Vol-121-Iss-21

HATCHET The GW

Staff Council presses GW for more communication on new promotion, hiring review process

HAILEY PRUNIER

SHEA CARLBERG

The Staff Council sought clarity on the University’s new promotion and hiring approval process in a statement Thursday, writing that staff members are “deeply concerned” about the announcement’s implications.

Officials announced in an email to faculty and staff late last month that GW is adding a “position management review process” to the promotions and hiring process through at least fiscal year 2025 to preserve the University’s “limited” resources as officials brace for potential hits to the University budget from recent executive actions. In response, the council requested that officials clarify what factors they will use to determine if reviews will be approved or delayed and asked them to commit to evaluating “all areas” of GW when attempting to cut costs, including “administrative salaries” and “discretionary spending.”

Officials distributed instructions and communications to each vice president and dean regarding the new position review process to distribute to their staff, according to the council statement. The process

involves a review of new positions, backfills, position changes, reclassifications and student hires and will include the approval of a unit or school leader, as well as a review by Chief Financial Officer Bruno Fernandes, Provost Chris Bracey and Chief of Staff Scott Mory. “Staff have a deep emotional contract with the University,

built on dedication and trust, and we ask that all decisions affecting their livelihood be made with great care and compassion,” the council wrote in its statement. The council wrote that officials indicated the University is in a strong financial position in their announcement of the position management review, but

President Donald Trump’s recent attempt to pause research funding and the Department of Education’s threat to pull funding from any academic institution that considers race in its operations has prompted officials to start taking proactive steps to prevent layoffs.

Federal task force to visit GW, gather information on campus antisemitism: DOJ

A U.S. Department of Justice antisemitism task force on Friday announced it will visit GW and nine other universities that they said have experienced “antisemitic incidents” since the onset of the war in Gaza.

Leading Task Force Member Leo Terrell said in a press release Friday that the task force will meet with University leadership, “impacted” students and staff, local law enforcement and community members before they decide whether “remedial action” is war-

ranted. The announcement comes after GW was one of ten universities accused by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in October of failing to sufficiently discipline pro-Palestinian protesters who violated University policies following an investigation into antisemitism on college campuses.

Six Republican members of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee also visited the pro-Palestinian encampment in University Yard in May, where they called on D.C. officials to arrest protesters involved in the demonstration.

University spokesperson Julia Garbitt said the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division asked to meet with officials to discuss the steps they have taken, and continue to take, to combat antisemitism. She said GW has “long maintained” strong anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies, which officials have articulated in GW’s Code of Conduct and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy. Garbitt also said the University “recently” convened a group of officials and “outside advisors” to consider how GW can address the rise in antisemi-

tism, where officials built on “lessons learned” and discussed how they could lay a foundation for “positive growth.” She said the University has demonstrated public support of GW’s Jewish community, as officials have rejected calls from pro-Palestinian protests for GW to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

She added that the University does not support academic boycotts or other actions called for by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Garbitt said GW has on several occasions “publicly and prominently” condemned acts of anti-

semitism and encouraged members of the community to report incidents and seek support.

The Justice Department created the task force in early February in response to President Donald Trump’s Jan. 30 executive order that directed the DOJ to take “immediate action” to “investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.” A University spokesperson said the task force has not scheduled the meeting yet and officials do not have details about the agenda nor the participants.

Proposed textbook program prompts faculty questions on affordability

GW is considering implementing a flat-fee textbook program next academic year, stirring initial apprehension among faculty members.

Follett ACCESS would provide digital access to course materials, like textbooks, to students for $245 per semester, a University spokesperson said last week. Members of the Faculty Senate Educational Policy and Technology Committee expressed concerns about GW’s possible implementation of the program during its January committee meeting and the senate’s full February meeting, particularly regarding its student-facing costs, potential conflict with the library’s existing resources and the lack of an opt-out feature for professors.

University spokesperson Julia Garbitt said officials have made no final decision about whether the Follett ACCESS program will be carried out at GW because conversations are ongoing. She said the Follett ACCESS program imposes no restrictions on faculty as “all content” can be included and poses “no disruption” to professors’ course plans. The University would automatically enroll all students in the program by default, she said.

She said the course materials included within Follett ACCESS are not limited to just textbooks but also extend to “eBooks, courseware (access codes), physical textbooks and even courserelated supplies/kits.”

Follett ACCESS, would provide digital textbook access on the first day of class for a fixed fee per semester, charging students for course materials under tuition fees with an opt-out option, according to its website. Follett did not return a request for comment.

Students in the Follett ACCESS program at various schools have reduced the cost of their course materials by up to 80 percent, according to its website.

During the Faculty Senate’s February meeting, Sarah Wagner, the cochair of the senate’s EPT Committee, said the committee believed the program would not be an appropriate fit for GW. She said the program “undermines” the libraries’ existing initiatives to deliver educational resources at no or reduced cost to students.

“The Education Policy Committee was pretty clear that we didn’t think it was a good idea, and if that really was going to happen, we felt that the entire senate should be involved in that discussion,” Phil Wirtz, an EPT committee member, said at the meeting.

MFA hires physicians for Cedar Hill hospital amid staffing, outreach concerns

Officials from the Medical Faculty Associates are hiring new physicians amid concerns from local government leaders about the practice’s ability to staff a new hospital due to its financial instability.

Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center GW Health — a $434 million facility set to be staffed by MFA physicians and operated by Universal Health Services, the owner of GW Hospital — will open April 15 as part of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s plan to combat health disparities in wards 7 and 8. MFA officials said they are working to hire new physicians to staff the hospital after D.C. councilmembers expressed worries that the MFA will be unable to meet the hospital staffing obligations since the enterprise requested late last year to renegotiate its contract due to its financial challenges.

City officials chose UHS to own and operate the Cedar Hill hospital in 2020, including staffing the facility with physicians from the MFA, a group of physicians and faculty from the School of Medicine & Health Sciences and physicians at the GW Hospital. In the original agreement, the MFA pledged to staff the hospital with 160 physicians, the Washington Post reported. Sometime around December 2024, the MFA requested that UHS renegotiate its contract due to financial chal-

lenges. The practice has lost $107 million in the last fiscal year.

District and hospital officials held a hearing in December where D.C. councilmembers raised concerns about the MFA’s recent financial losses and Cedar Hill official’s alleged lack of outreach to local health care providers in Ward 8. At the hearing, UHS and Cedar Hill officials indicated that negotiations are ongoing and there is no set date for when the agreement will be final.

MFA spokesperson Anne Banner said the practice continues to “be in discussions” with UHS to ensure the MFA provides services at Cedar Hill on a “costneutral basis” by working to hire more physicians to staff the new hospital.

“The MFA is in the process of hiring physicians and advanced practice providers for the Cedar Hill hospital, and we continue to work in coordination with UHS towards the planned opening in April and for the staffing that will be required over subsequent phases,” Banner said in an email.

Wards 7 and 8, which have a majority Black population, have long faced health disparities due to a lack of quality health care centers. Residents of Ward 8’s life expectancy is 15 years lower than those of Ward 3, the area with the highest life expectancy at 87 years. Residents over the age of 40 east of the Anacostia River are four times more likely to face cost and geographic barriers to accessing health care than those other wards, according to AARP.

Bowser has invested in health care infrastructure in Southeast D.C. the past few years to address these disparities, including opening Cedar Hill hospital and moving D.C. Health headquarters to Ward 8. Banner declined to comment on why the practice requested a renegotiation of the contract. Kimberly Russo, the UHS D.C. region group vice president and the CEO of GW Hospital, said at the December hearing that the MFA was “revising and refining” their professional services agreement “as a result of financial challenges.” Officials from UHS did not return a request for comment on the current status of the negotiations and what they are looking to change in the contract to ensure the MFA is financially protected. At-large D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson, who called the December hearing, said in an interview that she initiated the hearing because she was concerned about the Cedar Hill hospital officials not reaching out to community health care providers in wards 7 and 8.

ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR The entrance of the Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center GW Health in Ward 8

HANNAH MARR NEWS EDITOR

ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR

Staff Council President Kim Fulmer at a Board of Trustees meeting in February

JENNA LEE ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

NIDHI NAIR REPORTER

Researchers ‘despondent’ over threat of Trump’s sweeping federal research cuts

JENNA LEE ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

Researchers at GW said President Donald Trump’s efforts to slash federally funded research last month have put their studies in a state of limbo.

The National Institutes of Health — which reported spending $32 billion on research grants to universities, medical schools and other research institutions in fiscal year 2024 — said early last month that it would cap coverage for universities’ overhead and administrative costs at 15 percent — down from an average of roughly 30 percent. As the University joins a lawsuit against the NIH in response to the cuts, GW researchers said the culture of uncertainty created by the looming funding cuts has lowered morale, disrupted ongoing projects and stalled applications for new research to receive grants.

The proposed cuts — which a federal judge temporarily blocked last month — come after a flurry of executive actions by Trump’s administration aimed at higher education research funding, including a directive flagging research grants with words like “diversity” and “trans” and a memo blocking public announcements of grant review meetings.

Mark Edberg — a professor of prevention and community health who has two NIH-funded projects — said despite the lack of immediate halts in funding, uncertainty will directly affect research on health outcomes in communities, like his work regarding Indigenous populations, since researchers cannot guarantee the people they are working with that their research will continue to be funded.

In FY2024, the NIH spent $9 billion on “indirect” funding for research grants, which covered costs of maintaining laboratories, administrative staffing, utility bills and other overhead expenses that researchers said are essential to keep projects running. GW tallied 126 NIH grants in FY2024 totaling $79 million and would lose an estimated $10 million in research funding from the cuts.

