Federal agencies have terminated “a small number” of international students’ visas at GW, officials said Thursday.
Officials announced in a weekly “federal update” email to community members Thursday that the University is aware that a “small number” of students had their visas revoked or terminated by the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies. Federal agencies have revoked visas from hundreds of students at universities across the country over the past few weeks due to their alleged involvement in campus protests against the war in Gaza or minor crimes.
The State Department is responsible for issuing and revoking visas, the DHS Office of Public Affairs said in an email. A University spokesperson declined to comment on how many student visas the State Department revoked.
University President Ellen Granberg said during a Faculty Senate meeting Friday that she was not
aware of “all the details” regarding the specific number of students who had their visa revoked or for what reason the documents were rescinded by federal agencies, which she said included DHS.
Provost Chris Bracey said the total number of revoked student visas was “split” between current and recently graduated students. Bracey said there’s no grace period for a terminated visa, which puts recipients at immediate risk of detention and deportation and that officials recommend affected students seek legal representation.
Bracey said the case for each student with a revoked visa is different.
As of Friday, more than 800 students from at least 150 universities across the country have had their visas rescinded by federal agencies for various reasons and often with little to no explanation. Last month, the U.S. Department of State began revoking the visas of international students who Secretary of State Marco Rubio said participated in “political activism.”
University officials in the Thursday email encouraged international students to carry proof of immigration registration “at all times,” learn about how the government collects
Ethan Lynne secures SGA presidency, fending off outside challenger
KHANH DANG
MOLLY
Students elected junior Ethan Lynne as the Student Government Association’s next president on Saturday afternoon, pulling in 791 votes ahead of junior Emily-Anne Santiago.
Lynne, a political communication student and current SGA vice president, received 60.53 percent of the vote in the first round of ranked-choice voting, according to the Joint Election Commission’s unverified election results. In his presidential campaign, Lynne pledged to conduct a thirdparty investigation into GW’s response to free speech on campus over the past three years and create a student advisory board to provide input to the Student Health Center.
About 100 community members gathered in the University Student Center Amphitheater Saturday at 2 p.m. to hear the JEC announce the election results, including University President Ellen Granberg.
“This is a dream come true,” Lynne said. “I love GW so much. The past three years have been amazing but I couldn’t have done this without my team. They’re the best, most amazing people I’ve ever met.”
SGA Senate Pro Tempore Liz Stoddard prevailed in the vice presidential race, securing 62.39 percent of the votes and defeating second place candidate SGA Sen. Claire Avalos (CCAS-U), per the unverified election results.
“I am so incredibly grateful that the students here thought that I was fit enough for the job, and I will do everything I can to make sure that I follow through,” Stoddard said.
It’s been a hard three months to live in the District.
Since President Donald Trump’s second term began, he’s been trying to dismantle the city. Last month, he signed an executive order to ramp up police presence in D.C., and he continues to threaten to strip the District of home rule, the policy that allows the city government to make rules for the city.
The District has also just felt sadder since Trump took office. Maybe it’s that half the city got laid off from the federal government. Maybe it’s because 92.5% of the city voted for
Kamala Harris and hates every policy that the Trump administration has enacted over the past three months. Maybe it’s that the city is full of people who can’t turn their brains off from politics, inserting what’s been described as a potential “constitutional crisis” in every dinner conversation. That depressed enthusiasm about the District is exactly what the Best of Northwest exists to counter.
The Hatchet’s annual guide is meant to be a celebration of all that is still vibrant about life in our home of northwest D.C. and GW.
The District has always been under the thumb of the federal government — that’s why the modern iteration of D.C. exists. But in
the nearly 250 years of the city and the American federal government’s tenure, the District has blossomed into more than just a series of downtown bureaucratic office buildings.
