weight of Trump’s words or anyone who makes similar comments. We must understand how dehumanizing this is to millions of people: This is the person who might be in charge of our country — again. —Andrea MendozaMelchor, a sophomore majoring in journalism and mass communication, is an opinions writer.

Agovernment can get done, it seems to spend more time focused on itself than on students. The initiative to change the Student Association’s name to the Student Government Association did matter to students, at least some of them. But no matter how impactful renaming the organization was, it exemplifies that tendency to turn inward — by and large, bureaucratic procedures don’t change the day-to-

day experience on campus.

Or, look at the pair of councils the SGA created for Jewish and Israeli students and Arab, Muslim and Palestinian students in December, which Geismar said were open for applications in a January meeting. Creating cultural programming, gauging students’ sentiments and meeting with officials all sound good in theory, especially as a means to lower tensions and address incidents of hate on campus. But more than three months later, we have to ask: Who’s on these councils? Where and when do they meet? And what have they actually achieved?

Despite all the people involved in the SGA, from Geismar’s 60-member executive cabinet to the sprawling staff that supports the senate, not much comes to fruition. From the outside, it looks like it owes its greatest successes to a handful of people who work with student organizations and the officials who hold the real power over the University’s future.

As the candidates and voters gear up for the election next Thursday and Friday, it’s worth thinking about that future — and what role, if any, the SGA can play in it. Student government should be more than a club, resume fodder or the butt of a campus-wide joke.

A campus away, my rights would not exist

s a woman, in 2024, I am not safe and neither are my rights.

I say this not to be pessimistic, grim or even alarmist. I simply say this as a young woman who sat in utter silence with a group of other young women when the Supreme Court overturned 50 years’ worth of precedent that protected our right to abortion.

When I focus on GW’s liberal campus atmosphere, my friendships with people who are pro-abortion rights and the legality of contraceptives both in D.C. and in my home state of Pennsylvania, I can almost forget the sick and twisted 21st-century dystopia I live in. Then I interviewed Gabriella Shirt for an assignment in my journalism class. Now I can’t forget anymore.

Shirt is a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame and one of the directors of distribution for Irish 4 Reproductive Health. She openly supports abortion rights and advocates for women’s healthcare on a conservative, anti-abortionleaning campus. Like me, Shirt comes from a fairly liberal town. But while she attends a Catholic university in Indiana, I chose a progressive and secular university in the nation’s capital.

Let me put things into perspective.

GW’s Student Health Center offers contraceptive counseling and prescriptions as well as emergency contraceptives at no extra cost through

GW’s health insurance. On its website about sexual health resources, Notre Dame’s University Health Services calls for its unmarried students to practice abstinence. Notre Dame’s health services will not compromise “what the Church upholds in its teachings concerning sexuality and sex.” Shirt told me that Notre Dame does not provide condoms to students, nor will its staff prescribe birth control to those specifically asking to use it as contraception. The differences don’t stop there. GW has Plan B vending machines around campus, with subsidized prices to make contraceptives more affordable to students. The Division for Student Affairs also advertises free STI testing and condoms on campus. The DSA gets even more sex positive about masturbation, offering educational resources and promoting consent, communication and pleasure.

By contrast, Shirt told me if she puts a sign up on her dorm room door that advertises free contraceptives and I4HR as a resource for learning and respecting reproductive health, they are taken down — again and again and again. Shirt said that an in-residence hall priest publicly scolded her for announcing at a community forum that she could provide free condoms and emergency contraceptives. Students are allowed to make any type of announcement at these meetings, yet she was chastised and shut down for trying to promote reproductive health. She told me the only way to cope with the neglect of women’s reproductive health on campuses like

Notre Dame’s was to laugh and keep marching forward. On the call, I laughed along with her. I called my mom after I finished the interview with Shirt. The first words I said were, “What the f*ck.” I was not laughing anymore.

It felt dystopian to hear about a school within the same country with such a different level of respect for sexual health and reproductive rights. I4HR does not even operate as a Notre Dame-affiliated club because school officials would likely suppress any club meetings, events and contraceptive distribution that it viewed as out of line with its philosophy on sexual activity.

