Vol-120-Iss-8

MFA loses $80 million for second straight year, documents show

IANNE SALVOSA NEWS EDITOR

The Medical Faculty Associates lost nearly $80 million for the second straight fiscal year, losses that have reached nearly a quarter-billion dollars in the last four fiscal years, according to the University’s audited financial statements.

The MFA — a group of physicians and faculty from the School of Medicine & Health Sciences and physicians at the GW Hospital — spent nearly $450 million and made roughly $370 million in revenue in FY 2023, a $78,841,000 loss that nearly matches its $78,680,000 loss in FY 2022, according to the University’s audited financial statements. The University’s cash assets also halved between FY 2022 and FY 2023, plummeting from roughly $123 million to about $56 million in FY 2023.

Students, demonstrators reckon with violence and history as Israel, Hamas plunge into war

land, air and sea in a surprise assault Saturday that included barrages of rockets, mass kidnappings and the destruction of a segment of the border wall separating Israel and Gaza. Israeli forces responded to the attacks with airstrikes and artillery in Gaza.

On Sunday, Israel’s government declared war on Hamas, a Palestinian fundamentalist group that rules the Gaza Strip, after Hamas militants launched the most devastating attack on Israel in 50 years.

Hamas attacked Israel by

Within 36 hours of the assault, at least 1,100 people have been killed — at least 700 in Israel and at least 493 in Gaza — with thousands more still missing.

Hamas’ offensive came on the tail end of a major Jewish holiday, Sukkot, a weeklong

celebration commemorating the fall harvest, and right after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. The militant group’s escalation is a return to war following decades of tension. Animosity among Palestinians has remained high amid Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, blockade of Gaza, and repeated police raids of the third-holiest mosque in Jerusalem.

In response to the attacks on Israel and the following counterattacks on Gaza, demonstrators convened in rallies

Officials said the University’s endowment increased to $2.5 billion after a slight decline announced earlier this year.

and protests in downtown D.C. on Sunday to stand with their respective communities and voice their feelings on the violence that continues to unfold.

The groups shared sentiments that likely encapsulate only a portion of the breadth of Israeli and Palestinian emotions about the attacks. But the demonstrations — and the students who led them — represent splintered factions as the federal government clambers to respond to the confl ict.

In January, CFO Bruno Fernandes said he expected the MFA’s FY 2023 losses to range from $55 million to $65 million. He said a majority of the losses occurred at the beginning of FY 2023. University spokesperson Julia Metjian said officials dealt with “strong headwinds” from inflation but managed to increase the University’s net assets by two percent.

Total assets, which include investments and contributions, increased from $4,967,614,000 in FY 2022 to $4,991,886,000 in FY 2023, according to the financial statements, which are consolidated by accounting company Grant Thornton. The University had more than $5 billion in total assets in FY 2021, which fell to $4,974,114,000 in FY 2022.

Metjian said officials loaned money to the MFA to help the group recover from pandemic losses. She added that the MFA had paid all principal and interest payments on their loans from the University.

GW’s investment income increased by more than $150 million from $21,976,000 in FY 2022 to $176,662,000 in FY 2023, investing $1,152,424,000 in real estate — an increase of nearly $17 million from FY 2022 to FY 2023.

Economics professors are grappling with a slip in grades in introductory courses, searching for ways to better engage students amid a national drop in academic performance.

Economics faculty said national dips in performance stemming from pandemic school closures accelerated the already growing number of students struggling in Principles of Economics I, or ECON 1011, and Principles of Economics II, or ECON 1012. A large cohort of students — those studying international affairs and business, in addition to economics students — need to pass the courses to graduate, and professors are using proctored placement

tests and feedback on class structures in an effort to keep them afloat.

“I know the University is very worried,” said Roberto Samaniego, a professor of economics and international affairs. “We are worried. We’re trying to figure out what to do. The University is asking us what we’re doing.”

From 2018 to 2022, the number of students who passed the ACT math benchmark that classifies them as “ready” for college-level math dropped from 40 percent to 31 percent. Samaniego said the department is identifying where students need more academic support by asking them for feedback on what content is most challenging and suggestions on what changes they want to see made to the two classes.

Board Secretary Avram Tucker said at a Board of Trustees meeting Friday that the University’s endowment — a financial foundation used to fund professorships, scholarships and construction projects largely from donations — stands at $2.5 billion and stems from real estate and investments. In June 2022, at the beginning of GW’s Fiscal Year 2023, the University had a $2.34 billion endowment, which rose to $2.4 billion roughly halfway through the fiscal year in February.

Higher education finance experts in April 2022 said the endowment could continue to decline due to inflation, but officials said in February that they hoped to maintain the $2.4 billion endowment.

Tucker said the University’s consolidated financial statements with the Medical Faculty Associates, a group of physicians and faculty from the School of Medicine & Health Sciences and physicians at the GW Hospital, received a “clean” audit opinion, the highest level of opinion from accounting firms. He said despite financial struggles from the pandemic, GW’s finances and liquidity are “strong,” which he attributed to the work of Chief Financial Officer Bruno Fernandes and Associate Vice President and University Controller Neena Ali’s work to keep GW’s finances afloat.

“Despite the uncertainty in the markets, they are outperforming the bench-

marks which is what we count on them to do,” Tucker said at the meeting.

Ilana Feldman, the chair of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, said the Physical Facilities Committee is establishing a subcommittee that will advise on the arming of the GW Police Department.

Feldman said that the senate’s Executive Committee’s meetings with the Board’s Executive Committee have been “valuable” in promoting shared governance and will help influence strategic planning.

“We are excited to one, work on that

process, and work collaboratively,” Feldman said at the meeting.

Alumni Association President Maxwell Gocala-Nguyen said 3,100 guests participated in Alumni and Families Weekend last month, an increase from last year.

Gocala-Nguyen said he aims to increase the amount of donors who contribute to annual giving. He said the Buff and Blue Fund Challenge, a fundraising campaign for athletics teams, has garnered $341,359 from 1,317 donors, surpassing the previous records of $207,814 and 1,173 donors.

GW to solicit information on applicants’ home lives in new Common App question

RICKERT STAFF WRITER YAEL LOUBAT REPORTER

GW’s Common Application will feature a new question about applicants’ home lives for the 2023-24 application cycle.

The University will test a new question that asks applicants if they spend more than four hours per week taking care of siblings, assisting or

translating for family members, living independently, working outside the home or experiencing homelessness.

The change to the Common App comes as GW continues to evaluate the fallout of the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action in college admissions.

“The questions should allow admissions officers to have a broader understanding of the life circumstances of applicants,” University spokesperson Julia Metjian said in

an email. “With these new optional questions, admissions staff will have a more complete picture of the student’s academic achievement, the circumstances that led to that achievement and how the student positively impacts others.”

Metjian said Provost Chris Bracey’s University Admissions Policy task force is currently assessing the school’s admissions policies.

Metjian added that the new question is part of a pilot

initiative among 25 institutions called Making Caring Common, a program created by Harvard University.

Experts in college admissions and diversity, equity and inclusion said information on applicants’ home lives may increase acceptance rates for low-income students.

“Collection of that data helps connect with the community,” said Jamie Remmers, the director of the master’s program office at the University of Southern California.

KAIDEN YU AND TANNER NALLY | PHOTOGRAPHERS

D.C. residents took to the White House and National Mall on Sunday after the outbreak of war in Israel and Gaza.

Silent standoff over Gelman shortcut temporarily ends after ramp installation

over the controversial pathway. Yet, without fail, the cast-off plastic rocks would be placed back on the pipe to block the pathway.

installed.

“At the moment, students are again able to use the shortcut over the temporary ramp,” Metjian said.

Officials installed an above-ground pipe in Kogan Plaza last year to address a steam leak, unknowingly sparking a silent skirmish between officials looking to mitigate a tripping hazard and pedestrians looking for a shortcut.

For months, workers placed plastic rocks — held down by sandbags — atop the pipe in the flower bed, but students crossing through the garden regularly moved the obstacles out of the way for the sake of the shortcut. On one occasion, someone hung one of the fake hollow rocks on GW’s America’s gate on 22nd street, likely a protest

Last week, officials blocked the shortcut with holly plants alongside existing raised garden beds, though the plants lasted for just a few days.

But the silent battle reached a temporary conclusion Tuesday after workers installed a shortcut ramp above the pipe between Veterans Memorial Park and the flower patch on the south side of Gelman Library, removing most of the plants in the patch Thursday.

University spokesperson Julia Metjian said the ramp is temporary and allows students to cut through Kogan using the official shortcut that existed before the barriers were

Officials appear to have installed the above-ground pipe in response to a broken pipe that led to water leaks, steam and ice along the walkway on campus. But the addition meant students would have to walk about a few dozen extra feet around the Veterans Memorial or take the shortcut through the garden and walk over the pipe.

John Attwood, a junior studying history, said the path is long overdue because there hasn’t been an official shortcut through Kogan in a long time.