People in D.C. still get to partake in a wonderfully varied culinary scene, where restaurants offering pupusas, crab and an Irish open bar all fall in the same area. The District is still home to used bookstores, square dancing and gay flag football leagues — all of which give the city a genuine vitality that the Oval Office hasn’t been able to touch. It’s a bummer to live in D.C. right now, sure. But let’s embrace what’s still great about being here.
GIANNA JAKUBOWSKI STAFF WRITER
NIDHI NAIR STAFF WRITER
The University is weighing its stance on institutional neutrality, Provost Chris Bracey said at a Faculty Senate meeting Friday.
Bracey said he will host a community-wide virtual seminar with two legal scholars on campus free speech and institutional neutrality — a policy that mandates a university refrain in issuing statements on any political issues — April 21 at 3 p.m. The conversation will mark the beginning of “more extensive engagement” around the policy, which will “likely” involve a presentation to the Board of Trustees and the formation of a task force to “study the issue” and make recommendations over the summer, he said.
The process of discussing institutional neutrality will “perhaps” include additional engagement with the community next fall, he said.
A University spokesperson said in November that GW is not considering institutional neutrality “at this time” but that if officials were to consider adopting a stance, they would consult with community members. More than 15 American
Federal agencies revoke ‘small number’ of international student visas: officials
Officials ‘likely’ to bring institutional neutrality presentation to trustees
universities adopted the policy following the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
Later on in the meeting, faculty senator Guillermo Orti, the co-chair of the senate’s Professional Ethics and Academic Freedom Committee, introduced a resolution that proposed the senate endorse the American Association of University Professors’ statement on institutional neutrality. The statement recommends that universities focus on the “practical results” of releasing individual statements related to social or political issues instead of adhering to a blanket policy of institutional neutrality.
The senate resolution states that adopting institutional neutrality is not the solution or “panacea” to the problems at GW and suggested that the University “look inward” at its principles to prioritize values like academic freedom.
Multiple faculty senators proposed amendments to clarify the resolution’s wording because of confusion over its definition of institutional neutrality and the statements that the University would or would protect under the policy. The senate unanimously voted to send the resolution back to committee for review.
individuals’ personal data and review guidance from the American Immigration Lawyers Association and American Civil Liberties Union on their rights when asked about their immigration status.
MATHYLDA DULIAN | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Student Government Association Vice President Ethan Lynne smiles after learning of his victory in the presidential race.
KYRA WOOD | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Students protest the detainment of Mahmoud Khalil in front of University President Ellen Granberg’s on-campus residence in March.
University President Ellen Granberg rides with athletics staff during the 2025 GW Invite on the Potomac River.
DANIEL HEUER | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Student Government Association Senate Pro Tempore Liz Stoddard reacts to her vice presidential win.
Financial aid boost will likely accompany tuition hike, experts say
GIANNA JAKUBOWSKI STAFF WRITER
GW’s undergraduate tuition will rise by 3.5 percent next academic year, but higher education experts predict that students’ financial aid will grow at the same rate, shielding them from symptoms of the price hike.
Over the past three years, undergraduate tuition at private institutions has on average increased proportionally to financial aid, which resulted in most students’ tuition staying constant each year after they receive financial aid, experts said. They said GW can use revenue from students who pay full tuition to offset the cost of lower income students’ bills, leaving the price relatively unchanged for students who receive need-based financial aid.
Officials announced last month that undergraduate tuition will increase by 3.5 percent, or $2,360, for the 2025-26 academic year, bringing the sticker price of tuition to just under $70,000 per year and the total cost of attendance to more than $94,000. Full-time undergraduate students’ average cost of attendance with financial aid was $45,466 for the 2023-24 academic year.
About 79 percent of full-time undergraduate students at GW received merit or need-based financial aid in 2022-23, according to Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System’s data. The average grant or scholarship aid for full-time undergraduate students at GW was $35,367 in 2022-23.
Officials raised GW’s tuition by 2.1 percent in 2021, 3.9 percent in 2022, 4.2 percent in 2023 and 4.2 percent in 2024, making this year’s 3.5 percent increase the lowest percent increase since 2021.