Notre Dame’s Right to Life group claims to be the largest anti-abortion student organization in the country with more than 700 members, yet GW does not have a specifically anti-abortion organization listed as a club. I am not being impudent when I say thank God that GW Reproductive Autonomy and Gender Equity is alive and thriving with almost 400 members on our campus. My reproductive rights are not invariably safe on any college campus or even in this country at large. Every time I cross a state boundary line, I have to check and see if I’m in a state that is more interested in “protecting” my womb than treating me as a woman who can make the best decisions for her own body. But my reproductive rights are safe on this campus, for now. That means something. It might even mean everything.. —Paige Baratta, a sophomore majoring in political science, is the editorials assistant.

Paige Baratta Editorials Assistant

HARPER DONALDSON | CARTOONIST

Culture

RELEASED THIS WEEK:

NEW ALBUM: “COWBOY CARTER” BY BEYONCÉ

Taste of Africa spices up the student center with a night of pan-African unity

Lights. Cameras. Afrobeats.

The African Student Association hosted its 16th annual “Taste of Africa” event Saturday to celebrate the diverse culture of the continent with seasoned food and breathtaking performances for a night of unity. The event drew in more than 250 people to the Grand Ballroom in the University Student Center as executive board members said the day was months in the making.

Cocktail hour started at about 5:30 p.m. with sparkling punch in large white jars. Next to the drinks rested a charcuterie board adorned with crackers, cheese, ham and pepperoni and an assortment of fruits like strawberries and pineapples. A large photo-op installation near the entrance let attendees memorialize the event with a backdrop of dark green and gold balloons and light-up letters spelling “TOA,” or Taste of Africa.

The event was scheduled to start at 6 p.m., but in true African time, it kicked off at 7 p.m. with host and Bowie State University alum Tola Oludayo, or SJD Tola, introducing the first act, Ni Dembaya, a D.C.-based African drum ensemble. The beats lifted the spirits of the audience as cheers grew louder each time the three men sped up their rhythm.

for one occasion to celebrate the unity, the oneness that is being African,” Chacha said. Chacha said she looked forward to seeing people from different regions of the continent and diaspora come together. Chacha said attending TOA helped her form friendships and connections with people outside of GW and hope that others could “fully celebrate their Africanness.”

“I hope that other students understand the magnitude of what it is for us to be able to host these events fully dedicated to the diaspora fully carried out by students who have so many busy schedules as well and to put on a successful event year after year after year,” Chacha said. “It just shows the greatness that comes with being African, and so that’s just something that I hope that people take away from Taste of Africa and are able to carry on in the future.”

At the intermission, those observing Ramadan exited the room to break their fast before organizers began serving food to the crowd

Ululations and celebratory cheers spread throughout the lightly humid ballroom when the host announced the next performers: the Ethiopian-Eritrean Students Association. The team all wore Habesha kemis dresses traditionally worn by Habesha women. All eyes were glued to the stage as they performed dances from the Horn of Africa, like Eskista to “Mamayie” by Mikyas Cherinet. The University of Maryland’s African dance team Diazporić followed EESA with a performance highlighting signature dance moves throughout the continent. Musician Lelo then brought the show to its intermission with a saxophone performance.

around 8 p.m. and continued to offer an assortment of dishes through the night. The food was set up on the student center terrace with options including puff-puff — a deepfried dough eaten across the continent — and jollof rice. The second half of the night kicked off with student musician Salah Mohammed, or Shaigi, performing songs from his debut album “The City,” followed by performances from GW’s Xola — an Afro-Caribbean dance team — and DMV-based artist Tobby Drillz.

PR emails we can’t believe weren’t April Fools’ Day jokes

As the jesters and jokers descend on unsuspecting pawns this April Fools, I, an editor at a student newspaper, must admit that I am often played the fool.

As media relations firms flood my inbox with pitches, trying to get their clients’ names in print, I constantly fall for flashy subject lines. Hoping for the next big story to grace our website, time and again I find myself duped by clever PR representatives and their flashy puns, masking the insanity of their pitches.