“It was not a huge inconvenience, but it was kind of an inconvenience to walk around,” Attwood said.

Officials place international internships on hold for health, security concerns

Officials placed international internships for a multisemester study abroad program under administrative review last month, leaving students questioning the University’s commitment to providing the professional opportunity they advertised.

The Office of Study Abroad sent an email to students in the Global Bachelor’s Program on Sept. 13 announcing all GBP internships are under administrative review for “potential health and security concerns.” GBP students said the announcement made uncertain their long-term academic plans and reflects a lack of communication between the administration and students on program specifics like travel destinations and internship resources.

The program, available to undergraduate students in the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, Elliott School of International Affairs and the School of Business, launched in fall 2016. The program requires three semesters abroad, but students can choose to work an abroad internship during the summer or during a semester of leave for their third trip, according to the program’s website. Some students with majors that require many classes on GW’s campus, like international affairs and biology, take advantage of the internship opportunity, so they only need to take two semesters’ worth of credits abroad.

Students already scheduled to intern this summer are encouraged to meet with the GBP adviser, Cecilia Bonazzi, to discuss “potential backup options,” the email states.

University spokesperson Julia Metjian said study abroad experiences require “periodic review” and that students have “expressed concerns” over their internship choices in the past. She said these factors led GBP to review the process of how students select internship opportunities and how GBP approves the internships to fulfill GBP requirements.

She said during the hold for review, OSA staff can meet directly with students to ensure they have options and plans to make progress in the program.

“We anticipate that students will have internship choices in the future, and in the interim period, we will review our procedures for selecting internship partners,” Metjian said in an email.

Metjian declined to comment on what specific concerns caused officials to review the internships and who is participating in the review process. She also declined to comment on what options advisers will recommend to GBP students in the meantime or how long the process is expected to take.

Students who were planning on completing an internship for their third study abroad experience said course requirements, club and internship opportunities on campus and financial constraints may prevent them from being able to complete the program if they are expected to go abroad for a third academic semester instead of pursuing an internship.

Phoebe Szosz, a senior majoring in history, said the summer internships are a crucial part of the program, especially for students whose schedules do not make it possible for them to spend three semesters abroad. She said students

take the internship option into consideration when choosing to apply to the program and may not be able to fit a third semester abroad into their plans.

“It’s just really not possible for people to continue the program who are counting on the internship,” Szosz said. “It’s just impossible for some people.”

Szosz said she and many of her classmates who are nearing the end of their time at the University are disenchanted with the GBP program because they struggled or failed to get internships after re-

ceiving a lack of guidance from program leaders. She said the majority of students with abroad internships have to find them independently because GBP students are unable to use or ineligible for many of the University’s internship program resources, which are six-months long or limited to graduate students.

“When we used GW’s resources that they provided for us to find abroad internships, they were outdated or really unhelpful,” Szosz said.

Szosz said she wishes the University advertised the pro-

gram differently to avoid implying all students could get internships if they chose to or made it a “realistic option” for students by providing internship databases and guidance for applications for specific abroad programs.

“It just needs more support or it needs to be restructured so that people don’t think that they’re going to get an internship and plan for that and then get no support and can’t find an internship,” Szosz said.

Julia Thornton, a sophomore studying international affairs, said she must complete many of the credits for her major on campus, which makes transferring credits abroad difficult. Thornton said the program’s pause for review left her questioning if she would have to adjust her schedule — she had planned to complete the internship over the summer as her third abroad experience.

“When we apply to the program we make a four-year plan of everything so with going abroad two semesters it’s hard enough to try to get all the classes to meet the requirements,” Thornton said.

Elodie Krawczyk, a sophomore majoring in international affairs and biology, said the information in OSA’s September email was “completely unhelpful” because it provided no specifics on when students will receive further communication other than the promise to communicate new guidelines by the end of the semester. She said the email reflects the “very little” information she has received about other aspects of the program, like deadlines and travel locations.

She said the OSA did not email her about the application for her Singapore semester abroad program, until two weeks before the deadline.

“The lack of communication and the ambiguity and the lack of a timeline is really concerning,” Krawczyk said.

Krawczyk said she is scared the health and safety concerns that apply to the internships will also apply to study abroad semesters since the two take place in many of the same locations. She said she is concerned there is “something much larger going on” that could affect the program.

globe rests on a classroom desk.

FAFSA form revamps will ease process, experts and students say

delay will not impact current students because the priority deadline for financial aid is March 1.

Students said changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid will ease the process with a simplified layout.

Federal Student Aid announced in March that the FAFSA would open in December instead of its typical Oct. 1 release date to allow time for FSA to streamline the application process by reducing the number of questions and make it easier and more accessible for students to apply. Experts in higher education said FSA’s simplification of the 2024-25 FAFSA will expand financial aid for lowincome students by expanding Pell Grant eligibility and removing subsidies for families that own small businesses or farms.

The “Better FAFSA” application also omitted questions about drug convictions and Selective Service registration.

Jay Goff, the vice president for enrollment and student success, said the delay in opening the FAFSA will not impact Early Decision I applicants because they already completed the College Scholarship Service Profile, an application used mostly by private universities to calculate financial need. He said all early decision students must fill out the FAFSA once the application opens in December. Goff added that the FAFSA

Starting with the 2024-25 application, the FAFSA will calculate a Student Aid Index instead of an Expected Family Contribution, which no longer considers the number of family members in college and could be a negative number ranging up to -1,500. The Student Aid Index will determine how much financial aid a student would receive using the data applicants enter into the FAFSA.

Officials will continue to consider how many applicants’ family members attend college in financial aid eligibility, according to a newsletter from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

Goff said the FAFSA’s reduction in questions from 108 to 46 will make the application process easier for students and families.

Other major changes to the 2024-25 FAFSA include the FSA ID, an optional login that allows students without social security numbers to apply for aid. The form also now allows “contributors,” like student parents and spouses, to complete a section of the form.

Jill Desjean, a senior policy analyst for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said this year’s FAFSA is delayed because the Department of Education is working to implement the changes made to FAFSA from a spending bill passed in December 2020, which aimed to make the application simpler.

Co-sponsors of the FAFSA reform bill, Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Doug Jones (DAL), said the 108 questions on last year’s form were a barrier to low-income students because the length of the form burdens applicants. The new FAFSA will also not include subsidies for students who come from families who own

Rebranded climate group demands GW cut ties with fossil fuel donors

FIONA BORK ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

MOLLY ST. CLAIR REPORTER

A rebranded group of student climate activists sent a letter to officials with renewed demands last week, including putting a stop to GW’s acceptance of fossil fuel money to fund research.

Organizers for Revolutionary Climate Action — which was previously a chapter of the Sunrise Movement, a national youth climate activism group — asked officials and the Board of Trustees to cut funding from prominent fossil fuel companies, disclose donations, share progress on GW’s climate goals and investigate the Regulatory Studies Center for alleged violations of academic freedom. Organizers said the letter, which demands officials take “concrete steps” to phase out fossil fuel funding on campus by Dec. 19, is one of the revamped student group’s first actions this fall after members refocused the organization’s goals to GW-specific climate activism and mutual aid.

The letter, which organizers sent to officials last Monday, demands that officials enact a ban on funding from the

“Slippery Six” and adopt a plan to end reliance on funding from fossil fuel companies. The letter also asks officials to launch an investigation into funding practices within the RSC, a research center that receives funding from the fossil fuel industry, increase funding transparency within University departments and update the community about the progress of divestment and other sustainability goals.

Senior Aza EvansTownsend, an organizer in ORCA who has been involved with the group since she was a sophomore, said she hopes University President Ellen Granberg, who began her term this summer, is receptive to the demands ORCA made in the letter.

University spokesperson Julia Metjian said officials received the letter from ORCA and are in the process of reviewing it.

Officials announced in June 2020 they plan to eliminate fossil fuel investment by 2025 following years of pressure from student activists like Sunrise GW. They announced in April 2023 that they were “on track” to achieve that goal. Bella Kumar, a junior and an organizer in ORCA, said three new demands expand upon

previous demands from a similar letter Sunrise GW delivered to former President Thomas LeBlanc in February 2021, requesting that the University sever ties with the RSC.

Kumar said organizers received confirmation from officials last Monday that Granberg received their letter and would be in contact shortly.

Kumar said ORCA plans to pressure officials into issuing a Universitywide ban on accepting fossil fuel money by getting individual schools and professors to sign on to the commitment. So far, the American Studies, Women’s Gender and Sexuality studies departments, The Redstone Center and the Corcoran School of Arts and Design have committed to stop accepting fossil fuel money.

She said ORCA is also tackling more mutual aid work like raising money for victims of the Maui wildfires, which organizers tabled for last week.

She said orca whales that sank yachts — a phenomenon that gained international attention in the spring — inspired the organization’s name. She said leftists thought the orca whales’ actions were “defending” the climate because yachts use gasoline and are generally bad for the environment.

small businesses or farms. A 2023 report from the Iowa Student Aid Commission found that a family making $60,000 a year with a farm valued at $1 million would see their expected contribution rise from $7,626 to $41,056 a year with the repeal of subsidies.