University President Ellen Granberg and other officials said on Feb. 11 the cuts were “arbitrary and capricious” and would strip students of “valuable learning opportunities.” About 82 percent of GW research funding can be attributed to federal sources in FY2024.

A cohort of local and regional firefighters graduated from a revived School of Medicine & Health Sciences paramedic program last month.

Twenty-three EMT firefighters in the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, Arlington County Fire and Manassas Fire and Rescue departments participated in a nearly 10-month paramedic training program that began last April, providing firefighters with the necessary skills to handle advanced medical emergencies and provide life-saving care before a patient arrives at the hospital. Faculty who led and designed the program, which hadn’t previously run since 2007, said its revamp fills the void of professional paramedics and training in the D.C. area.

Gretchen Wills, the program’s director, said officials divided the curriculum into miniature courses on preparatory topics in human body

and systems, pharmacology, airway management, cardiology and medicine. She said students also did a collective thousands of hours of clinical rotations in the emergency, labor and delivery, psychiatric, pediatric and trauma surgery departments at GW Hospital, Children’s National Hospital and United Medical Center.

“It’s really elevating current, existing EMS providers and firefighters to that next level of patient care, and so now we’re turning people who were trained as technicians to be actual medical, critical thinking clinicians,” Wills said.

She said students received training on hazardous material response, scene safety, awareness of crime scenes, terrorism and disaster response. Wills said students constantly gained real-world experience by responding to 911 calls in the last six to seven weeks of the program, which served as a capstone field internship where students were the acting paramedics on dispatch-

Edberg said the University’s decision to join the lawsuit against the NIH was a “no-brainer” because researchers will be unable to continue their work with the possibility of disruptions and uncertainty over the future of funding. There is no immediate impact of the indirect funding cuts due to the temporary block, he said, but many researchers at GW are still concerned that federal agencies will flag their research as relating to DEI.

“There’s a lot of consternation, a lot of concern over the future of the research enterprise and even with the grants that I have, as well as with grants that other people have, we do not know the long-term picture for those grants,” Edberg said.

CRIME LOG

DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY/VANDALISM

Potomac House

2/23/25 – 8:30 p.m.

Closed Case

GW Police Department officers responded to a report of property destruction. Upon arrival, GWPD made contact with male students who deconstructed the door handle on their neighbor’s bathroom door.

Referred to Division of Conflict Education and Student Accountability.

SIMPLE ASSAULT

Off Campus

2/24/25 – 5:15 p.m.

Closed Case A female student reported that an unknown male subject had assaulted her at an intersection near campus.

Referred to the Metropolitan Police Department.

DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY/VANDALISM

Hall of Government

2/25/25 – Unknown Date and Time

Open Case

A faculty member reported vandalism to the exterior of their office door after someone tore down their posters and replaced them with a different poster. Case Open.

—Compiled by Ella Mitchell

District advocates say Trump’s DC oversight proposals will not mitigate encampments, crime

President Donald Trump threatened to issue an executive order to crack down on unhoused encampments and graffiti and ramp up penalties for certain crimes in D.C. last month, another move to increase federal oversight over the District that community leaders said could exacerbate existing issues.

Trump soon will sign an order to clear encampments, clean graffiti and harshen punishments for violent and petty crimes in the District, the Washington Post reported on Feb. 10. Since taking office, during his 2024 campaign and during his first term, the president has also expressed support for repealing D.C.’s self-governing power, also known as home rule, over critiques of the local government’s handling of crime and homelessness.

The D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973 established D.C.’s right to self-governance or “home rule,” which permitted the District to elect a mayor and a 13-member council. Under the Home Rule Act, Congress reviews all legislation passed by the D.C. Council and has the power to pass or overturn the legislation.

On Feb. 6, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Andrew Ogles (R-TN) in-

es with an instructor supervising them.

She said the program’s main goal was to create more minimum entry-level adequate paramedic candidates to resolve the shortage of paramedics in D.C. and surrounding areas. Fourtyone percent of part-time and thirty-five percent of fulltime paramedic positions were vacant nationwide in 2024, according to a study by the American Ambulance Association.

“It was sort of like a very systematic prep to get existing EMT and firefighters in D.C., in Arlington and in Manassas, to go to that next level of certification, and again, to fill that desperate, high need for health care in the city,” Wills said. Kat Ogle, an associate professor of emergency medicine, said GW’s original paramedic program began in 1986 due to concerns about the care patients were getting from EMTs, paramedics and first responders in D.C. She said the program shut down in 2007 due to restructuring

troduced a bill which, if passed, would repeal the District’s home rule. Though Trump endorsed the idea on Feb. 19, the bill faces steep odds even with Republican control of Congress because it would need some Democratic support to surpass a filibuster — or a 60-vote supermajority — in the Senate and a unified Republican front.

Bowser said in a press conference Feb. 20 that she and the president have “shared priorities” to address crime and homelessness in D.C. Her approach to crime aligns with some of Trump’s rhetoric of law and order on his campaign trails, including rolling back drug-free zones, increasing pretrial detention and stiffer penalties for illegal possession of firearms.

“We will brief the president, give him the facts and work with him cooperatively,” Bowser said at the press conference.

Trump emphasized the need to clear up unhoused encampments in anticipation of visits from leaders of foreign countries, like French President Emmanuel Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this week. About 9,774 individuals are experiencing homelessness in the District, according to a Point in Time count in January 2024.

National Coalition for the Homeless Executive Director Donald White-

head said D.C has seen an increase in homelessness and homeless encampments in recent years. Rising housing costs, lack of affordable housing and financial insecurity all contribute to increasing rates of homelessness, according to the Greater Washington Community Foundation.

Whitehead said encampment raids are not the solution to homelessness, which lies in affordable housing and determining the underlying need of people experiencing homelessness.

Federal prosecutors appointed by the president could also increase prosecution of certain crimes or pursue harsher penalties. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. shares limited prosecuting power with the U.S. Attorney Office, and most violent offenses committed by adults in the District are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney Office.

Keith Wallington — the director of advocacy at the Justice Policy Institute — said Trump should tackle criminal justice reform by addressing poverty, focusing on community investments in mental health, education and housing services and combating food deserts. In his first term as president, Trump backed more aggressive national initiatives to bolster police forces and mitigate homelessness by banning encampments.

GW ranks among DC top employers, absent from top taxpayers: city report

RYAN SAENZ REPORTER

GW maintained its spot as one of the District’s top employers and has again not ranked among the District’s top taxpayers or tax-exempt property owners for the thirdconsecutive year, according to a 2024 financial report.

GW ranked as the fourth-largest employer in the city — a spot it has maintained since 2022 — and remained off the lists of top property taxpayers and tax-exempt property owners for the third-consecutive year, according to D.C.’s 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report released late last month. Tax experts said it’s common for universities like GW, which have property tax exemptions in D.C., to be absent from the list of top property taxpayers and to be top employers.

The University has also been absent from the list of top 10 taxexempt property owners since 2022, per the report. All universities are exempt from paying property taxes in D.C. on buildings used for higher education purposes, according to the District tax code.

GW is the top private property owner in the District, but most of the University’s properties fall under the tax exemption, including its residence halls, gym and parking lots, absolving GW from paying about $27 million in property taxes in fiscal year 2024.

Steven Teitelbaum, a professor of finance and real estate at American University, said GW’s absence from the list of the District’s top taxpayers is not surprising because the University may own many properties, but most are tax-exempt, so GW does not pay taxes on the majority of its properties.

“It doesn’t matter how much property a university owns or how valuable it is, a university is exempt from real estate taxes in D.C.,” Teitelbaum said in an email. “I doubt that you will find GU, American,

Howard, Hopkins, Catholic, etc., all of which own sizable and valuable real estate, on the list of top real estate taxpayers either.”

About 30 percent of GW’s real estate portfolio consists of fully taxed properties, like commercial real estate spaces and office buildings, according to the D.C. Real Property Tax Administration. In fiscal year 2023, GW made more than $47 million in rental property income.

The University purchased the building at 2001 Pennsylvania Avenue in November for $35 million and acquired the off-campus apartment complex Residences on the Avenue in February 2024 for $140 million.

Some lots that GW owns are taxed, whether fully or partially, according to the Real Property Tax

Administration, like if the building houses both educational and commercial uses. Ten properties that GW owns are partially taxed, like Shenkman Hall and the Media and Public Affairs building. Other properties, like 2200 Pennsylvania Ave., are fully taxed.

Teitelbaum said if an already tax-exempt property is used for non-tax-exempt reasons, like for commercial use, the District may begin to partially tax the property. Mitchell Hall was GW’s only property that was fully exempt from taxes in 2023 to become partially exempt in 2024, according to the Real Property Tax Administration.

“If an otherwise exempt property is used in part for a non-exempt purpose, or if a property is owned in part by a non-exempt entity, then the property would be only par-

Panhellenic Association petitions for FSL housing policy change

Members of the Panhellenic Association penned a petition last week urging GW to allow students with disability-related accommodations to live in Greek townhouses without placing hefty fi nes on chapters.

Fraternity and sorority members criticized the Office of Student Life’s enforcement of a policy last semester that requires 95 percent of rooms to be filled in chapters’ townhouses — a rule that doesn’t count single rooms granted to students with Disability Student Services accommodations as fully occupied. Panhel Vice President Charlotte McCourt said she started the petition Feb. 19, which has since garnered more than 380 signatures as of Sunday night, as a “jumping off point” to change the policy in future housing contracts.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of members from different chapters who’ve been saying they would love to live in the house,” McCourt said. “It’s their dream, but they can’t because of their accommodation.” If fraternities and sororities don’t meet the 95 percent requirement, individual chapters have to pay the price of leftover rooms, which amounts to $6,910 for each empty bed, according to Campus Living & Residential Education’s housing rates.