Here are some of the wildest pitches I have had the displeasure of mining while desperately seeking a gem:

Pups and Press

From stars of Netflix teen shows to rising comedians, The Hatchet has interviewed a variety of famous folks. But the PR representative offering us an opportunity to talk with a distinguished dog was unfortunately barking up the wrong tree. Darby Joy, a performing pup who recently made an appearance in “Good Burger 2,” and her owner Chrissy Joy’s press relations team reached out to set up an interview discussing the ruff life of being a celebrity dog.

Though the PR team

promised to give us the scoop on the pup’s upcoming new projects, my editor and I couldn’t figure out how to go about getting the pooch’s perspective.

Fun with Feet

I’ve got to hand it to the media relations team at Fun with Feet, a foot fetish platform and feet pictures marketplace, they are nothing if not persistent. In a campaign to get our student newspaper to profile their head of communications, the Fun with Feet team offered to break down the key ingredients to nailing the most attractive foot picture. Though we don’t have a beat on this paper dedicated to feet, I also appreciated their attempts to provide a newsworthy angle to secure their boss a story.

Alternatively, since the online platform tracks user data, the media relations people tried to pique this paper’s interest with shocking trends. I quickly became paranoid about opening my Hatchet email account in class for fear someone sitting behind me would see the subject lines “Men Wanted: See Why Te Male Foot Pic Industry is Booming.”

Women can do anything men can … including shrooms

Come March, which is Women’s History Month, I received a variety of pitch-

es highlighting women changemakers. But, amid the tales of herstory flooding my inbox, a Canadian psychedelic retreat that has the word “men” in their name tried to co-opt the celebration.

Referring to women as “females” in the opening line of their correspondence, the retreat’s PR representative claimed the majority of their customers in the past year were women and dubbed psilocybin “the working woman’s new life hack.” Their mushrooms might be magical, but I was not charmed by their halfbaked attempt to market their retreats.

Conspiratorial clap-backing

A word of advice when emailing anyone: Don’t just make the subject line a bigoted conspiracy theory. A sane person typically won’t open an email that appears to be promoting a conspiracy movement related to Q-Anon. But my editor did. We came to discover a man writing under a pen name was looking to have his self-published 360-page book mocking alt-right conspiracy theorists reviewed in our paper. We never reached out to this mysterious author, but I hope he gained the confidence in his work to share it with someone who could actually help him get the word out.

The night concluded around 11:30 p.m. with a fashion showcase featuring traditional and modern clothing crafted by local designers and modeled by students as well as a shout-out to the executive board for their work.

Senior Deseree Chacha, an international affairs student and the president of ASA, said TOA is her favorite time of the year because it’s “a great place for community.”

“You have people from all different places in Africa coming together under one roof, at one event,

Senior Tiffany-Chrissy Mbeng, a biology student and one of the directors of TOA, said she and Mudrakat Durosinmi, the other TOA director, started planning the night in August and had ideas for the theme as early as the second week of the school year. This year’s theme “Aduna” — meaning “the world” in Wolof — blends the importance and beauty of African nature with the traditions and cultural significance traditional masks hold. ect to learn “something new” after attending the night.

“We really aimed for Taste of Africa to spread awareness of Africa and Africa’s potential, not only within the continent but globally as well, so expect to learn, expect to feel empowered,” Mbeng said.

Students reflect on Easter with communities new and old

ebrate Easter, maybe we’ll develop new traditions,” Reyes said.

Eggs, Mass and nature are all part of students’ Easter celebrations this year.

For many, the Christian holiday marks the day Jesus was resurrected and involves celebrations like extended family trips to Mass and Easter egg hunts. Despite being miles from home, GW students are finding ways to celebrate Easter with their new D.C. family.

“Easter is definitely a holiday about family and being together and celebrating whatever Easter means to you,” first-year Jore Reyes said. “And for my family, that’s God.”

Reyes, an international affairs major, said she is making an effort to celebrate this Easter in D.C. because she is unable to travel to see her family in Illinois. Traditionally, Reyes would get together with her relatives to eat an Easter cake decorated to look like a lamb. Reyes said the cake symbolizes Jesus, the sacrificial lamb of God, a reminder of what her family celebrates during Easter.