Katharine Meyer, a fellow at the public policy firm Brookings Institute, said low-income stu-

dents could receive more financial aid for the 2024-25 academic year due to an expansion of Pell Grants from the 2020 spending bill. A State Higher Education Executive Officers Association analysis estimated that nearly 43 percent of students previously ruled out for a Pell Grant will now be eligible because of a new formula to calculate grant eligibility.

SA president asks trustees to change name of student government body

HANNAH MARR ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

Student Association President Arielle Geismar asked the Board of Trustees to change the student body’s name to the Student Government Association during a Board meeting Friday.

Geismar said she cosponsored the Student Association Rebranding Act, which will change the name of the governing body in the SA charter if the senate’s Governance and Nominations Committee, the full senate and the Board of Trustees approve the measure. In a message to The Hatchet, Geismar said the new name would diverge from using the “potentially misleading” SA acronym, also known to stand for sexual assault. In the message, Geismar said she asked Board Chair Grace Speights to consider the name change in an individual meeting last week before the full Board meeting Friday. Geismar formally asked trustees to vote in favor of changing the charter to Student Government Association at the meeting, when the “opportunity to take action arises.”

“I’ve heard students and Student Association staff voices that the SA as an acronym no longer fits our time,” Geismar said at the Board meeting.

Some SA senators also said they were concerned the SA acronym shares the same abbreviation of the Nazi Sturmabteilung — a Nazi paramilitary organization whose violent enforcement of party norms contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Geismar said the new name will clarify what the governing body does and will align with other Universities in its name. Out of GW’s 12 peer schools,

only one — Northeastern University — has titled their student governing body the Student Government Association. The student governments of two peer schools — Syracuse University and the University of Rochester — go by Student Association, and Georgetown University’s student government goes by Georgetown University Student Association, or GUSA.

The SA has held the Student Association name since April 1976, when students voted to form a new student government after abolishing the body — which was named the Student Assembly at the time — in February 1970 due to senators’ exclusion from University-wide decisions and a lack of communication between senators and the student body. Students knew the governing body as the GW Student Council from its creation in 1909 to 1969, when it switched to the Student Assembly for a year. The prospect of a governing body name change was prominent during the 2023 SA election, when presidential candidate Rami Hanash Jr. said he planned to change the governing body’s name to Student Government Association if elected. He also said he felt the name misrepresented the organization’s mission due to its double meaning for sexual assault.

SA Vice President Demetrius Apostolis said adding “government” to the title will clarify the SA’s role to students because many students, especially first-years, don’t understand that the SA is the student governing body on campus that oversees every student organization on campus.

“It’s hard to market the Student Association and

to show what we do and make sure that students are aware of how they get involved, when it doesn’t really say what we do,” Apostolis said.

Apostolis said once the senate passes the resolution encouraging the Board to change the name — which he believes will happen at the next full senate meeting Oct. 16 — senators will send the act to the Board for final approval. He said the Board has the final say on the name change because they oversee the SA’s charter.

“The charter supersedes the constitution and the bylaws,” Apostolis said. “The second they change it in the charter, everything else falls into place and it gets changed everywhere.”

SA Sen. Ethan Fitzgerald (CCAS-U), who is one of the bill’s sponsors, said he hopes the governing body’s new name will allow SA members to “reimagine” their focus toward the needs of the students because he knows a lot of students have felt in the past that their representatives in student government have “fallen short.”

“We need to make sure that this is more than just a rebranding of the title, but it’s also a rebranding of our focus,” Fitzgerald said.

SA Sen. Noah Jordan (CCAS-U), who is one of the bill’s sponsors, said there has been “genuine excitement” among senators for the name change, who have been reaching out “left and right” to endorse the bill.

“People all across the Student Association want this to happen,” Jordan said. “The same is true across the schools and across the student body. This is a remarkable change.”

KAIDEN YU | PHOTOGRAPHER

Students linger in and pass through Kogan Plaza.

Students say they prefer District House vendors over dining halls despite wait times

MAGGIE RHOADS REPORTER

Sophomore Mia Donnay had been waiting for an hour to receive her food in District House last month. And she was getting hungry. She ordered from District Taco, one of four GWowned dining vendors in the building’s basement that have grown popular among students on GW’s new meal plan. But District Taco only had one staff member behind the counter, and before Donnay received her food, the eatery shut down early. The vendor’s display screens turned off, and an unknown individual shut the metal gate in front of the restaurant, leaving the students who had ordered from the taco shop without food.

“It was just very stressful,” Donnay said. “Students were visibly angry, upset and hungry. And then there was a few helpful workers who tried to mediate and help out because it was a hard situation, right? Like they could only do so much.”

Donnay said she ended up ordering from neighbor vendor Halal Shack, where she waited 30 minutes before getting her food.

More than two dozen students said they prefer District House vendors over the all-you-care-toeat dining halls in Shenkman and Thurston halls for its reliability and predictable quantities. But this year, the influx of students in District appears to cause backups during rushes, leading to longer wait times as workers catch up.

“It seems like more people are dependent on it. Shenkman, often, the food is out,” Donnay said. “And District, the wait times are much longer. It’s been more stressful. A bit less enjoyable

this year.”

GW completed the overhaul of its dining system in January, launching a series of swipe-based meal plans for students to use at the trio of allyou-care-to-eat dining halls and Meal Deals at District. But many students said they prefer the food at District, which is often packed wall-to-wall with students waiting for their food, and eat at other dining halls in Shenkman and Thurston less frequently.

“GW Dining provides a variety of quality and diverse food for the broader University community to enjoy,” University spokesperson Julia Metjian said in an email.

Metjian said dinner is the peak time for dining halls, followed by lunch. She said GW Dining has served approximately 55,000 meals per week this semester. She did not return a followup question asking how many meals students purchased at each dining vendor.

Students said despite the wait times — which

can vary from 20 minutes to an hour — the vendor system in District guarantees a baseline quantity and quality of food, while the all-you-care-toeat halls tend to run out of food and vary in quality.

“District is a little bit more predictable, like you know exactly what you are going to order when you go and swipe,” sophomore Milly Asherov said. “Whereas with Shenkman, they’re saying you can look online and try to look in advance, but in reality, you never really know what’s there.”

Officials initially announced District would become an all-you-careto-eat dining facility when they shared their plans to revamp GW dining facilities in 2021. But officials nixed their original plans and turned District, which was previously operated by third-party vendors like Chick-fil-A, into a GWoperated vendor system.

Associate Vice President of Business Services Seth Weinshel said in

THEFT II/FROM BUILDING

Gelman Library 9/28/2023 – 2:45-3:45 p.m.

Open Case

A female student reported her headphones stolen.

Case open.

THEFT I/OTHER

Unknown Location

Reported 9/29/2023 – Unknown

Open Case

A male student reported leaving his backpack either on the Mount Vernon Express or outside Shenkman Hall. He later discovered it was stolen by locating it offcampus using a GPS tracker in the bag. Case open.

LIQUOR LAW VIOLATION

Thurston Hall 9/30/2023 – 12:23 a.m.

Closed Case

2022 that officials abandoned their plans for the dining hall in District to preserve the hall’s status as a dining location and a space for students to gather and study.

“Knowing that as a campus, community space is something that’s really important, and we don’t want to necessarily cannibalize it,” Weinshel said at the time.

Molly Fagelman, a sophomore majoring in international affairs, said Shenkman sometimes runs out of food — an issue that the vendors in District don’t often share.

“Shenkman, at least, there have been a lot of times where I’ve gone and like there hasn’t been any, like they run out. So a little unreliable,” said Fagelman.

Alvaro Ramal, a firstyear majoring in journalism and mass communication, said he was almost late to his job in the Flagg Building because of long wait times at True Burger, a vendor in District.

“I had to run with my burger on the takeout box,” Ramal said.

GW Police Department officers responded to a report of an intoxicated female student. Emergency Medical Response Group officials responded and, after evaluating the student, transported her to the GW Hospital emergency room for further treatment. Referred to the Division for Student Affairs.

LIQUOR LAW VIOLATION

Potomac House 9/30/2023 – 11:55 p.m.

Closed Case GWPD officers responded to a report of an intoxicated male student. EMeRG officials responded and, after evaluating the student, transported him to the GW Hospital emergency room for further treatment. Referred to DSA.

THEFT I/FROM BUILDING

Lerner Health and Wellness Center

10/1/2023 – 1:30-4:30 p.m.

Open Case

A female alum reported jewelry stolen after she left it unattended in a locker room. Case open

—Compiled by Max Porter

Residents react to Israel, Gaza violence in pair of demonstrations

From Page 1

In the first of two demonstrations Sunday, roughly 60 people convened in front of the White House at 1 p.m. for “All Out For Palestine,” an event hosted by the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Attendees at the first rally, including children and senior citizens, wrapped the Palestinian flag around their waist while others held signs reading “Palestine will be free” and “Resistance is Justified.” Many wore keffiyehs, a traditional Arab headdress, while chanting and delivering speeches.