McCourt, a sophomore, said the petition aims to demonstrate to CLRE that members of Greek life are “united” against the housing policy and to encourage the University to change the policy for future housing contracts, as the current contract expires in 2027.

“When the new contract is being signed, they can take this into account and know not to implement this policy because it is highly ableist and discriminatory,” McCourt said.

She said some chapters, including her own, Sigma Delta Tau, require its executive board members to reside in the chapter townhouse to facilitate teamwork, but members with accommodations opt to live in alternative housing

top employers is expected.

“Think about universities as providing not only classrooms but bedrooms and cafeterias, you are housing and feeding thousands of students on top of educating them. The workforce that’s required to execute those responsibilities demands just large numbers of workers,” Bruckner said.

Brian Galle, a professor of tax policy at Georgetown University, said GW’s property tax exemption can have both positive and negative impacts on Foggy Bottom. He said the tax exemptions allow GW to “make more of an investment” in the neighborhood, which is beneficial for other residents in Foggy Bottom but could drive up neighborhood property prices.

The average home in Foggy Bottom costs $379,480, down 1.6 percent over the past year, according to the Zillow Home Values Index. Search site Apartment List named Foggy Bottom the District’s most expensive neighborhood in a 2016 report.

tially tax-exempt,” Teitelbaum said. According to the report, GW has maintained its position as the fourth-largest employer in the District, behind two hospitals — Children’s National Medical Center and Washington Hospital Center — and Georgetown University. GW Hospital is also on the list as the District’s thirteenth-largest employer for the second straight year.

Caroline Bruckner, a professor at the Kogod School of Business at AU, said GW and other universities in the District have high employment because the University employs an “army” of people. GW employed more than 2,400 faculty members as of 2023, according to the most current faculty and staff data. Bruckner said universities typically have a “massive workforce” so being one of the District’s

KRIS PARK | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Panhellenic Association President Anastasia Adams and Executive

President Charlotte McCourt pose for a portrait in front of Townhouse Row on 23rd Street.

because of the policy and miss out on collaborating in their “shared space.”

“This policy is going to override that and that will further take away people from our community,” McCourt said.

McCourt said student life officials changed the policy last semester to require 95 percent of beds be filled as opposed to individual rooms, requiring a majority of the rooms to house two members.

“So that means that each house can only have maybe one single, and that’s not fair to have that, like everyone with DSS accommodation fighting for one single,” McCourt said.

University spokesperson Julia Garbitt said student life officials and CLRE work with each Greek chapter to assist them in meeting their occupancy requirements.

Garbitt said there are no limitations on how many single bedrooms groups can allocate in their space but said the leases state that each group has to meet the required occupancy or pay GW the difference in cost.

Garbitt said the University’s priority is to support students in navigating their housing policies and ensuring individuals’ needs are met.

“We encourage all student groups to have proactive conversations with their organizations to discuss ways that they can be innovative in supporting individual members’ needs and interests while also fulfilling the obligations of their lease in a way that best benefits their overall membership,” Garbitt said in an email.

Panhel President Anastasia Adams said the

University’s policy on single accommodations in campus townhouses is “discriminatory” as it prevents them from living among their Greek communities.

“I respect GW and its policies, but I also respect my fellow students and feel it is of my utmost responsibility as Panhellenic president to advocate for anyone who is being personally impacted by this policy,” Adams said in a message.

Adams, the housing manager for Chi Omega, said some chapter presidents and housing managers met with GW officials to discuss their concerns in late October, but she said no progress was made. She added that she hasn’t been able to reopen the discussion due to the lack of a person of contact.

Adams said her chapter won’t have any single bedrooms in its townhouse on Townhouse Row in the next academic year because it can’t afford to pay for the almost $7,000 fi ne for each empty bed.

She added that each chapter is responsible for paying their own fi nes and that she hasn’t heard any plans from the University on assisting chapters fi nancially. She said some chapters have previously asked their national organizations for fi nancial assistance in paying for empty rooms.

“I realize that GW loses money from having only one person in a double room but denying someone with a disability the ability to live with their closest friends in a community they actively chose to be a part of is morally wrong,” Adams said in a message.

“A tax exemption has enabled GW to make more of an investment in its neighborhood, and that you know that it has had beneficial effects for its neighbors because there are more amenities and more development,” Galle said.

The District’s top property taxpayers consisted mostly of limited liability companies, a type of private company, linked to different addresses. The 1100 15th Street LLC has been the top property taxpayer in the District since 2022.

Galle also said real estate investment companies will hold their real estate assets in LLCs for different tax and legal purposes. He said the LLCs protect the company from legal liability, and it's “typical” for LLCs to manage an entire property.

“Usually, real estate investment companies hold their real estate assets through this legal entity, either a corporation or an LLC, for a combination of tax and other legal reasons,” Galle said.

Ward 2 official questions DC agency on West End power outage communication

Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto probed into the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency’s emergency response communication at an oversight hearing Tuesday, days after a two-day power outage left thousands in West End without heat and electricity.

Pinto said the West End community received little communication from the District government during the more than 40 hours residents went without power due to an underground fire, which sparked the outage at about 4 a.m. on Feb. 21. Clint Osborn, director of the HSEMA, said at the hearing that officials followed crisis communication protocol, sending a notification via AlertDC, the virtual D.C. communication system, at 5:17 p.m., per the organization’s policy.

Pinto said at the hearing that at 4 p.m. on Feb. 21, 12 hours after the neighborhood lost power, Pepco told her that they were confident that power would not be restored that evening, but D.C. officials didn’t provide an update to the public. She said she visited The Aston, an unhoused shelter on New Hampshire Avenue and a former GW dorm, 10 minutes after to tell shelter staff that the power outage would stretch through the night, and the staff hadn’t been able to reach the Department of Human Services to craft a plan to temporarily relocate The Aston’s

residents. She said she called the deputy mayor and interim director of DHS, who she said were both very responsive, to coordinate locations for The Aston’s residents to sleep.

“It worried me that the information was already available at that stage, that the power had already been out for 12 hours,” Pinto said. “Some of the residents were out of the building that day and were told to go to the Downtown Day Services Center or other locations, the staff and security was there wearing blankets, freezing, it was a freezing day, and there was still no communication and no plan in place.”

AlertDC notifies the public of traffic conditions, government closures, public safety incidents and severe weather, according to HSEMA’s site. HSEMA assists the mayor’s office in “emergency” situations, the site states.

The D.C. Fusion Center, which provides situational awareness and strategic analysis of regional threats and hazards, sends out emergency alerts to the community through AlertDC, the official District communications system. AlertDC provides the public with critical information in situations, like traffic conditions, government closures, public safety incidents and severe weather.

Pepco workers responded to an underground fire at New Hampshire Avenue and M Street at about 4 a.m. on Friday morning, Pepco said in an email to local

governing body leaders. By about 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Pepco posted that power had been restored to “all” customers impacted in West End but followed up with a post stating that “a few customers” remained connected to temporary generators. The oversight hearing comes after local officials called for increased communication, especially for renters who might not have direct contact with Pepco. Alex Marshall, a commissioner for Dupont Circle’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission, said constituents didn’t know the extent of the outage because there was no centralized communication from D.C. officials, with the exception of Pinto who chronicled updates from West End on X, formerly known as Twitter. Osborn said the outage was a “pretty typical isolated incident,” and HSEMA officials responded per protocol, which he said is to support identified populations with vulnerability. Osborn said HSEMA is able to support renters.

Osborn said HSEMA officials helped DHS relocate tenants of The Aston to locations with power because the tenants were identified as having a known vulnerability.

“Most of the residents of The Aston were transported to hotels and temporary housing and all have since been returned to The Aston once the power was restored on Sunday morning,” Samantha Manning, a communication director for Pinto, said in an email.

BROOKE FORGETTE

CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR

ELLA MITCHELL CONTRIBUTING NEWS EDITOR

ARWEN CLEMANS

GRAPHIC BY JOSHUA HONG

GSEHD dean to step down in July after 10 years in the role

Graduate School of Education and Human Development Dean Michael Feuer will step down from his position on July 1, according to a University release.

Feuer, who has served as dean since 2010, will remain in the school as a tenured professor. Feuer said he is stepping away from the role to spend time to focus on a project that incorporates civic education into teacher preparation programs as outlined in his recent book “Can Schools Save Democracy?” according to the release.

“GSEHD is a beacon of light for the role of evidence in education, and I am honored to have led such a splendid team of professionals striving to make a difference in the complex ecology of teaching, learning and human development,” Feuer said in the release.

During his tenure, Feuer helped develop and launch the school’s doctoral program and concentrations, launched a dual degree partnership with Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University and helped double the school’s endowment to $6.5 million, according to the release.

While he was dean, GSEHD launched a mas -

ter’s program in Jewish education in 2018 and a center for Jewish education in 2024. In 2023, the school began a special education apprenticeship initiative with Alexandria Public Schools and an equity-centered leadership program for D.C. Public School teachers.

Feuer co-chaired the committee that recommended the University adopt test-optional admissions for undergraduate students in 2015, which GSEHD later adopted.

In 2014, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to the National Board for Education Sciences.

Provost Chris Bracey said in the release that Feuer has been a “steady and trusted” leader of the school while leading it through strategic initiatives, thinking about the changing nature of the field of education and providing historical knowledge.

“I look forward to his continued partnership and advancement of educational initiatives as a member of the GSEHD faculty,” Bracey said in the release.

The University will release information about interim leadership at GSEHD when it becomes available, according to the release.