Reyes said she plans to attend mass at St. Stephen Martyr Catholic Church in Foggy Bottom. have brunch with her friends Sunday.

“I also think that as I meet more people who cel-

Elizabeth Snyder, a sophomore majoring in environmental science and entrepreneurship, said she wasn’t able to visit her family in Kansas City, Missouri, this year for Easter. Snyder said she will observe Easter with her community at Passion City Church on U Street.

“When I think of Easter, I think of, obviously, what it’s meant to be,” she said.

“So I thought a lot of God, of Jesus, but church is really the only way I felt that I could spend time with God.”

She said this year, she planned to visit Dumbarton Oaks Gardens after church to pick up some coffee and walk around the gardens.

Fernanda Arber, a sophomore member of GW Catholics, said her Easter arrangements involve a little taste of D.C. and home. She said she planned to head home to Maryland later in the week after celebrating Holy Week at GW — including meals and programming for the observance of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday. Arber said the Newman Center, which hosted the programming and is the hub for GW Catholics, allows her to connect with people who share the same faith.

Arber said spending time with community is

her cornerstone of celebrating Easter.

“Community is just a great way to feel love,” Arber said. “I think on Easter, that’s especially important. That day, we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. Without it, the Christian faith really has no foundation. That’s a very meaningful day for our faith and getting to spend it with the people you love.”

Aline Asarian, a junior majoring in public health, said she is celebrating Easter for the first time without her family this year, opting to stay in D.C. instead of going home to Long Island, New York.

Coming from an Armenian Orthodox family where Easter is a key celebration, Asarian said she cherishes her holiday traditions like dyeing eggs and playing a game called eggknocking from Romania, where each person cracks a hard-boiled egg against someone else’s egg. She said after the game they all eat their eggs together.

She said planned to attend a sunrise Easter celebration at the Lincoln Memorial or a late morning mass at St. Stephen Martyr Catholic Church. She said attending these celebrations alone instead of with her family would be a change for her.

“We usually go to Mass and eat together,” Asarian said. “So this year is gonna be different for me.”

LEXI CRITCHETT | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Members of the Ethiopian-Eritrean Students Association perform during the Taste of Africa event.

ELLA MITCHELL STAFF WRITER

SOFIA PAPARELLA REPORTER

TANNER NALLEY | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Students indulge in Easter candy ahead of the holiday.

Sports

GW swimmer places 14th at NCAA Championships

Three GW swimmers competed at the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, with redshirt senior Djurdje Matic placing 14th in the 100-yard butterfly finals Friday.

Earlier in the day, Matic broke the Atlantic 10 record in the preliminary round, swimming a 44.80 in the 100-yard butterfly. This placed him in a three-way tie for 10th and secured him a place in the consolation finals. A week prior to the men’s championships, junior Ava DeAngelis and sophomore Ava Topolewski competed at the NCAA women’s championship in the 200-yard breaststroke and 1,650-yard freestyle, respectively.

Topolewski holds the conference record in the 1,650yard freestyle with a time of 16:08.48. She swam a 16:22:75 at the national championships.

DeAngelis finished 45th in the nation in the 200-yard breaststroke, swimming nearly two seconds off her previous season best. Topolewski finished 39th

in the 1,650-yard freestyle.

Matic’s top-16 finish earns him All-American status, the first time he’s received the honor. He said he hopes to secure a qualifying time for the 2024 Paris Olympics to represent his home country of Serbia.

“We have to get qualifying times that are written down by the International Olympic Committee,” Matic said in an interview following his A-10 win. “So I have until the 23rd of June to get the cut-off for the 100 Fly. And our goal is to try and prepare for Europeans that are going to be in late June in Belgrade. So after NCAAs, that’s our goal and our target for the rest of the season.”

At the NCAA championships, Matic improved upon his time from the A-10 Championships in the 50-yard freestyle, swimming 19.42, which was good for 34th in the nation.

Topolewski was scheduled to swim the 200-yard butterfly but scratched the event. Matic also scratched from the 100yard freestyle, concluding his time as a Revolutionary.