The crowd soon swelled to about 200 demonstrators, with chants of “Free, free Palestine” echoing down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Speakers and attendees said Hamas’ offensive signals Israel’s weakening grasp on the territory that many of them consider home, igniting a beacon of hope for Palestinian resistance.

The 1947 formation of Israel displaced more than 750,000 Palestinians, who had called the region home for centuries, and sparked decades of territorial and religious disputes.

Within the hour, the throng pushed toward the State Department, chanting, “Netanyahu,

you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” Protesters at the crest of the crowd held a banner reading “Zionism is Fascism” and “Colonizers out of D.C.”

A leader for GW Students for Justice in Palestine — who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of violent retaliation and doxxing — said protesters across the country who stand in solidarity with the resistance help channel the emotions of Palestinians fighting for freedom from Israeli control.

The leader said he feels hope and joy about the future of Palestinian people who he says are reclaiming their land. But after domestic and global leaders

backed the first wave of an Israeli counteroffensive operation that is expected to escalate in scale, he fears further retaliation from Israel for the attacks.

Just more than a mile away on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, more than 75 demonstrators, including students from GW, Georgetown and American universities, gathered solemnly for the day’s second rally.

Israeli flags draped over attendees’ shoulders as many circled the rally’s speakers, which included student leaders from GW for Israel, AU’s Students Supporting Israel and Georgetown Israel Alliance.

Between sobs, Tamara Lis-

tenberg — an AU student from Tel Aviv and the co-president of AU’s Students Supporting Israel — said she found out Sunday morning that Hamas killed her friend and his father.

She said her two brothers, one of whom is an AU student, set off to fight to protect the lives of Israeli civilians after hearing news of the attacks.

Demonstrators concluded the rally for Israel with a prayer before singing the Israeli national anthem. As attendees linked arms with community members around them, the somber anthem filtered into a chant, “Am Yisrael Chai” — “the people of Israel live.”

CCAS researchers explore role of competition in determining biodiversity

JENNA LEE REPORTER

RYAN J. KARLIN REPORTER

Researchers in the Columbian College of Arts & Sciences found competition was a greater factor in determining biodiversity than resource availability when they narrowed the scale of study in an ecosystem.

Scott Powell, an associate professor of biology, and former postdoctoral fellow Benjamin Adams, the study’s lead author, observed the interactions of a tree-dwelling ant species known as the “turtle ant” unique to the Dagny Forest in Key Largo, Florida. Researchers found that as they shrank the scale of study from a whole tree to individual ant nests, competition between individual ants played a more dominant role in determining biodiversity than the availability of resources in the ecosystem.

The researchers said the study examined factors that affect the biodiversity — or the variety of different living species in an ecosystem — within ant colonies and individual ant nests in the Dagny Forest like resource availability, the presence of food and proper habitat, and competition, the interaction of individuals vying for the same resources. By observing how ants compete for resources in their environment alongside other

species and ant colonies, researchers learned more about how the systems of biodiversity function in the Dagny Forest, which will help conservationist aid efforts to conserve and maintain biodiversity.

Adams said ants are a good case study for biodiversity because the insects live in colonies that don’t move locations and have a large population, which allows scientists to collect data in a controlled environment.

“You basically have an ideal model for asking questions about patterns of diversity, so that’s what led me to that,” Adams said. “Picking apart different ideas to kind of find a perfect system to get at the general questions about life.”

He said researchers compared how species interact with each other and their environment at the level of the whole tree and individual ant nests within trees by examining ants that reside in pockets of deadwood in poisonwood trees. The researchers manipulated resource availability and competition to see how the changes affected the biodiversity of the ants, altering the amount of deadwood to adjust the available habitat space and removing some ants to adjust the levels of competition on smaller scales.

Adams said the study shows that on larger scales, the number of resources available to species determines the number of species able to live in an ecosystem. On

smaller scales, individual organisms are working with the same amount of resources, which means competition becomes the main determinant of which organisms survive, he said.

“Parsing apart all of the difficult and complex interactions that happen at a local scale is difficult, but it’s critical to actually confirming our expectations for modeling at larger scales,” Adams said.

Adams, who has been studying arboreal ant communities for the past decade, said the team traveled to Key Largo for up to eight weeks at a time during the study, which has been in progress for five years. The team slept in tents and observed how the ants feed and compete with each other.

Adams said the Dagny Forest was an ideal place for data collection due to the relatively small size of the trees and the manageable number of natural species present. He said these factors allow researchers to more easily control for resource availability and the number of present species.

“The hard thing about doing ecology, especially field ecology, is that you can’t control a lot of things,” Adams said. “It’s sort of at the whim of Mother Nature. And this is one of these rare examples in which we can control a lot of things.” The researchers said the study’s data — observed from ants from more than 170 poisonwood

trees — will help the Florida State Park Service with their habitat restoration efforts and better inform the scientific community on issues in networks of ants and other species.

“This particular layer of the project is really trying to understand how the various species that live in the environment interact and compete with each other, to build and maintain their networks,” Powell said.

Powell said the study is part of a greater collaborative project to better understand how organisms build and repair their ecological networks between himself, Adams and scientists at Harvey

Mudd College in California and at the University of York, which began in January 2020.

Powell said undergraduate research students worked in his lab to collect data about the types of ants in the colonies, like worker or soldier ants, from samples of active ant nests that they then sent back from the field to better understand colony structure within the nest. Powell said the group of researchers was a “critical part of the team” because of their role in collecting data.

Experts in ecology and biodiversity said the results of the study can aid conservation efforts and be applied to larger ecosystems.

Skin behind ears, between toes can be hotspots for unhealthy bacteria: study

ANNA ZELL REPORTER SKYLAR BLUMENAUER REPORTER

Certain areas of the skin, like behind the ears and between toes, can be hotspots for unhealthy bacteria, according to a Milken Institute School of Public Health study released last month.

Marcos Pérez-Losada, the lead author of the study, and Keith Crandall, the study’s co-author, found that areas behind the ears, inside the belly button and between the toes have less microbe diversity than areas like forearms or calves. Crandall said microbe diversity across the skin microbiome can result in a healthier accumulation of microbes, reducing the risk of skin diseases like acne and eczema.

Microbes, or germs, are found everywhere in living organisms and exist in groups called microbiomes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“When you have a less healthy microbiome, it is because one or two particular species have taken over everything,” said Crandall, a professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics. “When you have reduced variation, it’s indicative of a lesshealthy environment.”

Crandall said when Pérez-Losada, a professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics, approached him to brainstorm topics for a semesterlong research

project for his genomic students, he recommended looking into the areas of the skin his grandmother warned him to wash. Crandall said Pérez-Losada and his students proved what Crandall dubbed the “grandmother hypothesis,” which theorizes that there is microbe diversity across the skin microbiome, specifically between oily, moist and dry areas.

“Most people previously thought that the skin microbiome was just kind of homogeneous,” Crandall said. “Once you swab skin anywhere, you’ve got the skin microbiome, and it turns out that, like most of these microbiome studies, if you look a little closer, you’ll find some more variation partitioned in ways we haven’t thought about.”

An unhealthy microbi-

ome usually has one or two bacteria that dominate the biome, Crandall said. He said by contrast, a healthy microbiome consists of more than 1,000 diverse microbes which people can achieve if they wash skin hotspots to kill overpowering bacteria.

He said students studying genomics swabbed different areas of their body to collect the data for the study, using their forearms and the calves as a control. They tested 579 samples from 129 “healthy” adults, according to the study.

The students conducted PCR tests of DNA extracts before sending them to Milken’s sequencing lab in the GW Genomics Core, Crandall said.

“They learn about PCR, they learn about DNA sequencing and along

‘Everything is on the table’: Faculty investigate students’ struggles

From Page 1

The department kicked off the effort with a survey sent to students who took a principles of economics course last academic year in August, asking them to assess their professor and the difficulty of lectures and assessments. The survey, which closed last month, also asked students for their intended major, what high school math and economics classes they took, if they plan on taking additional economics courses and what advice they have for improving the class.

are ready for — on Aug. 20. In previous years, students could access the ALEKS placement through a link on the economics department’s website and take the test without a proctor at any time of day.

The School of Nursing opened applications for its new nurse-midwifery program last week.

The new master of science in nursing will allow students to take two years of virtual classes for nursemidwifery skills, which emphasize a holistic and individualized model of care, and then participate in a clinical program during the third year of the program. The nursing school created the virtual nurse-midwifery curriculum to boost the range and number of students the program can enroll, which will subsequently end its current nurse-midwifery program partnership with Shenandoah University next fall.

Nurse-midwives are nurses who assist pregnant people throughout their term and labor and can also serve as primary care providers. The program follows the midwifery model of care, which advocates for treating birth as a standard physiologic process and using few medical interventions, like epidural anesthesia and the use of instruments during births.