“Dean Feuer has brought dedication, experience and innovation to his role, ensuring that the GW community is inclusive, resilient and prepared for the future, and I am grateful he will continue to contribute his expertise as a member of our faculty,” University President Granberg said in the release.

Titilola Harley, chair of GSEHD’s National Council for Education and Human Development, said Feuer has led the school to implement new programs and form local and national partnerships.

“Although there is no shortage of successes that could be mentioned, the hallmark of his legacy — and what I believe his council, administration, faculty and students will miss the most — is the people-centered culture he has fostered within the school,” Harley said in the release.

Feuer previously served as an assistant professor at Drexel University from 1981 to 1986, a senior analyst at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment from 1986 to 1993 and the Executive Director of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education National Academy of Sciences from 1993 to 2010, according to his LinkedIn.

South Asian Heritage Celebration honors ancestors, embraces tradition

SAMUEL PEREZ REPORTER

Student groups kicked off a monthlong celebration honoring South Asian traditions and values last week.

The South Asian Heritage Celebration co-chairs Anoushka Chopra and Adyant Patnaik centered the annual program around the theme “Echoes of the Past: Unveiling Ancient Wisdom,” with events for students to uplift the various South Asian cultures and their personal upbringings. Chopra said the theme encourages students to embrace the “nostalgia” of the lessons and wisdom passed down from their ancestors.

Chopra, a sophomore studying international affairs, said this year and last year’s theme — Once Upon a Time: Weaving the Threads of Tradition, Diversity and Resilience — are similar because they’re both rooted in storytelling, which she said is a “huge” part of South Asian culture.

“Storytelling and embracing our past do really go hand in hand because you’re learning from the stories you were told, as well as kind of creating your own stories,” Chopra said.

During a kick-off event of SAHC, the South Asian Society hosted an event with tarot card readings, hair oiling and mehndi — decorative body art using Henna paste — called “Masala and Chill” last Friday. Chopra said SAS incorporated Ayurvedic practices, an ancient Indian medical system using natural and holistic approaches to mental and physical health, into the event because they are commonly used daily as forms of self care.

Chopra said SAS is hosting “Nostalgia Night” in Anniversary Park on March 22, where students will tend to a bonfire and encourage attendees to write letters to their past or future selves.

Chopra said hosting a monthlong celebration like SAHC is a form of “resistance” against efforts to cease diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, mainly carried out by President Donald Trump’s executive orders. Trump has vowed to end federal DEI programs

and cut funding for universities that use “racial preferences” as a deciding factor in hiring, admissions and financial aid.

“We want to show you that you can’t get rid of us,” Chopra said. “You can’t try and get rid of us through these anti-DEI measures.”

Patnaik, a sophomore studying political science, said critics often dilute South Asian cultures into one and that SAHC highlights how many South Asian countries share cultural aspects, like fashion, dance and cuisine, but also have their own unique traits.

SAS hosted a South Asian Fashion Show on Saturday at Columbian Square in the University Student Center. SAS and the GW Fashion Business Association organized the venue by rearranging the lounge’s chairs to form the runway.

The outfits showcased included fusions of Western and South Asian fashions with some being fully traditional with saris, long tunics and lehengas, others being more Western with South Asian touches by pairing lehengas with casual clothing items like button up shirts and others being a mix of both. The lineup was ordered according to colors, beginning with warm, bright colors and ending with cool darks.

Patnaik added that the show had about 20 models from different South Asian backgrounds to highlight their individual fashion trends.

Patnaik said the fashion show demonstrated his view that South Asian culture is not a “monolith” — it showed a cross-cultural celebration of the diverse cultures of South Asia. The Indian Students As-

SGA, Center for Career Services expand panels at annual career fair

The Student Government Association collaborated with the Center for Career Services last week to hold its annual spring Career Expo, with expanded panels, tables and opportunities to interact with alumni.

Demetrius Apostolis, a senior and the expo’s executive director, said about 2,400 students registered to attend the Expo prior to Friday’s fair, which hosted 47 employers from federal agencies, technology companies and engineering corporations. He said this year, the Expo added an alumni brunch, panels with professionals from political fields and student support tables to grow student participation in the Expo’s events.

This year, the Expo team expanded the event to hold a career fair biannually, adding a fall fair to address student concerns about a lack of STEM jobs represented at the event in previous years and invite STEM employers to both events. Attendance at the September Expo nearly doubled, reaching 2,000 attendees compared to 1,100 participants last February.

“Having students know when this event is, having it continue to have a reputation so that people know how to prepare for the job search is so much more important,” Apostolis said.

Apostolis said the expo’s student leadership team and the Center for Career Services began planning this year’s expo as soon as last year’s ended. He said they responded to student feedback — collected through forms after last semester’s expo — by expanding the expo to twice a year and furthering outreach to student organizations through posts to the expo and SGA Instagram.

Apostolis said this year’s expo featured a table where SGA senators from the Mental Health Assem-

bly — an SGA committee aimed at raising awareness of mental health resources on campus — helped students stressed by the pressure of speaking to employers by playing games and walking them through the process of interacting with employees.

“We realized that students find it very stressful sometimes the day of, and we’ve seen students that were not comfortable going to the expo,” Apostolis said.

Apostolis said students expressed interest in working on Capitol Hill in their feedback, which led the team to add the “Working on the Hill” panel on Thursday, which featured alumni who had experience working as campaign researchers and committee staffers in the House of Representatives.

The “Search Strategies for International Students” panel held Wednesday in the University Student Center included international GW alumni Yan Xu and John Yang, who advised international students on how to network and navigate visa sponsorship restrictions.

Apostolis said international students had expressed struggling to find jobs last year, which led the expo to add the panel.

Paige McLean — a university relations manager from Interstride, an online resource designed to assist international students through aggregate listings for “international-friendly” jobs — presented a demo Thursday about how to use the free platform. McLean said the GW Interstride page is now available to students to start the job discovery process. McLean advised international students to use the platform to find alternative job opportunities in the event that they don’t receive their first choice, citing personal experiences as an international student when her employer rejected her H-1B — a visa that allows foreign workers to work in the United States for up to six years — her first day in the role. “If I didn’t find something within that time frame, I would techni-

sociation hosted an art exhibition at the GW Textile Museum Friday titled the “Stranger Project,” which featured a table of poems about being South Asian in the United States and South Asian art.

“The push and pull of being Indian and American is sometimes too much. I’m afraid I’ll never have a true home,” one note on display read.

The Pakistani Student Association hosted its annual Mock Shaadi — a “fake wedding” featuring music and dance performances celebrating South Asian culture — around the theme “A Road to Saamal,” nodding to the bride and groom.

Shahaan Bashir, the president of PSA and a senior studying international business, said two students volunteered to get married on a stage adorned with a rug, sofa and backdrop with curtains, flowers and lanterns to start the event in the student center Grand Ballroom. Student groups, like GW Chamak, GW Bhangra and the Indian Students Association, performed dances at the wedding along with PSA board members, he added.

Bashir said the organization decided to host Mock Shaadi two months earlier than previous years to allow students to rest during Ramadan, which commenced Saturday.

Bashir said having university-wide celebrations like SAHC allows students to connect with their community and culture when acclimating to college.

“I think, personally, why it’s so important is that it gives you the opportunity to see outside the bubble that you grew up in,” Bashir said.

cally be deported,” McLean said. “So I found something, COVID hit seven months later and that role was cut, so then on that current visa I had 90 days to find a solution.”

Mashrur Wasek, an international graduate student from Bangladesh who attended the expo, said he noticed an increase in the number of employers who said they were willing to hire international students, as compared to expos he attended in previous years.

“I don’t have any connections in America because it is my first time here,” Wasek said. “These sort of events help me network, so more of this will help expand my network in the long run.”

Lanna Megerdichian, a junior majoring in international business, said she was disappointed by the lack of employment sectors represented at Friday’s fair, specifically in the marketing field. She said

some employers “rejected” her because she was not the major they were looking for, and she wished there had been more tables catered to students with interests in social media and marketing. The expo’s page on Handshake shows about 16 results for employers who were present at the fair and were open to hiring marketing majors specifically.

“I talked to a few tables, and they wouldn’t even consider me as an applicant because I wasn’t a certain major,” Megerdichian said.

Veronica Simpson, a graduate student majoring in Asian studies, said the employers at the expo did not align completely with her career goals in culture studies, but she still wanted to participate in the fair for general networking opportunities. “I feel like Asian studies is already kind of a niche major in its

own, so when I was looking at the employers, there’s some possibilities but nothing that I really had a desire for,” Simpson said. “But I wanted to come out and see what could come from this opportunity and maybe find something that actually suits me.”

Renee Wellman — the executive director of Green Corps, an organization that offers one-year grassroots community organizing training to recent college graduates — said the expo is a crucial part of recruitment for her organization because it helps employees interact with the applicant pool in person.

“I think it’s really important to talk to people face-to-face,” Wellman said. “This is especially important for Green Corps because we’re a pretty unique program. I think being able to answer questions is a really critical part of our recruitment strategy.”

COOPER TYKSINSKI | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Students wait in line to speak with a representative for Canadian consulting firm WSP.

NICHOLAS WARE | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Sophomore Amari Sharma walks in the South Asian Fashion Show.

Former World Bank executive talks career, ‘outdated’ global foreign aid model

The former World Bank country director discussed her experiences in Myanmar and how they exemplify the broader shortcomings of global aid distribution at the Elliott School of International Affairs Thursday.