Next season, the squad will look to continue their dominance of the A-10, where both the men’s and women’s teams won the A-10 Championship for the third year in a row, setting 17 new conference records in the process.

Women’s basketball looks to reboot after A-10 letdown, offseason exodus

High’s single-game and alltime scoring records in her senior season.

After a loss to Saint Louis in the first round of the Atlantic 10 tournament that bookended an underachieving season, GW women’s basketball, led by Head Coach Caroline McCombs, has turned its attention toward the offseason and constructing a squad capable of A-10 contention.

McCombs and her staff took advantage of the NCAA’s early signing period, which took place from Nov. 8 to Nov. 15, to land commitments from three high school standouts as well as a high-octane point guard out of junior college. The quartet will hope to fill the gaps in the rotation left by departing seniors, graduate students and players electing to enter the transfer portal.

While the current incoming class boasts their fair share of accolades, point guard Gabby Reynolds may be the most decorated. The third-ranked prospect out of Michigan, according to PrepGirlsHoops, Reynolds was named Michigan’s 2024 Miss Basketball after breaking both West Ottawa

In what would be the final run of her storied high school career, Reynolds willed the Panthers to the state quarterfinals for the first time since 1986. Despite her 25-point performance, West Ottawa couldn’t keep up with Rockford, falling 36-52.

In addition to Reynolds, McCombs nabbed another high school stalwart in Morgan Matthews out of The Pennington School in Brunswick, New Jersey. An explosive, 6’0″ guard, Matthews broke The Pennington School’s all-time scoring record of 1,413 career points in her senior season with Red Hawks en route to 2023-24 All-MAPL League Honors. In her last high school game, Matthews led her squad to victory in the Mercer Country Invitational Championship, finishing with 36 points and the win.

Despite seeking out talent from around the country, McCombs and company may have found a local gem in DMV native Kyraha Parnell. Hailing from Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg, Virginia, the 6’3″ forward finished her illustrious career with the Fighting Bishops with more than 1,200 points, 800

rebounds and 300 steals.

Parnell rounded out her senior season by being named Blue Ridge Athletic Conference Player of the Year as well as earning First Team All-State honors. With graduate student forwards Mayowa Taiwo and Maren Durant set to graduate, Parnell has a real opportunity to carve out a rotation role in a depleted Revs front court.

Finally, McCombs and the Revs will add Filipa Calisto, a 6’0” guard who spent her last two seasons at New Mexico Junior College, to an already dynamic back court led by 2023-24 leading scorer Nya Robertson.

Calisto averaged 11.2 points per game on 45.7 percent shooting while pulling down 5.4 rebounds per game in her time with the Thunderbirds. In a Feb. 15 match up with Odessa College, Calisto had the best offensive performance of her collegiate career, scoring 20 points on eight-13 shooting to go along with 10 boards in a 90-89 loss.

While Reynolds, Matthews, Parnell and Calisto all committed to GW in early November, McCombs made her first postseason splash with the addition of South Georgia Tech JUCO forward Maéva Fotsa.

Standing at 6’2″, Fotsa will add height to a depleted Revs front court in addition to experience, having played two seasons for the Lady Jets.

While the Revs, who finished 11th in the A-10 with a 6-12 conference record and 13-18 overall, have amassed an exciting group of newcomers, the squad hasn’t been immune to the pull of the portal.

Senior guard Asjah Inniss was the first player to announce her entrance into the portal March 22. Inniss

started 26 games this season for the Revs, averaging 6.0 points and 4.5 rebounds per game.

“I am beyond grateful for the opportunity George Washington University has afforded me these last couple of years to be apart of the GDUB family,” Inniss wrote in an Instagram post. “I’m thankful for the connections and life long friendships I’ve built throughout this time.”

Freshman forward Jaylin Hartman announced her commitment to the

Baseball sweeps St. Bonaventure to open conference play

Baseball (19-10, 4-0 A-10) took home a series win against St. Bonaventure (8-16, 0-4 A-10) this weekend, sweeping the Bonnies for their first series win in the A-10.