Tarnisha Hemphill, an assistant professor in nursing and midwifery, said students take virtual classes only during the first two years of the program so they can focus on 420 hours of clinical immersion work per semester during their last year in the program, which

will consist of a 32-hour in-person work week. She said students will travel to campus for one week at the beginning of their third year of the program for a skills-intensive training session with midwives before they begin their clinical immersions.

“There will be no other courses they need to take, so they should be able to fully immerse themselves into just their clinical component,” Hemphill said.

Hemphill also said students will be required to attend a workshop on how to start a birthing center by the end of their second year in the program.

Hemphill said the virtual program will boost the amount of geographic and racial diversity in the program, which in turn will help decrease racial disparities in maternal care. Black and Indigenous mothers have a maternal mortality rate three times higher than white mothers, according to the program’s website, and studies have shown that people giving birth prefer to have health care providers who look like them, Hemphill said.

“Patients should have a voice in their care, and we as midwives are here to listen,” Hemphill said. “So we believe in just changing the philosophy and the thought process behind providing care to women will help decrease this maternal mortality rate.”

Hemphill added that the program also wants to educate students on home births

the way, they are learning about all of these concepts as they apply them,” Crandall said. “They get sequence data back and then they start doing the analyses and learning the analyses, and they go on statistical hypothesis testing and test the grandma hypothesis.”

Pérez-Losada and Crandall described the educational experiment in a study published in 2020. Pérez-Losada has repeated this education experiment for four years, publishing the cumulative data into his newest study to prove skin microbiome diversity.

“Like all good research, we publish it and put it out there for other researchers to build on if they’re particularly focused on skin,” Crandall said.

“Everything is on the table if we think it’s something that would work for improving student experience and learning in both classes,” Samaniego said.

Samaniego said faculty already identified low attendance rates as one reason why students are struggling. He said the number of absences in his principles of economics lectures last semester were “shocking” and contributed to poor grades because the material is cumulative, which makes recovering from missed lectures difficult.

“The absentee rates in lecture and in discussion sections was something I’d never seen before,” Samaniego said. “Maybe half in the lecture and less than half in the discussion section.”

Samaniego said there has also been an “internal investigation” into the varying levels of difficulty among professors that teach the two courses to see if students struggle with certain professors more than others. He said he has not seen the survey’s results but wants to know where he stands relative to other professors because the course survey he gives his students does not address variation in difficulty across sections.

“The difference is my course evaluation doesn’t tell me where I am compared to others,” Samaniego said.

Economics faculty also said inaccurate placement test scores may contribute to students taking the two classes before they’re ready. In response, the economics department mandated incoming first-year students who desired to register for Principles of Mathematics for Economics — also known as ECON 1001 — or ECON 1011 to take an in-person, proctored version of the ALEKS placement test — an assessment STEM departments use to determine which course level students

Daniel Mackay, an assistant professor of economics, said more students scored poorly on this year’s proctored test than previous years and estimated that “between 300 and 400” students who intended to take Principles of Economics scored below a 61, the threshold score to register for the course. He said students who failed to exceed the threshold could either forgo taking the class or enroll in ECON 1001, the lowest-level economics course.

Anthony Yezer, a professor of economics, said the department began proctoring placement tests because many students scored higher than the 61 percent threshold when they took a proctorless version of the exam but lacked the math skills once in class.

If the placement test truly reflected students’ competency in necessary math concepts, the test would have placed roughly 30 percent of the students in his Principles of Economics I class in Principles of Mathematics for Economics instead, Yezer estimated.

“We found that large numbers of students who scored well above 61 during the summer when they were unproctored, when they came here and they were proctored it was not so good,” Yezer said.

Yezer said he is concerned it will be difficult to interpret the department’s survey results because many students who took Principles of Economics I last year struggled and should have taken Principles of Mathematics for Economics first.

“To an extent, a lot of the students who are responding are the students who probably shouldn’t have been in 11 to begin with, and it makes it a bit difficult to conclude much,” Yezer said.

Yezer said declining math competency rates among incoming students became apparent in the principles of economics classes. He said COVID caused drops in understanding because students retained less knowledge while learning it virtually.

“Economics 11 is not a course for people who can’t recall their seventh-grade math. But for those who can recall their seventh-grade math, it’s not very difficult at all,” Yezer said.

and community births done in birth centers that prioritize shared decision making between the patient and the care providers.

“We feel like it is important to emphasize community births and home births because that is another way of answering the maternal mortality rate,” Hemphill said. “So exposing our students more to not only hospital birth midwifery but community birth and home births, we have that in our program as well.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that candidates for home births should include only people experiencing lowrisk pregnancies and with certified personnel present to assist with the birth and possible transfer to a hospital if needed. While the AAP does not recommend home births — which can increase the likelihood of neonatal seizures and low Apgar scores, the assessment of an infant’s condition post-birth — planned home births attended by a midwife resulted in “very low and comparable rates” of perinatal death compared with planned hospital birth attended by a midwife or physician, according to a study by the University of British Columbia.

The program, which received pre-accreditation from the Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education in August, comes during a maternal health care crisis in the United States, nursing faculty said.

Suzan Ulrich, an associate professor of nursing and the director of midwifery education, said the maternity care system in the U.S. is “broken” and tinged with racial disparities in mortality rates and health care quality. She said providers often perform procedures like inductions and cesarean sections when they’re not needed, which can have “huge repercussions.”

Ulrich said the program will address these issues by teaching students how to give patients individualized, culturally appropriate care that avoids “overtreating” patients and helps educate and support pregnant people during labor and preg-

nancy.

“Our system is broken,” Ulrich said. “Midwifery and birth centers and listening to women is the way to fix it.”

Ulrich said a lack of practicing midwives who can take on teaching students has created a barrier to becoming a midwife. She also said the program plans to partner with community birth centers to provide grants to students and is applying for Health Resources and Services Administration grants for the next academic year.

Cara Padovano, an assistant professor of nursing and associate dean of the master of science in nursing program, said the nursing

school is committed to building a robust nationwide midwifery program that teaches students across the country and creates as many compe- tent and diverse nurse-midwives as possible.

Melissa Saftner, a clinical professor and the specialty director of the nursemidwifery program at the University of Minnesota, said there is a “very small” number of midwifery programs compared to nurse anesthetist programs and nurse practitioner programs. Saftner said when providers build trust with their patients, they are more likely to believe pregnant people who raise concerns about their health and treatment.

she

KATELYN POWER | PHOTOGRAPHER

The GW School of Nursing Center on Pennsylvania Avenue will house a nurse-midwifery program next fall.

HATCHET FILE PHOTO

GW's Milken Institute School of Public Health

Opinions

“No GW student is an expert in disease control — the choice of spreading the virus should not be in our hands.”

—MADIE TURLEY on 10/05/2023

GW must address disparities in faculty pay, promotions

GW’s female faculty members have endured their fair share of interruptions during lectures, inexcusable and unprompted comments on their appearance and even harsher criticism compared to their male colleagues. But gender-based discrimination goes beyond a sexist comment here or there.

The University employs, promotes and pays female faculty at lower rates than male professors, per an examination of faculty by gender and their position. Officials and the Board of Trustees can’t fix American systemic gender discrimination by their lonesome, but they can address sexism at GW.

Pay disparity between male and female faculty members is hardly a new topic of conversation in academia, but it’s all too frequently swept under the rug. In 2019 at GW, full female professors made 96 cents to every dollar that their male counterparts made. Female associate professors made 97 cents to the dollar, and assistant professors made 90 cents to every dollar, even though there were more female assistant professors on faculty.

Yet even where wage gaps shrunk between full female and associate professors and their male colleagues, a different type of inequality is at play: the number of full, senior and tenured male professors was still more than double the number of full female professors in 2019. Beyond the pay for their work, women also lack higher-level academic and administrative positions at GW.

Out of 18 of the University’s highest paid administrative members as of 2021, only five were women. Women — particularly women of color — are consistently underpaid and underrepresented in top university roles. It’s no different at GW or some of our peer institutions.

And while GW has made some progress with addressing gender inequality among its higher-level employees like hiring the school’s first-ever female president, Ellen Granberg, it needs to do more — preferably starting with paying women fairly and equally.

Some of those same peer universities have found ways to address gender discrimination where GW hasn’t. Syracuse University shifted salaries for over 150 female faculty members to redress wage imbalances between male

After thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail last year, I feel stuck between the concrete and glass buildings that surround me on a daily basis in the District. Sirens have replaced songbirds, trails have turned to cracked pavement and the fresh air has soured to car exhaust.

For students without cars, accessing the outdoors can be difficult. Shenandoah National Park is about 70 miles from Foggy Bottom, and closer parks like Scott’s Run Nature Preserve and Great Falls Park are inaccessible via public transportation.

all use a membership model to generate yearly revenue streams to keep trips free or at a lower cost. Granted, this would require significant buy-in from students and mean TRAiLS would have to accommodate more members.