In a discussion hosted by the Leadership, Ethics and Practice Initiative, Ellen Goldstein, whose work at the World Bank primarily focused on Myanmar, shared her experience leading the World Bank’s foreign aid efforts and highlighted how her experiences expose flaws in current foreign aid models. Goldstein said the popularized foreign aid model

is outdated and governmentcentric, which makes it difficult for countries to allocate sufficient attention and funding to global challenges, like climate change, pandemics and large-scale refugee crises.

On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump and his administration moved to halt funding to foreign aid programs through the U.S. Agency for International Development and placed thousands of the agency’s workers on leave or laid them off entirely, sparking concern and protest across the country.

Goldstein said she arrived in Myanmar in 2017 as the country transitioned to democracy under Aung San Suu Kyi and the

National League for Democracy.

Goldstein said power remained split between the civilian government and the military, which enabled the military to commit human rights violations, including torturing and forcibly displacing minority groups, like the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in Rakhine State.

Goldstein said Myanmar had qualified for $200 million in budget support from the World Bank on April 27, 2017, by improving financial systems and increas

ing investments in health and education. She said she froze the funds over concerns they could indirectly support the military government.

Goldstein said Myanmar is

an example of the broader shortcomings of how the aid is distributed around the world today. Goldstein said the state of foreign aid under the Trump administration was shifting, particularly in the wake of his decision to dismantle USAID.

The Trump administration in January began dismantling USAID by terminating over 90 percent of its foreign aid contracts, closing its headquarters.

Goldstein said the Trump administration is going to “smash everything” as it relates to the current foreign aid models today. She said that in time the United States will need soft power from foreign aid models and the U.S. will recreate new models.

Experts debate state of global illiberalism

ADELAIDE PETRAS

REPORTER

Scholars of illiberalism — the political doctrine opposing deregulation, progressive governments and personal liberties — discussed the fate of the liberal ideology at the Elliott School of International Affairs on Friday.

Patrick Deneen, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and Sam Moyn, a professor of law and history at Yale University, discussed illiberalism and post-liberal society, drawing upon examples of infringements on freedoms like free speech and decreased respect for democracy. The event was hosted by the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies and moderated by Marlene Laruelle, the director of the Illiberalism Studies Program.

Deneen said there is an inherent bias in the term illiberalism as the prefix “il” designates the concept as negative. He said the topic is relevant as he believes today’s society is post-liberal, meaning it has embraced practices that are antithetical to liberalism, like censorship.

Deneen said liberalism has been on the decline because of its own internal flaws as liberal democracies begun to practice censorship and threaten religious freedoms.

“The high water mark of liberalism has passed, it seems to me, and it’s unlikely to come back in the same form, much to the chagrin of those who are in a kind of 90’s nostalgia,” Deneen said.

Deneen said if governments embrace a “mixed constitution” with elements of different types of government, like a democracy with elements of a monarchy or aristocracy, it could delay the failure of liberalism.

“The greatest threat to liberty to date, arguably, does not come from an external threat of Russia or Hungary or China, even, if one wishes, in some ways to say there is a great illiberal threat in the West,” Deneen said. “But it comes internally from liberalism itself, or from the dynamics of liberalism in the advanced Western liberal democracies.”

Deneen also said he takes issue with illiberalism studies programs as they favor left-wing perspectives. He said universities are ideologically homogeneous and pointed to 98 percent of GW employees’ political donations going to Democratic campaigns in 2024.

Hiring review announcement evokes pandemic-era layoff anxieties: staff

The council wrote that the announcement left many staff members feeling anxious because officials sent it late Friday afternoon, meaning staff had the weekend to ruminate on how the policy change might affect them. The statement also raised concern about the email appearing to mirror language the University sent to faculty and staff during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when officials temporarily froze hiring.

“The vague language in the email raised alarms about potential job cuts, especially given the University’s past handling of layoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic and the layoffs in the federal government that significantly affect many of our staff,” the council’s Thursday statement

reads.

Officials said in March 2020 that the University was in a “strong financial position” but that officials were suspending all hiring to ensure GW had enough funding to maintain daily operations as COVID-19 cases rose.

Officials in last week’s email said GW’s financial position “remains strong” but that officials must take steps to “anticipate difficulties” that lie ahead and avoid “significant disruptions” to the community and GW’s stability. Officials also said in the email that the added review process was not a hiring freeze.

In its statement, the council requested that officials distribute communications and processes affecting all staff at the University level instead of depending on “trickle-down communication” to schools and divi-

Henderson said since the December hearing, there has been “movement” among Cedar Hill officials regarding community outreach, and the hospital has hired a human resource official to communicate with local health care providers and residents in those wards.

Henderson said she had spoken to health care providers in wards 7 and 8 last year who were not aware that the hospital was opening in the spring. She said the hospital must work to re-establish trust with the communities in those wards that have felt failed by the health care system for years.

“The District government has invested a lot of money into the build of this new facility, and it would be criminal for us to have spent $400 million for folks still not to go to that hospital because they don’t believe that they’re going to receive good care,” Henderson said.

She said the MFA needs to allocate its physicians between GW Hospital in Foggy Bottom and Cedar Hill locations and that UHS and hospital officials may need to build relationships with community providers in wards 7 and 8 to help provide additional

sions. Staff councilmembers asked how officials will evaluate positions as “critical,” as well as the measures they are considering beyond “targeting staff positions.”

They requested that officials work with council representatives, managers and departments to form a plan to address increased workloads due to unfilled positions, including potential restructuring, removal of services provided and additional compensation for added responsibilities. The council reported in August that staff were feeling burnout due to heavy workloads and inadequate job training.

“We ask that the University approach future budgetary and staff considerations with care and understanding that staff are already facing burnout due to years of being short staffed and with understanding that the student

staffing if the MFA falls short.

UHS did not return a request for comment on how the MFA will meet its staffing requirements and UHS’s potential outreach to community health providers and residents of wards 7 and 8.

“Do I feel like MFA has enough providers to make that happen? Maybe,” Henderson said. “In some cases, I do feel like they’re going to have to augment some services with community providers who can also be there to help and support.” Henderson she has reached out to MFA and GW officials since the hearing in December, but they have been “quiet” about sharing their plans with the D.C. Council.

The Cedar Hill hospital will also provide maternal health care, which residents east of the Anacostia River have lacked for years.

Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services Wayne Turnage, who also attended the December hearing, said in an interview that the UHS-MFA partnership to operate the hospital will allow patients to access an “integrated system of care” from Cedar Hill providers and providers at other hospitals that UHS runs. He said the MFA has assured the city that its financial troubles

experience is directly tied to our ability to serve students well,” they wrote.

The council also invited University leaders to an upcoming council meeting to further discuss the University’s financial concerns and also asked officials to host a town hall with the council, so staff can speak directly with administrators. The council will meet next on March 18 at 11 a.m. on Zoom.

University spokesperson Shannon McClendon said Trump’s recent executive orders, related guidance and memos fostered an “uncertain environment,” which prompted the University to add the step of position management review.

McClendon said officials “provided guidance” to finance directors and human resources officials to ensure that hirings proceed in a timely manner and to retain

community members critical to advancing the University. McClendon declined to comment on what specific financial concerns led to officials’ decision.

A University spokesperson said officials notified GW’s Leader Forum — which includes leaders from both the academic and administrative members of the University — in advance of the announcement.

Staff Council Staff Development & Recognition Chair Allene David said staff understand recent government actions have caused uncertainty for many industries, including higher education, but many wished officials had discussed the changes with staff.

She said staff would be concerned about hiring and promotion changes regardless of how they received the information but would rather

be “anxious” but informed. David said the council learned of the review process through the same email as all other community members. She said Chief People Officer Sabrina Minor alerted the council that an announcement was coming, but she didn’t share a timeline or details. Many staff were “surprised” and upset that officials sent out the email at 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon, leaving them with concerns about their job security for two days, she said. David said given the University’s location in D.C., many staff are very aware of Trump and Elon Musk’s purge of America’s federal bureaucracy, which has resulted in thousands of federal workers losing their jobs — notices that many received via email. She said she hoped the messaging would be different at GW.

RACHEL KURLANDSKY | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Ellen Goldstein, the former World Bank country director for the Western Balkans, reflects on her experience working in foreign aid.

ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR

The front doors of Cedar Hill Medical Center GW Health display a "Hospital Not Active" sign.

SOPHIA CLARKE REPORTER

OPINIONS

This time last year, The Hatchet’s editorial board argued that generative artificial intelligence wasn’t the only cause of rising cheating. But the role of GAI on campus has changed since then, and GW’s policies and the way students approach it must change, too.

GAI has grown to become more integral to our lives, with more concerns about its use coming to light, like its detriments to the environment, data privacy and societal biases. Because of ChatGPT-4’s growth since its introduction in the fall of 2022, educators have started using it more for making lesson plans as students use it to aid assignments or studying — or cheating.

GAI is of course a helpful tool, but students are relying too much on it, from using it as a search engine to plugging in essay prompts when writing papers. It’s no longer about asking GAI to simplify a complex topic. This dependence has devalued our own educational labor and disrespects the professors who take their time to give feedback on assignments that were copypasted in a matter of seconds.

As GAI’s dominance over higher education continues to swell, GW shouldn’t be shy when instituting stricter rules for its usage. As for us students, our editorial board cautions against prioritizing convenience and ultimately cheating ourselves out of an education.

The University considers the representation of GAI work as one’s own as cheating but not explicitly plagiarism. We agree that certain uses of GAI are appropriate — and even commonplace in tech — but we draw a line at using the program for written

CWhat specific financial concerns led to officials’ decision to alter hiring and promotion review procedures.

It’s time to get tough on generative AI

STAFF EDITORIAL

assignments. When students substitute GAI-written work for their own, that’s plagiarism, and GW should treat it as such.