After falling to Towson 8-7 on Wednesday, the Revs made their comeback this weekend by winning the series 3-0.

Game 1:

The Revs kicked off the series Friday, securing a 12-8 victory over the Bonnies.

After an actionless first inning, the Revs hit the field running in the second inning, scoring the opening run of the day with an RBI single to right center by senior right fielder Sam Gates that brought graduate student left fielder Steve DiTomaso home.

After the Bonnies responded with three runs, the Revs were able to counter, collecting three runs in the third inning from graduate student infielder Robby Wacker, junior catcher Tim Nicholson and graduate student outfielder Ellis Schwartz.

In the fourth, the Revs scored two more runs from Nicholson and Brett Young, bringing the score to 6-3. Schwartz brought home Young with an RBI single. He finished the day four for five. A solo home run from Gates in the fifth extended the GW lead to 7-3.

Two runs in both the seventh and eighth innings brought the Bonnies to within one run, with GW up to bat in the eighth leading 8-7. The Revs held off, scoring four runs in the eighth to extend their lead to 5 with Schwartz and Wacker among the Revs to score.

Game 2:

Rolling back on Saturday, the Revs coasted past the Bonnies once again, winning 6-3. Gates opened up scoring for the Revs off a wild pitch in the first inning. The Revs extended their lead to 4-0 in the second with three runs. Schwartz and Gates both hit doubles in the inning, Gates’ batting in Wacker for a run. Both Gates and Schwartz have been hot at the plate to open the season, first and second, respectively, on the team in OPS, with .999 and .957.

The Revs and Bonnies entered a scoring drought until

the sixth inning. The Bonnies entered the scoring column in the sixth, scoring three runs off four hits, narrowing the deficit 4-3. The Revs responded with two insurance runs in the eighth inning, bringing their lead to 6-3.

Graduate student infielder McGwire Tuffy batted in the team’s first run with a double deep up the middle. Freshman infielder Nick Mullen drove in the second run with an RBI to the shortstop.

Once again, the Revs dominated offensively. Schwartz fueled the Revs, going two for three with two runs and an RBI. Gates had another strong display, going three for four with an RBI and run. Schwartz and Gates are first and third on the team, respectively, with .375 and .328 batting averages.

Game 3:

The Revs closed out the weekend of conference play with their third-straight victory over St. Bonaventure in a 7-0 Sunday afternoon shutout.

DiTomaso kicked off scoring in the first, hitting an RBI double to score Gates, marking the first of five runs throughout the first two innings. Redshirt freshman first baseman Charlie

University of Buffalo on March 29. Hartman appeared in seven games for the Revs this season, recording 29 total minutes of action.

Freshman guard Monica Marsh announced her decision to enter the portal via social media March 27. Marsh saw playing time in 15 games this season, scoring a season-high 6 points against Dayton on Jan. 6.

“The relationships I’ve built here at GW will be forever cherished,” Marsh wrote in an Instagram post.

Rogan was next to bat, where he blasted his third home run of the season, sending the ball flying into left field before it careened off the video board. Following Rogan, DiTomaso hit his own home run in the second inning, batting in three runners.

Graduate student pitcher Graham Jeffries dominated on the mound for GW, allowing only one hit in seven innings and striking out six. He was relieved by junior pitcher Shugy Klein, who held off St. Bonaven -

ture’s offense in the eighth inning. In the ninth, graduate student pitcher Brandon Siegenthaler sealed the shutout behind a game-ending double play. Jeffries improved to 4-0 for the season. With this win, the team has won 10 of their last 12 games. GW will face William & Mary on Wednesday, followed by a three-game series at George Mason next weekend as part of A-10 play, with the Wednesday match airing live on ESPN+.

GRANT PACERNICK STAFF WRITER

RYAN JAINCHILL STAFF WRITER

SYD HEISE STAFF WRITER

HATCHET FILE PHOTO

A swimmer slices through the water during a meet.

Graduate student utility player Steve DiTomaso's hits, good for third in the Atlantic 10

Campus.

FILE PHOTO BY RACHEL SCHWARTZ | SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Head Coach Caroline McCombs shouts instructions to her squad from the sideline.