Slowing down isn’t an option in college, but what if your own body prevented you from keeping up? I live with chronic fatigue, and the phrase “I’m tired” is my existence.

and female professors in 2017. These adjustments totaled nearly $2 million. And Boston University’s School of Public Health created a salary equity task force for the school’s dean in 2017, a policy GW should follow.

Clearly, having a majority-female student body and a majority-female faculty hasn’t been enough to convince the University to pay its female professors an equitable salary to men. The first female University president in GW’s history is a step in the right direction, but it’s just that — one step of many. GW’s human resource management says the University has a “longstanding commitment to treating all of its employees equitably and fairly in all aspects of employment, including in compensation.” That shouldn’t be boilerplate language, let alone a false claim.

It’s time to acknowledge the underpayment and underpromotion of female professors and administrators at GW, starting with greater transparency surrounding faculty salaries and the hiring process. The University should first acknowledge its disproportional promotion of male faculty and the subsequent lack of advancement opportunities for female faculty members. It also needs to publish a clear and comprehensive salary report so female faculty members know how much they are being paid in comparison to their male counterparts across each department.

We realize that publicly admitting to gender discrimination may be difficult, but complete pay transparency, if properly executed, could become the catalyst for paying female administrators and faculty their rightly earned wages.

Every member of the faculty has a right to a salary and chance of promotion commensurate with their skills — and regardless of their gender. The phrase “women deserve equal pay” has long been a battle cry. At GW, it ought to become reality.

Editor’s note: For the sake of analyzing GWprovided data, the language used in this article largely adheres to the gender binary. Though gender is a spectrum, GW data does not include salary summaries for nonbinary or transgender employees, forcing analysis to adhere to the uncomprehensive binary.

chronic fatigue, there are no actual treatments for the condition. For Olivia and I, it constantly feels like others think we’re faking our condition — that it must be all in our heads.

way for them to have compassion about invisible disabilities like mine.

The costs of transportation, equipment and park fees can deter people — especially college students at an urban campus like GW — from accessing wilderness areas. To lower the barrier of entry to the outdoors for all students, the University should fund outdoor programs. Students need more than just patches of grass, Rock Creek Park or the National Mall — we need access to forests, meadows and rivers that are safe for swimming and fishing. In other words, we need the ability to leave the city, to reset, reflect and walk under the canopy of the forest and feel free. For me, backpacking provides temporary solace from the noise of the city. When I’m outside, my life is unaffected by the actions of others. I move at my own pace listening to only myself and nature, feeling small among the grandness of the world.

By no means am I advocating for making GW a more rural campus: I love D.C. But I also need the forests and all that they promise — we all do.

While we struggle to connect with wilderness spaces outside of the city, college students in places like Boulder, Colorado or Bellingham, Washington live within a stone’s throw away from natural features like the Flatirons Mountains and the wilderness of Mount Baker. D.C. is located farther away from comparable wilderness areas in the mid-Atlantic, placing more responsibility on GW to help students access out-ofreach outdoor areas. A solution to our current problem is funding outdoor groups like GW TRAiLS, which organizes outdoor trips for students. The prices for these trips range from $20 to $200 — that’s just too high for many students. According to the Student Association 2023-24 General Allocations Budget Book, TRAiLS only receives enough funding to cover one-third of the cost of trips, burdening students with the remaining two-thirds.

Funding from the SA, or through a membership model, could drive costs down. Like with U-Pass, students could pay a one-time up-front fee for unlimited access to TRAiLS trips. Dartmouth University, the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Virginia

Either way, the goal should be to reduce costs and increase access to the outdoors, an idea that seems to be an afterthought at GW. While other universities, like the University of Washington, integrate outdoor activities into their campus recreation offices, GW outsources these responsibilities to TRAiLS. It is disheartening that this school appears not to prioritize outdoor experiences, especially when these opportunities have tremendous value for students.

Nature gives us space to reflect and reconnect with ourselves without the blur of cities. Canoeing on lakes and sleeping in tents at summer camp, finding a swimming hole with friends, going on family road trips to national parks — there is no substitute for the memories, the lessons and the friends made through the Earth.

Forests, parks, birds and trees mean more in life than any office building or cubicle. These lessons are taught outside — lessons that no lecture or textbook could ever offer and lessons we should all have the fortune of learning here at GW.

—Chandler Sam, a senior majoring in ecology and English, is an opinions writer.

A coffee or energy drink might give you a boost to start your day, but caffeine doesn’t make a difference for me. When I do finally get up, everything in my body urges me to lie back down. I’ve spent so many years with my condition but still don’t know when my body will want to wake back up on a daily basis.

I was in middle school when my chronic fatigue was triggered. My body’s immune system had been rundown after having the SARS virus and my nervous system was in a constant state of fight-or-flight because of my anxiety. Since I was diagnosed, I thought my version of chronic fatigue was the only one.

The only other person I have met who also has chronic fatigue is Olivia Hoyes, a fellow student who can understand my frustrations when other people would usually meet me with blank stares. For Hoyes, it was the onset of puberty that triggered chronic fatigue. She’s the only other person I have met who can understand how isolating chronic fatigue is.

Because of little advocacy for researching and accurately diagnosing

Auden Yurman, senior photo editor Florence Shen, assistant photo editor –features Sage Russell, assistant photo editor news Jordan Tovin, assistant photo editor –culture Sandra Koretz, sports editor Ben Spitalny, contributing sports editor Nick Perkins, culture editor Jenna Baer, contributing culture editor* Nicholas Aguirre Zafiro, video editor Ava Thompson, assistant video editor Charlie Mark, assistant video editor Cristina Stassis, copy chief Faith Wardwell, publishing assistant Shea Carlberg, senior copy editor Lindsay Larson, assistant copy editor Anna Fattizzo, research assistant

If people could understand what chronic fatigue is, then those of us who have chronic fatigue wouldn’t have imposter syndrome about our own syndrome — it’s difficult to speak up for a condition when you think you’re the only one experiencing it, leaving more people undiagnosed or even misdiagnosed.

I saw more than 10 different specialists who all assured me that my condition was not permanent and that my exhaustion would end in about five to seven years, marking it up to typical adolescent stress. It’s been eight years with subtle progress. In Hoyes’ case, she was misdiagnosed with narcolepsy in high school and didn’t receive an accurate chronic fatigue diagnosis until 2022.

When I talk to loved ones who can’t understand my condition from their own experience, it’s like speaking into an endless void. To look physically able without being in total control of your own body is one of the most unexplainable, debilitating feelings. I cover the dark circles under my eyes with concealer and wear mascara to combat the dullness of my eyes — maybe if I didn’t, others might take my condition seriously. But teaching people about chronic fatigue is the only

Regardless of what our bodies put us through, people with chronic fatigue are here to stay. As more people are diagnosed with “Long COVID,” they’re also dealing with symptoms — like regular headaches, dizziness, low-grade fevers and shortness of breath — similar to chronic fatigue.

If you think you’re struggling with chronic fatigue, routine coping mechanisms will give you stability. Stay overhydrated and keep yourself distracted or find other ways to ground yourself in the present moment. And do not be afraid to ask for accommodations from Disability Support Services. Having compassion for yourself and then receiving it from others can change everything.

I now know that doubting my emotional experience is the most dangerous thing for my body. Like any student, I want to have the energy to experience life beyond campus — all I can do is keep moving forward.

On one day in each of the past four months, I’ll wake up and feel fully rested, present in my body. Even though there is no guarantee I won’t be tired a few hours later that same day, I can’t help but smile. My chronic fatigue may be here for a lifetime, so I’ll hold on to that one moment I do have.

—Jordan Strain, a sophomore majoring in political psychology, is an opinions writer.

Nature’s lessons shouldn’t be out of reach for students

I have chronic fatigue, and my condition is real

Jordan Strain Opinions Writer

Chandler Sam Opinions Writer

JENNA BAER | STAFF CARTOONIST

Culture

KATHLEEN GIANNI STAFF WRITER

BRAVE.

SHIFT. RISKY. ADAPT. MAKER. PIVOT.

Each five-letter word could fill your Wordle grid, but they all describe GW alum Savannah DeLullo’s recent career shift to become a full-time content creator on TikTok, solving the daily Wordle — the online word guessing game where players have six tries to reveal the randomly selected fiveletter word.

Defying GW’s typical postgrad expectations of nine-to-fives or corporate America, DeLullo recently quit her research assistant job in economics to become a professional Wordle player.

During her three years at GW, DeLullo said she packed her schedule as a full-time student by getting involved in organizations on campus like GW Program Board and GW Women in Economics. After earning her degree in economics with a minor in business in the spring of 2021, DeLullo landed an economics research position.

But after settling into her new job, DeLullo said she found the transition to the corporate world difficult. Compared to her hectic schedule as a student doing everything from studying for exams to event planning, she had more free time in her postgrad life than she knew what to do with.