Even if there’s not a concrete, major change in GW’s penalties and policies for GAI use, we shouldn’t underestimate the impact of the University issuing a statement or disseminating through professors that officials will treat any use of GAI on written assignments as harshly as plagiarism, which could lead to tangible academic punishments. Having a stricter and more di-

rect message on the issue could reduce the number of overall academic integrity violations, alleviating the shortfall in faculty members who help handle these cases’ adjudication. Fewer students will let a robot write their essay if they know it could imperil their academic future. Beyond potential punishments, using a robot for written work puts our education at risk. We come to college to be challenged and become critical thinkers. We’re pushed to analyze, discuss and even dispute ideas and

You’re not dumb, you’re just learning

ollege, the great equalizer — at least that was my rather naive view of college when I was a first-year.

Andrea Mendoza-Melchor Opinions Editor

I quickly realized how, in terms of knowledge and experience, my peers and I sometimes seemed oceans apart. At times, this gap made me feel left behind and ostracized. But the more I learned, the more I realized just that — I was learning.

When I got to GW, I accepted I wouldn’t have the same level of political or social comprehension as others, especially coming from a lower-income background. But I still felt optimistic about college and how I would fit in. I thought that at GW, I would feel a little less out of place. I was quickly proven wrong. Being in class or talking to my peers made me realize our vast differences — how much more they knew and just how many internships they had done before college. I’ll never forget one particularly embarrassing example, when someone asked me for my LinkedIn and I replied “What is that?” It felt exactly the same as your math teacher in high school telling you on the first days of class that you were already behind. At first, I thought I had just happened to stumble upon especially intelligent

and capable people in the student body. But once again, I was wrong. When we would have discussions, peers would approach subjects as if they were obvious. Before I mentioned in class that I didn’t know that now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio had used the Republican Party’s credit card for personal expenses, one of my classmates whispered in my ear something like “Why are we even talking about this? It’s common knowledge.”

It was the same thing when it came to people’s career experience — my peers spoke about interning at the mayor’s office or working for their congressman, while I spent the years before college organizing pep rallies..

After spending a good chunk of my time at GW feeling embarrassed and way behind, something dawned on me this semester during my class as I looked down at the six pages of notes I had taken. Yes, I may have come to GW knowing less than many of my classmates. But we are here to learn, not to merely reaffirm what we already know. When I stopped looking at classes and conversations as frightening opportunities that could expose my lack of existing knowledge, reading academic papers and sharing in class became more fun and productive. In fact, these opportunities were a guarantee that I was experiencing the power of higher education. If I end up learning about something that is “common sense” to many,

then thank God I learned about that.

Now, when I hear what my classmates have to say, I jot it down in my notebook. I shouldn’t be wallowing in embarrassment or selfpity because I just learned something. That is, after all, the main reason why I and many others wanted to attend college.

When I lead the weekly meetings with The Hatchet’s editorial board and I learn something new about GW, I don’t mentally beat myself up for not knowing this information. The reason for having an editorial board is to take into account multiple perspectives.

Every time I go back home and answer questions about school, I realize that I do have a lot to share. Sometimes there’s still a disconnect between my interests and those of my family and friends, especially after learning so much. But that still serves as a confirmation that I am growing.

Maybe I wasn’t completely wrong when I thought about college as an equalizer. University is a place where, for the most part, we are given the same education and the same preparation for when we enter the real world. It doesn’t matter how little we knew or how out of place we felt during those four years — it’s about the person we’ve become once we receive our diploma. — Andrea MendozaMelchor, a junior majoring in journalism and mass communication, is the opinions editor.

literature. So when students start handing off those tasks to GAI, we are the ones losing out. The knowledge that costs us tens of thousands of dollars every school year is not being actualized. And if we allow GAI to do our classwork, we’re granting our future employers permission to use GAI instead of hiring us. We have to retain and treasure a sense of pride in our work as students. Cranking out that 20-page paper is exhausting, but when we get a good grade, it’s worth it. When we deeply re-

search something, it’s evident that we’ve learned — we brainstorm more original ideas and remember the texts we’ve read for years to come. We don’t want employers to hire us for the feeble skill of typing a few sentences into ChatGPT-4 and copy-pasting the response into a Word document. It’s time to accept that using GAI to write your essays, assignments and discussion posts is not much better than boldly copying an assignment from a classmate or website. That is not your work, you’re not learning and, truthfully, your grade isn’t earned.

We also must consider our professors, who spent hours reading and researching to achieve their degrees, all without the help of tech tools like GAI. Before submitting a jumbled mess of vague arguments to Blackboard thanks to ChatGPT, think of the time that professors spent cramming at the library during their undergraduate and postgraduate careers.

The editorial board understands that GAI is here to stay — and so does GAI. When we asked ChatGPT if the University should ban GAI, the machine said the policy would be “extreme and counterproductive.”

“Universities have always adapted to new technologies — from calculators to the internet — and AI should be no different. What do you think?” ChatGPT said in response to our query. But children learn to manually add, subtract, multiply and divide before their teachers hand them graphing calculators. The more power you give GAI in your education, the more power you take away from yourself.

Expensive spring break travel isn’t the norm

As we enter March, I often hear chatter around campus about everyone’s exciting spring break plans — everything from pouring over flight information in classes to arguing with hotel receptionists on the phone in the University Student Center. In a whirlwind of discussions about passports and airfare, I’m preparing to spend the week bed-rotting and binging the second season of Squid Games.

Jamie Greenberg Opinions Writer

But when my classmates ask me what my plans for break are, I feel weird admitting I have no plans. Even though I’m excited to embrace the comfort of my house, I feel left out because of the overwhelming expectation to travel and the fear of missing out. Sitting out of these trips should be more accepted by students and society in the “portrayed college experience.”

Based on my previous three years of school, I know exactly what my Instagram feed is going to consist of in about two weeks. I can already see the explosion of posts of people in Cabo or Puerto Rico, swimming in crystal clear blue waters and holding piña coladas against the backdrop of a fiery sunset. I hear stories all the time from my parents about their stays in crappy motels and

their days spent lounging on beaches in Jamaica or Mexico during their college breaks. When I tell them I have nothing planned with my friends, they say that it’s fine and that I should spend my break how I want. But I can tell it makes them slightly upset knowing I’m not getting the same experiences that they still look back on fondly because the idea of an extravagant college spring break is considered the norm.

Even if swimming with dolphins sounds like a dream, some people are just too burnt out to want to do anything. I can only imagine the stress of taking 18 credits and constantly doing homework through the semester just to fight the urge to doze off while hanging out in the Bahamas during break. If I were in that situation, I’d probably have FOMO for vegging out on my couch.

For a while, I felt like I was doing college wrong because I wasn’t having those experiences. There are a lot of people around me who are enjoying these lavish vacations but there are just as many people in the same position as I am. We just don’t show it as much because they don’t make for fun stories. FOMO sucks, but there’s a reason why “F” stands for fear. It’s not a real thing. And Instagram is the latest culprit in convincing us that we’re missing out on making memories that we’ll tell our kids about in 20 years.

Last year, some friends and I took a road trip to

Syracuse, New York, to watch the solar eclipse. That trip was fun, but planning it was super stressful and we ultimately didn’t get to see totality because the clouds rolled in. Though there’s a photo of me on Instagram with my eclipse glasses on, you would have no idea that we almost ran out of gas in the middle of the highway. Social media doesn’t show you the whole picture, and we tend to forget that. We also need to keep in mind that travel is a luxury. It’s not actually the norm to travel every chance you get, and GW’s astronomically expensive price tag places spring break in a very weird position. On the one hand, there are people who can easily afford the high tuition costs in addition to a lengthy trip. But for others, it may be too difficult to afford the theoretical college spring break, making it harder for the average person to have a nice getaway.

Don’t feel bad for not going away for the break or even care that you’re not going away for break. Even for those who are staying on campus, go out and explore D.C. Go to a museum or try new restaurants — we’re very lucky to be in a city where there’s always something happening. Whether you sunbathed on a yacht or played video games, as long as you come back to school refreshed, you know you made the most of your spring break.

—Jamie Greenberg, a senior majoring in criminal justice with a minor in political science, is an opinions writer.

CAROLINE MORRELLI | STAFF CARTOONIST

THE SCENE CULTURE

Go-go museum tells history of funk’s ‘heartbeat’ in DC

JOE

Inside a black brick building in Anacostia is the story of the funk beats and calls and responses that molded the District’s official music genre. Located on the corner of U Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, the Go-Go Museum & Cafe chronicles the history of the genre, which blends Afro-Latino percussion, funk, jazz, hiphop and R&B. The style also features cowbells and conga drums backing a call and response interaction between performer and their audience.

The museum, which opened its doors Feb. 19, incorporates live shows and interactive exhibits to educate city locals and tourists on go-go’s cultural legacy in D.C. Museum founder Ronald Moten said go-go music rose to prominence in the District in the 1970s after the “late, great” guitarist Chuck Brown pioneered the genre. In 2020, the D.C. Council designated go-go the official music of D.C., considering the genre as one that “fully captures the cultural and artistic expressions of the District,” according to the designating act.

“Go-go music is the heartbeat of Washington, D.C.,” Moten said.

He said the museum gives visitors an opportunity to learn about the cultural history of Black people in the District, once called the “Chocolate City,” since it was the United States’ first majority-Black city in 1957.

The museum packs about 16 exhibits in its narrow space. Photos, timelines and signs with information plaster the walls, discussing the genre’s origins in 1976 when Brown molded the genre as the “Go-Go Godfather.” Animated go-go figures like Sugar Bear of Experience Unlimited were featured on

screens, comparing go-go with other styles, like hip hop and jazz. Classic records like “A Salt with a Deadly Pepa” by Salt-N-Peppa and “Livin’ Large” by EU line the walls in a showcase exhibit.

In the downstairs space in the “Don’t Mute DC!” exhibit, panels about the cultural movement against gentrification in D.C. cover the walls. The exhibit focuses on the story of a Shaw Metro PCS shop owner who was told by a neighboring resident to shut off his go-go music outside of his store in 2019. After community outrage and support from the T-Mobile chief executive, the business owner’s beats turned back on.

Museum visitor Crystina Harris, a D.C. native, said she grew up on go-go music, listening to it during her daily 7 a.m. commutes to school. She said she was born in the early 2000s and is only familiar with go-go artists from that era, so she was interested in learning about go-go’s deep-rooted history in D.C.

She said the museum helped her see the “progress” of the Black community in the District, while areas like Georgia Avenue that held cultural value have battled gentrification.

“That showed me a lot how D.C. was being gentrified and the culture was kind of changing, and for us to have a staple place like this museum, that kind of gives me hope that it’s still Chocolate City, like we have some stuff that’s important to D.C. in D.C.,” Harris said. Harris said when she was going to college in North Carolina, people did not know about go-go music, joking that it sounded like “pots and pans” banging together. She said the newer generation’s interest in gogo is “dying down,” but the museum provides a place to grow interest and foster education among younger visitors.

“It’s like a pinnacle of hope for me,” Harris said.

Meet the faculty who cross enemy lines, connect DMV students

CAITLIN KITSON

CONTRIBUTING CULTURE

EDITOR

IANNE SALVOSA

MANAGING EDITOR

On Mondays and Wednesdays, professorial lecturer Eli McCarthy teaches an Intro to Peace Studies course in Duques Hall. But on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he fraternizes with GW’s crosstown rival on the hilltop.

Since he started teaching in Foggy Bottom in 2017, McCarthy has split his time between GW and Georgetown University, lecturing on topics like nonviolent communication, justice and peace studies. While he declined to comment on which school truly has his heart, he is partial to the educational software at one of the schools: Georgetown’s Canvas. McCarthy is one of a few GW professors who have bent their loyalty to the Revolutionaries to teach at neighboring universities across the D.C. region. Three of those faculty members said their time spent at other local schools has expanded opportunities for students to attend educational events and trainings across other region universities and revealed the distinctive qualities that define GW, Georgetown, American University and the University of Maryland.

McCarthy started teaching at Georgetown in 2011 and tacked GW courses onto his schedule to rack up teaching opportunities, which were “limited” at Georgetown at the time. He said professors who teach at two universities like himself encourage collaboration among institutions and that sometimes students utilize his cross-school ties to learn about professors or events at the other university, like the one time he had students from both GW and Georgetown attend a nonviolent skills training at the universities.

McCarthy said his students haven’t had a strong reaction to his professorship at both schools because he doesn’t advertise it, but his GW students typically catch on since he uses his Georgetown email to communicate with them. He said his GW email automatically forwards to his Georgetown email, which helps him keep all of his teaching materials in one place. He said he splits his time between the two schools through scheduling requests for courses to his respective universities, which helps him balance his schedule. He said cross-school allegiance entails navigating two administrative structures — for example, the Justice and Peace Studies pro -

gram at Georgetown houses his peace studies courses, compared to the Department of Religion at GW.

Savreen Hundal, a visiting assistant professor of communication, said she spent her first two years at GW driving between her home in Virginia, GW’s Foggy Bottom Campus and the University of Maryland, College Park, where she was also working as an adjunct professor of communication. She said she wanted to gain more professional experiences and expand her income and decided to teach simultaneously at GW and UMD from 2021 to 2023.

Hundal said her weeks were split between Foggy Bottom and College Park, teaching four classes at UMD on Tuesdays and Thursdays and two classes back-to-back at GW on Wednesdays. To manage her course load between the universities, she said she taught higher-level classes, like Communication Theory, at GW and requested to only teach the introductory classes at UMD, which she had been teaching there since starting as a graduate teaching assistant in 2013.

During her spell as both a Revolutionary and a Terrapin, Hundal said she also completed her dissertation for her doctorate in communication from

UMD and gave birth to her son. After finishing the spring 2023 semester, she said managing the commute to College Park and her course load while caring for her son became unmanageable and she decided to settle down at GW by working as a part-time, adjunct professor until she earned her full-time spot in fall 2024.

Hundal said she never sensed a rivalry brewing between GW and UMD when she worked on both campuses because the universities are “very different.” She said students are often drawn to College Park because of the large campus, Big 10 football games and active Greek Life community, while GW attracts students who are more career-oriented and want to immerse themselves in the nation’s capital.

“I even ask them, ‘Well, do you go to the basketball games?’ And it’s like, ‘No,’” Hundal said, referring to her GW students.

Hundal said she has picked up on a sense of one-sided competition between GW and Georgetown, where she worked as a lab manager for their psychology department from 2010 to 2013.

“I worked at Georgetown for a little bit,” Hundal said. “I never heard anything about GW. But from GW, I do hear a little bit about Georgetown.”

DC film buffs mourn loss of indie theater Landmark’s E Street Cinema

D.C. cinephiles are saying goodbye to a local hub for indie flicks, film festivals and $5 screenings of cult classics.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema, located in Penn Quarter, will cease operations this month after struggling to recover from the pandemic, according to the Washington Post. The theater has served film-frenzied Washingtonians for 21 years, with showings varying from studio new releases to low-budget, independent projects, along with foreign films and late-night performances of the cult-classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” The eight-screen theater’s luminescent marquee, adorned with a glowing “E” in its center, stands out from the art deco and neoclassical architecture of the surrounding downtown neighborhood. E Street Cinema’s interior, with a top floor devoted to ticket sales and a bottom level housing concessions stands and theaters, has

mustard-yellow walls, geometric carpets, vinyl barstools and lines of framed movie and film festival posters — a time capsule of the District in the 1970s. Coining itself as “the District’s most Metro-accessible movie theatre” due to its position two blocks from the lineconnecting Metro Center, the locale has attracted both longterm D.C. area residents and college students — including GW’s movie mavens – for a generation.

In a statement to the Post, Landmark Theatres’ Head of Brand and Marketing Mark Mulcahy said the cinema will close its doors after struggling to recover financially following the COVID-19 pandemic. While the theater’s website lists a film series with showings through March 25, a spokesperson from the theater informed the Post that the theater will shut down and stop screenings on March 6. Landmark’s Atlantic Plumbing Cinema, the chain’s other D.C. outlet, which is located in the Shaw and Howard University neighborhood, will remain in operation. A representative from

Landmark’s E Street Cinema, who requested anonymity due to company policy, told The Hatchet that the shift of viewers to streaming services initially harmed the cinema, as more films were quickly added to digital platforms after theater releases. But he said attendance numbers at E Street have increased in the past six months, with a “healthy boom” this winter. He said that patrons have expressed their sadness over the loss of the “critical” space for movie fans seeking alternative programming from the blockbusters at larger chains.

“We’ve been a platform for independent filmmakers to live their dreams and get their debuts on screen, a safe space for people to dance and throw props around during midnight screenings, a home for cinephiles and creative minds to share thoughts and memories,” the representative said in an email. “Our role has been important to film culture in DC and that can mean a lot of things to a lot of people.”

The representative declined to comment on the reason be -

hind the location’s closure. Matthew Carrera, a junior studying public health, said he attended his first E Street screening to see “Dune: Part Two” last spring. After tickets were sold out at AMC Georgetown, he said a friend suggested going to the downtown, indie theater. He said E Street greatly contrasted Carrera said that he thinks the closing will dampen

downtown D.C.’s nightlife scen. He said the screenings he attended were sparsely populated, which he appreciated at the time, as he and his friends were able to watch films relatively solitarily, but he now realizes that this apparent perk could have led to the theater’s closing. “I guess a blessing was a curse in the end,” he said.

COOPER TYKSINSKI | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Landmark’s E Street Cinema closes down this month after 21 years.

HATCHET FILE PHOTO

The roof of Healy Hall at Georgetown University.

NICHOLAS WARE | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Go-Go Museum & Cafe, which opened in February, is free for all D.C. residents and students.

NUMBER

Men’s and women’s swimming and diving continue A-10 dominance

KRISTI

Men’s and women’s swimming and diving won their fifth- and fourthstraight at the Feb. 19-22 Atlantic 10 Championships in Hampton, Virginia.

The men’s team blew past their opponents, outscoring second-place St. Bonaventure 883.5-517.5 while the women’s team earned a tight victory, outpacing second-place Richmond 598.5-571. Head Coach Chico Rego brought home Men’s Coach of the Year after his first season coaching the Revolutionaries.

The Revs brought home 16 gold medals, 13 silver and 13 bronze medals, and three individual athletes collected awards, including senior swimmer Conner Rodgers, who won Men’s Most Outstanding Performer for placing first and setting A-10 records in the 200 IM, 400 IM and 200 fly. Freshman Shae Stratton was named A-10 Men’s Most Outstanding Rookie after he earned gold in the 200 back and placed fourth in the 100 back, and junior Olivia Paquette earned the A-10 Women’s Most Outstanding Diver title after

recording 37 points for the team and receiving gold in the 1-meter dive and silver for the 3-meter dive.

“We saw so many changes with this program, and we put up with so much through our four years here,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers said the camaraderie among both teams was a key aspect to their success, with swimmers and divers supporting each other throughout the competition.

“On the last day, there were so many emotions attached to each person’s race,” Rodgers said.