“Being a full-time student, I was involved in so many different things,” DeLullo said. “I would be working and having meetings and doing stuff all day along with my classes. It was very different to go from being so busy with that from

just having the nine-to-five job.”

DeLullo said she turned to making videos on social media as a hobby in January 2022 and spent time on TikTok looking for inspiration on what type of content to post. She said she wanted to do something different that no one else on the app had done yet. With Wordle gaining popularity, she took the opportunity to start playing the game and documenting it through her TikTok page.

“I searched TikTok and couldn’t

find anyone doing Wordle videos, so I was like, ‘Okay I guess I can do that,’” she said. Since then, DeLullo has racked up 1.8 million followers on her TikTok account, dailyxsav, posting split-screen videos of her solving the daily Wordle while talking about the happenings in her life, like getting her driver’s license or her love of Taylor Swift. Rather than sticking to a specific fiveletter word to start with, DeLullo picks a word that can be applied to

New Capital Jewish Museum gives fresh home to 150-year-old synagogue

NICK PERKINS CULTURE EDITOR

Mo’ museums, no problem.

The Capital Jewish Museum, which opened in Penn Quarter in June, is an exploration of Jewish culture in the District — past and present. The museum features exhibits on Judaism in Washington and famous Jewish figures, including an exhibit on the “Notorious RBG,” and is even itself a part of history, serving as the new home for a synagogue that first opened in the 1800s.

Maura Scanlon, a communications specialist for the museum, said the new series of exhibits is an expansion of the Jewish Museum, a collection founded in the 1970s. She said members of the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, who operated the original museum, realized there was a need for a larger space to show off more of their collection, which prompted the move to the new Third Street NW location.

Scanlon said the museum’s goal is to delve into the history of the Jewish community in the District. She said the purpose of the exhibits isn’t just to reflect on this specific past but instead to also give people the chance to connect with their Jewish identity in the present.

The museum opened

June 9, the anniversary of the dedication of the Adas Israel Synagogue housed within the museum. The tiny brick house of worship that now sits next to the glass, uber-modern museum first opened in 1876 and has been moved three times throughout its multicentury history, with the current iteration featuring restored pews and a film about the Synagogue’s history.

In addition to the ancient synagogue, the museum features two permanent exhibits. One, entitled “Connect. Reflect. Art.”, tells the life stories of 100 Jewish Washingtonians like Michael Twitty and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland through colorful blocks draped in pictures, job titles and life stories. The section also contains a map showing how the Jewish community has moved throughout the D.C. area.

“What is Jewish Washington?” — the other permanent exhibit — is a classic historical museum exhibit like one might encounter in a Smithsonian. The section is full of oldtimey D.C. photographs and other artifacts to tell the whole nearly 250-yearlong story of the growth of the Jewish community in the District.

The final piece of the museum visit is an exhibit called “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” on display through Nov. 30, inspired

by the book of the same name. The exhibit bridges new and old, including everything from archival photographs to interactive activities to tell Ginsburg’s story. Plus, as a nod to rapper The Notorious B.I.G., from whom Ginsburg got the “notorious” nickname, each part of the gallery is named after one of Biggie’s songs or lyrics like a section called “Don’t Let ‘Em Hold You Down, Reach For the Stars” from the track “Juicy.”

Scanlon said the museum organized events even before doors opened. She said last month the museum held a block party with local food trucks and folk jazz tunes from D.C.-based band Minnush, who combine their traditional Spanish and Jewish Sephardic heritage with modern influences. The event was held the week before Rosh Hashanah to commemorate the high holiday and continue the summerlong celebration of the museum’s opening.

Scanlon said the museum isn’t just about engrossing people in new exhibits or throwing events, but instead forming bonds in the D.C. Jewish community. She said she hopes the synagogue and museum as a whole can give people a place to connect with their Jewish heritage, whether they attend synagogue every week or are a Hebrew school dropout.

NEW TV SHOW: “EVERYTHING

As she reached the two-year mark at her job and her lease in D.C. was coming to an end, she was unsure if she could commit to staying in the city for her work. It wasn’t long before she decided to leave her position in August to focus on cracking the five-letter puzzles.

Since leaving her corporate job to become a full-time content creator, DeLullo has been able to grow her page through collaborations with celebrities, like the Jonas Brothers and Ed Sheeran. In these collaborations, she asked each of the celebrities for a starting Wordle guess and used her platform to promote the artists’ albums and tours.

“A five-letter word to start Wordle with? Jonas,” Joe Jonas told DeLullo after she asked him to help solve the puzzle that day.

whatever is on her mind that day.

“I start with a different word every day, so I want to make it a fun word or something that relates to what I’m doing,” DeLullo said.

As her TikTok career began to take off, DeLullo found herself busier than ever. She said that each day, after working eight hours in white cubicles and inputting figures into spreadsheets, she would dedicate hours to making content for social media, leaving little to no downtime for herself.

She has also been given opportunities to work with brands and even write some of the daily Wordle review columns for the New York Times, which owns the game. As DeLullo continues on with her career as a full-time professional Wordle player, she plans to experiment with new types of content through more livestream videos and potentially expand to YouTube in the future.

“I definitely will keep making Wordle videos at least for as long as people will want to watch them, but I have been also trying to do some other types of content,” DeLullo said. “Now that I have all day to do it, I think it’s good that I am able to branch out more and try other things besides just Wordlerelated stuff.”

Let’s face it: pumpkin spice can get a little old.

Having the same flavor for the entire chilly semester can get repetitive. Rather than spending each morning in a coffee shop waiting for the Great Pumpkin spice latte, try these other fall dishes around D.C.

Sweet Potato

Nachos, Chaia

Georgetown

FAYE TYSCHPER |

REPORTER

Look no further than local vegetarian eatery Chaia to enjoy a seasonal twist on nachos. Chaia’s sweet potato nachos ($9.55) are an ode to the fresh produce of the fall months. A bed of crispy corn chips is finished with black beans, pillowy sweet potatoes and a pile of toppings larger than the heaps of leaves on the ground.

3207 Grace St. NW. Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.

Cardamom Bun, Mikko

NORA FITZGERALD | SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The quintessential cardamom bun ($4) from Mikko’s pastry section is an artful combination of spice and sweetness. The spice from the cardamom takes the dish to the next level. With hints of mint, lemon and cinnamon, cardamom is a slightly smokey

spice reminiscent of a fall campfire. Ask for the bun served warm and indulge in the buttery, aromatic dough, topped with slightly crunchy pieces of sweet cardamom sugar.

1636 R St. NW. Open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday.

Fall Chocolate Chunk Cookie, Levain

Bakery

NICOLA DEGREGORIO | REPORTER

Levain Bakery’s seasonal fall chocolate chunk cookie ($5.00) transforms this beloved classic. After breaking open the crunchy treat, the still-warm cookie oozed dark chocolate. The cookie makes a nod to pumpkin spice with nutmeg and cinnamon, but changes the flavor up by adding smoky, gingerbread-like molasses.

3131 M St. NW. Open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

Lavender Iced

Matcha Latte, Emissary

HANNAH POPPER | REPORTER

Emissary’s lavender iced matcha latte ($5.75 to $6.25) combines matcha with lavender to create a creamy, floral flavor profile. The fallinspired twist invites you to savor the changing seasons in a cup. 2032 P St. NW. Open

Monday through Wednesday 7 :30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Friday 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Mango Special, Bandoola Bowl

ARJUN SRINIVAS | REPORTER

Western Market vendor Bandoola Bowl features a seasonal salad bowl ($10 to $13) around the mangos, sweetest at this time of year. The thin strips of mango never steal the show from the dish’s protein and vegetables but rather add a satisfying hint of sweetness to the flavor profile.

2000 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Open Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Maple Cider Chicken, DIG

KATRINA HAUSER | REPORTER

This fall, restaurant chain DIG is offering a Maple Cider Chicken dish ($13.20). DIG’s charred chicken is dressed in a maple cider glaze and paired with golden Brussels sprouts, kale apple crunch and spiced farro. The maple cider glaze adds a subtle sweetness to the whole dish.

1301 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

FAYE TYSCHPER | PHOTOGRAPHER

A vibrant pile of sweet potato natchos from Chaia, a vegetarian eatery.

GW HATCHET STAFF

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY AUDEN YURMAN | SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR

Savannah DeLullo solves the daily Wordle on her popular TikTok page.

How an alum left her 9-to-5 to get W O R D Y

Sports

Women’s soccer shut out by New Jersey Institute of Technology

In their first-ever match against the New Jersey Institute of Technology, women’s soccer fell 0-2 Wednesday in Newark, N.J., thanks to their inability to break through the strong Highlanders defense.

The Revolutionaries (38-3, 0-5-1 A-10) had trouble offensively, taking eight shots against the Highlanders (5-3-5) through the course of the game, only one of which was on goal. The Revolutionaries have now lost five straight games, having fallen 1-4 to Dayton (9-1-5) last Sunday.