Also placing first in their races were Stratton, who won the 200-yard back with a 1:42.96 minute performance, sophomore Ben Sosnowski, who won the 200-yard breaststroke in 1:56.23 minutes, and graduate student Elliott Irwin, who placed first in the 100-yard freestyle in 42.73 seconds. A four-swimmer GW team also picked up gold and an A-10 record in the 400-yard freestyle in 2:53.10.

The women’s team also added two golds on the final competition day alone: junior Ava Topolewski won the 1650-yard freestyle in 16:24.19 and senior

Moriah Freitas took first in the 200-yard butterfly with a 1:58.93 time.

Senior swimmer Chloe Hernandez said the feat is particularly special for the seniors on the team, who have won championships all four years at GW.

“I know all the seniors are really happy to go four for four, and sharing that moment with the men’s team for all four years is also super special,” Hernandez said. “I think that we had a really interesting year, and just to see it all come together in one week was something that was very special for both the men and the women’s team.”

Rego said that despite the significance of the championships for the teams, he stressed the importance of having fun and making memories to his student-athletes.

“Of course, what the accomplishments of the sport gives you means something,” Rego said. “But you gotta have fun with it.”

Swimmers from both teams will head to Ocala, Florida, to compete in the CSCAA National Invitational Championships from March 13 to 15.

Meet the former student-athlete behind Smith Center’s turntable

In a chorus of cheers, squeaks of sneakers and percussion from the Foghorn band, there’s another layer to the soundtrack of the Smith Center. The bassline of “Seven Nation Army,” the stomps and claps of “We Will Rock You” stir up crowds of Revolutionaries and inject energy into players and fans at basketball games. Dior Toney, better known as DJ Dior, is the man behind the game-time playlists and has been a staple for over 20 years, from his time on the court to serving as the Smith Center’s in-house DJ.

“Ultimately, we’re all the team,” Toney said. “Me, the team, the band. Everybody creates the same experience, we’re just trying to get a W.”

Before he started mixing tracks, Toney was a walk-on guard on the men’s basketball team from 2002 to 2006. In his senior year, the team went 27-3 overall, including 16-0 in Atlantic 10 play and made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to the Duke Blue Devils.

Despite getting little playing time on the court, Toney said he made his

presence known as a source of energy on the bench and a boon to team chemistry.

“I was part of one of the big teams here,” Toney said.

“I was a walk-on, but all the top players were all my best friends, so I was pretty much the glue guy, no matter what.”

A few years after graduating with a degree in fine arts, Toney was DJing at clubs around the city, like the now-closed McFadden’s, and reached out to his former teammate Chris Monroe, who was then a marketing official for the GW athletics department and helped him secure a gig as the Smith Center DJ. At first, he started playing music at volleyball games pro bono but soon realized that his talents could help out the basketball teams, by providing the high energy that he felt was lacking.

DJing, just realizing that certain stuff, I was always doing it as a kid.”

In the decade since taking the reins, Toney’s control of the Smith Center atmosphere has been a catalyst for the game-day environment

Toney said he switches up the music depending on whether the men’s or women’s team is on the court. He

Men’s basketball takes down La Salle 71-60 on Senior Day

BEN SPITALNY

SPORTS EDITOR

JOSHUA HONG STAFF WRITER

Men’s basketball (19-11, 8-9 Atlantic 10) defeated La Salle (12-17, 4-12) 71-60 on Saturday night in their last home game of the season.

Redshirt junior forward Rafael Castro led the game with 22 points and 17 rebounds as he notched his 13th double-double this season, the most by a Revolutionary since 1994. The game was marked by a 17-4 GW run to end the first half, giving the Revs a comfortable cushion despite scoring troubles to open the second.

The Revs were aided by double-digit efforts by both starting

sophomore guard Trey Autry and redshirt freshman guard Christian Jones, with 13 points each.

The game started with both teams unable to get an edge, trading baskets until Autry hit a 3-pointer to push GW ahead 11-8.

Redshirt sophomore forward Darren Buchanan Jr. then passed to a cutting Castro for an easy layup to kick-start a 7-0 run.

The Revs managed to push the run further with a Buchanan layup, forcing an early Explorers timeout. GW’s defense managed to get six consecutive stops on La Salle’s offense, forcing them to be scoreless for over two minutes.

Following the timeout, La Salle came out punching with graduate student forward Jahlil White’s three from on top of the key to

dampen GW’s run and bring the score to 17-11, but it did little to stifle the Revs’ blazing offense. Sophomore guard Jacoi Hutchinson hit a contested bomb from deep to continue the onslaught, bringing the lead to 22-11. La Salle responded to the three with two straight threes of their own and starting an 8-0 run, forcing the Revs to take a timeout themselves.

GW fought back after the timeout, starting with a Castro dunk to stifle the Explorers’. The Revs managed to force three turnovers which led to easy buckets, including an alley-oop from Castro forcing an 11-2 run.

With a 3-point shot by Autry, the Revs finished the period on a 17-4 run with a 17 point lead.*

La Salle flipped the switch to

start the second half, opening the period on an 8-0 run as GW failed to put points on the board for over four minutes.

“I knew they would come back,” Caputo said. “It’s a difficult matchup for us. The way they play is difficult for our team, and I was just happy that we were able to hang on, make some good plays down the stretch.”

Castro responded with a personal 5-0 run to bring the GW lead back to seven. After La Salle responded with a 3-pointer, Jones and Autry answered back with a layup and three free throws, respectively, to go back up nine.

GW was able to keep a comfortable lead to close out the final minutes and the win was punctuated with a corner 3-pointer from grad-

said he plays more “fun” music for women’s games because he says they are “more open with their emotions” compared to the men’s team, whom he tries to keep more “locked in.” When he’s not manning the Smith Center’s sound system, Dior is crafting sets at different clubs or bars around D.C., and he said he sometimes meets athletes from opposing teams, like Catholic University, who recognize him from Smith Center games.

“They’ll come and dap me up before the games,” he said. “So it’s kind of that thing where everybody knows where my loyalties lie, but it’s just an awkward moment sometimes. I don’t want them to think I’m shaking hands with the enemy before the game.”

Toney said he works hard to maintain an atmosphere that maintains the teams’ intensity and provides a fun environment for fans.

“We want to create a home court advantage,” Toney said. “So I just like to be different than other gyms and try to stay connected and communicating with the teams to see what stuff they like and what stuff helps them.”

uate student forward Sean Hansen to bring the team up 67-58 with 92 seconds left. Hansen, along with graduate student guard Gerald Drumgoole Jr., senior forward Keegan Harvey and senior guard Laziz Tapilov were honored pregame as part of Senior Night festivities, commemorating their final Smith Center game. With the win, GW moves into eighth in A-10 standings, where they are on track to have a bye in the first round of the upcoming Atlantic-10 Championship at the Capital One Arena. They play lastplace Fordham in the Bronx, New York, on Wednesday but have the day off next weekend, when all 14 other A-10 schools will be playing their final games.

Women’s basketball nabs win in season finale ahead of A-10 tournament

RYAN

JAINCHILL

EDITOR

BASKETBALL

Women’s basketball (12-17, 5-13 Atlantic-10) defeated Rhode Island (16-15, 11-7 A-10) 54-46 in their regular-season finale and snapped a four-game losing skid.

The Revolutionaries’ victory gives them a 12-17 record on the season and a 5-13 record in conference play, providing momentum heading into the Atlantic 10 2025 Women’s Basketball Championship, which begins Wednesday in Henrico, Virginia. The win clinches the Revs the 12th seed in the conference and a first-round matchup against Loyola Chicago. Leading the way offensively for the Revs in the victory was graduate student guard Makayla Andrews, who recorded 15 points on 6-16 shooting. Graduate student forward Paige Mott and sophomore forward Sara Lewis each scored in double figures and com-

bined 14 total rebounds. The Revs took four 3-pointers, cashing in at a 50 percent rate and their defense held the Rams to 4-26 from beyond the arc.

The teams traded baskets in the first quarter, with Lewis and Mott’s work giving the Revs an 11-9 lead at the end of the first 10 minutes.

The Revs tried to pull away in the second quarter, taking a 20-14 lead at the 4:36 mark off a Mott jumper.

In the final two minutes of the first half, Mott got two shots to fall giving the Revs a 24-20 lead.

After nearly four minutes without a basket from either side, a 3-point play from Sims gave the Revs a 32-24 lead with 3:16 to play in the third quarter. A pair of free throws from sophomore Sara Lewis increased the lead to 36-29 at the end of 30 minutes. Andrews gave the Revs a 10-point lead on a jumper at 8:53, but the Rams clawed their way back. The Rams’ cut the lead to six

with 5:15 left, causing Interim Head Coach Doug Novak to call a timeout. A Lewis jumper at the 2:02 mark put the Revs up by six and a pair of Reynolds free throws put the game out of reach, ending a four-game losing skid for GW.

Novak said the team has struggled at times during the season but has kept the game tight with the league’s top teams.

“We’ve been playing the Richmonds of the world toe to toe until the end, so come tournament time, if you can get somebody tight,, you never know. And that’s the greatest thing about it, is finding some Cinderella story,” Novak said.

Senior forward Maxine Engel said the Revs have been focusing on their game ahead of this tournament. For Engel, this is now the fourth time she will play in the A-10 tournament, with the team holding a 3-3 record since her freshman season in 2021-22.

WIDJAJA STAFF WRITER

NICHOLAS WARE | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A swimmer smiles in the pool during a practice earlier this season.

BEN SPITALNY SPORTS EDITOR

RACHEL KURLANSKY | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

DJ Dior poses for a portrait during a women’s basketball game.

BRAD ZHAO | PHOTOGRAPHER

The

season.