The Highlanders managed to maintain offensive momentum throughout the match, managing 27 shots, though they had a difficult time hitting the mark with only seven of their shots being on goal.

“If they’re coming down our throats and we’re giving up shots inside the 18, which we weren’t, that’s when you probably look to kind of change things, but with the long-range shots, those are going to be high statistics for any team but less threatening for a goalkeeper to have to manage,” Head Coach Michelle Demko said.

The Highlanders struck early when in the third minute graduate student defender Emma Lillback fouled Highlander defender Riley Jones near center field, giving away

a free kick. Jones took the free kick, whipping the ball into the box, which was headed in for a goal by Highlander forward Kelsey Ramos, notching her second goal of the season.

“I think our team does a really good job of, even when we let up goals in the first five minutes, of fighting back, and I think that’s a team mentality thing, which is something that we have been growing ever since I got here,” junior goalkeeper Ainsley Lumpe said.

The Revolutionaries managed to take three shots in the first half, all of which were taken by junior forward Kelly Poole. Those shots brought Poole’s total shots this season to 30. The Highlanders eclipsed the Revs with 16 shots in the first half, four of which were taken by sophomore forward Maria Nogeira, who ended the match with six shots, two of which were on target.

While the match was primarily controlled by the Highlanders, the Revolutionaries gained a burst of offensive energy toward the end of the second half, nearly managing to break the deadlock with four shots and five corners all taken within the final 15 minutes.

However, the Highlanders were able to capitalize on the Revs’ offensive pressure with a counterattack. Graduate midfielder Bailey Chant brought the ball forward to sophomore forward Briana Andreoli, who

managed to dribble past the Revolutionaries’ defense and score to seal the game for the Highlanders.

Junior defender Alicia Window took no shots Wednesday but has taken a total of six shots this season. Window has played the entirety of every game apart from two this season and said despite the

Men’s and women’s cross country find success at the Paul Short Run

BEN SPITALNY CONTRIBUTING SPORTS EDITOR CARRIE MCGUINNESS REPORTER

The men’s and women’s cross country teams left the Paul Short Run with mixed results Saturday, Sep. 30 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The men’s team finished third out of 47 teams in the Brown 8K race while the women’s team finished 24th out of 44 teams in the Gold 6K.

The meet, hosted by Lehigh University, is one of the biggest cross country meets in the country, with over 5,200 student-athletes competing. Last year, the men finished 32nd in the Gold 8K and the women finished second in the Brown 6K.

The women’s team competed in the Gold 6K after being asked to move up from the Brown race, where they were able to face off against top competition. The Brown race is one tier below the Gold. The men, competing in the Brown 8K were able to hold on to a top-five finish despite losing steam following the 5K and 6.3K marks.

Sophomore Jacob Heredia led the Revolutionaries with a time of 25:03.3, good for fourth in the 400-runner field, while sophomore Sarah Mitchell paced the women’s team with a personal record time of 21:34.1, finishing 78th out

of 393.

“Both Jacob and Sarah last year were in our scoring positions as freshmen last year,” Head Coach Terry Weir said. “Both are now coming back with one year under their belt collegiately running. I think they’ve got a lot. They’ve learned a lot. I think more so this year, they’re still getting that experience. Now, either leading the charge or being in front of races more.”

After a strong few weeks, Weir said the women got bumped up due to their high rankings, with the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association listing GW as the 10th-best Middle Atlantic team entering the race. Against slower competition, the team would be out in the front, where they would have to manage their own pace while leading. In the Gold race, the team would have to compete in the middle of the pack. Mitchell’s time of 21:34.1 would have placed her fifth in the Brown.

“If we were able to stay in it and just being able to compete and feel the front of the race, they would have ran differently, a little bit, than they did in the Gold,” Weir said.

Of the seven women competing in the race, four set personal records, including freshman Lola Dinneen, who finished second fastest on the team with a time of 21:58.5, placing her at 130th in the

race.

The men’s cross country team, running in the Brown, left with a top-five finish. Beyond Heredia’s fourth-place finish, senior Kevin Conlon placed 16th with a time of 25:20.02 and graduate student Lucas Brown placed 33rd with a time of 25:36.1. The rest of the team all placed within the top half of the field, with freshman Brayden Bayek placing 100th in his event debut with a time of 26:14.4.

Notably, the men were in second place at both the 5K and 6.3K marks before jumping 54 overall points to finish third at the end of 8K. The team finished with an overall score, the combination of the five best placements, of 165. First-place Central Connecticut finished with 94 while second-placed Shippensburg finished with 163.

Similarly, the women were in 16th place after the one-mile mark, dropping down four spots after two miles before dropping four more for their 24th overall finish.

“Toward the end of the race, we got good positioning in the beginning and then kind of stepped off the gas a little bit in the second mile, so it definitely could improve there,” Senior Catherine Ruffino said.

The team will next travel to Charlottesville, Va., to compete at the XC23 Pre-Nationals on Oct. 14.

early goal by the Highlanders, the Revolutionaries still played well.

“We felt we prepared enough,” Window said. “And then, you know, a goal in the first five minutes is something hard to come back from. But I was actually proud of the performance after that, compared to previous games.”

This was the last out-ofconference game for both the Revs and the Highlanders, who have been unbeaten at home until Sunday. The Revolutionaries will look to break their losing streak when they face the Duquesne Dukes (5-5-4) Oct. 12 and return to the DMV to face the George Mason Patriots (1-14) Oct. 15.

Water polo falls to Bucknell, collects overtime win against Mount St. Mary’s

KRISTI WIDJAJA REPORTER

SANDRA KORETZ SPORTS EDITOR

Water polo (7-8) fell to Bucknell (8-9) and won in overtime against Mount St. Mary’s (5-14) in a pair of away games Saturday.

After collecting a win against Johns Hopkins and suffering a loss against Navy last weekend, the Revolutionaries survived another split weekend full of MAWPC rivalries. After losing to Bison early Saturday, the Revs later beat the Mountaineers in overtime.

Match 1:

The Revolutionaries previously were unable to defeat MAWPC rival Bucknell during a home game Sept. 23 when they fell 11-13. The two teams competed on the Bisons’ home turf in Lewisburg, Pa. on Saturday, where the Revolutionaries lost 6-8.

Bucknell started with a 3-0 run as the Revs’ defense failed to offer resistance against the Bison offense. However, the game shifted when junior utility Andrija Sekulic and freshman attacker Kai De Orbeta scored for GW, narrowing the Bisons’ lead to one in the first quarter.

Senior center Viktor Jovanovic and De Orbeta led the team with two goals each. In his first season with the Revs, De Orbeta currently sports a 40.63

percent shot percentage while tallying 13 goals thus far.

Senior goalkeeper Luca Castorina recorded nine saves in the game, evening out his 50 percent save percentage. Castorina has acted as the Revs’ lone goalkeeper since his 2020 freshman season.

As the game progressed, both teams kept a tight score as they responded with consecutive goals. Yet the Revolutionaries ultimately fell to the Bison with a final score of 6-8.

Match 2:

The Revs entered their second game of the day with newfound momentum after a loss and a location shift to Emittsburg, Md. Both teams fought tooth and nail while accumulating nine ties throughout the game.

In their first of two season games against Mount Saint Mary’s, the Revs clinched a one-goal win in overtime.

Both teams started the game with strong offense with each team scoring two goals, but the Mountaineers ended the first quarter with a lead of 2-3. The Revs fought harder throughout the second quarter and led 6-5 at halftime.

In the third quarter, the Mountaineers responded stronger, with them leading with the score of 9-8.

“We have given up entirely too many goals in places where we should be controlling the ball,” King said. “So that was a big focus this week and will

be as we move forward. And then, we want to be a little bit more proficient offensively and possess the ball a little bit more inside the shot clock and develop some things rather than be hasty and turn the ball over.”

Despite being down a goal, the Revs scrambled to net five goals through the quarter, leading to a 1313 tie sending the game to overtime.

During overtime, both teams scored once tying the game for a brief moment before Sekulic secured the game-winning goal, ending the match with a final score of 15-14 and concluding the Revs’ twogame losing streak. Similarly to their performance against the Bison earlier in the day, Jovanovic and Sekulic controlled the Revs’ offense. Jovanovic stockpiled five goals and three exclusions while Sekulic amassed four goals, including the game-winning net-in. In addition to Castorina’s nine saves in the earlier game, he recorded 13 saves and two steals against the Mountaineers.

The Revolutionaries will head to the Harvard Invitational Oct. 14 in Providence, Rhode Island, where they will take on Brown at 10:30 a.m. and Iona at 4:30 p.m. They will then travel to Cambridge, Massachusetts Oct. 15 to take on Harvard at 8:30 a.m. and UC Merced at 1:30 p.m.

Senior water polo goalkeeper Luca Castorina’s save percentage in MAWC play.

FILE PHOTO BY MAYA NAIR | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

FILE PHOTO BY TAMARA RUSHBY | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Andrija Sekulic lunges to block an opposing shot. .