Tuition rose by a total of $7,640 from 2021 to 2024.
University spokesperson Julia Garbitt said the University “assesses the resources needed” to attract “the best” faculty and staff and improve facilities and services when determining the cost of attendance. She said the budget “aims to balance” those costs while helping students afford GW and that the University is “always” collecting feedback and listening to the community’s “evolving needs.”
Garbitt declined to comment on the long-term sustainability of tuition increases.
The average private undergraduate tuition rate in 2024-25 was $43,350, a $1,610 increase from 2023-24, according
to College Board.
Rob Toutkoushian, a professor at University of Georgia’s Institute of Higher Education, said officials take several factors into account when determining tuition rates in a given year, including a university’s projected budget the following year and predicted revenue aside from tuition.
GW has been tuition-dependent for more than a decade, with tuition accounting for about 46 percent of total revenue in 2024. GW’s total revenue for fiscal year 2024 was almost $1.286 billion, with net tuition accounting for $821 million of that figure.
Officials said at Friday’s Faculty Senate meeting that they are working on a new budget model.
CRIME LOG
HARASSING TELEPHONE CALLS, HARASSMENT: EMAIL AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA
Off Campus Reported 4/4/25 – Multiple Dates and Times Open Case Case open.
DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY, UNLAWFUL ENTRY, UNLAWFUL ENTRY INTO A MOTOR VEHICLE
Shenkman Hall
4/5/25 – Between 1:42 a.m. and 4:42 a.m.
Closed Case Subject barred.
THEFT II/FROM BUILDING, UNLAWFUL ENTRY
University Student Center
4/5/25 – Between 10:51 a.m. and 11:25 a.m.
Closed Case Subject arrested.
LIQUOR LAW VIOLATION
Thurston Hall
4/5/25 – 11:38 p.m.
Closed Case Referred to Division of Conflict Education & Student Accountability.
—Compiled by Ella Mitchell
Gender imbalance in nontenure roles reflects national gap
Experts in sociology and gender studies said the increasing overrepresentation of female faculty in nontenure positions at the University reflects national gender disparities in higher education.
58.7 percent of nontenure-track full-time faculty at the University are women, according to the Faculty and Staff Headcounts Dashboard last updated in 2023, exceeding a 53.9 percent national average of female nontenure-track full-time faculty. Experts in higher education hiring trends and sociology said the overrepresentation of women in nontenure roles at the University is part of a greater gender disparity in tenure-track and nontenure faculty nationwide, with only 41.1 percent of tenured and tenuretrack full-time faculty at GW being women in 2023.
The American Association of University Professors, a nonprofit association of faculty and researchers, published an analysis in 2020 of U.S. Department of Education data that reported 53.9 percent of all nontenure-track full-time faculty positions consist of female faculty.
54.8 percent of all nontenuretrack full-time faculty at GW were women in 2015, culminating a 3.9 percent increase from 2015 to 2023,
according to the Faculty and Staff Headcounts dashboard, which only provides headcount data for that time frame.
University spokesperson Julia Garbitt said GW is committed to supporting all faculty with equal opportunities to “thrive” and advance their careers, regardless of gender.
Garbitt said the overrepresentation of female faculty in nontenure-track full-time positions is not unique to GW and is a visible trend at many higher education institutions.
Thirty-two percent of tenured faculty at peer school Tufts University were women in 2022. Academic tenure provides faculty with an academic freedom safeguard, according to the AAUP.
The Faculty Code states that tenure is given to faculty whose “scholarly accomplishments” are considered excellent when compared to “successful” candidates at similar stages of their careers at other universities, as well as for candidates whose research is nationally recognized in their field.
Ivy Ken, an associate professor of sociology, said men usually dominate tenured positions. She said universities provide more “structural rewards” like prestige, compensation and respect to ten-
ured and tenure-track positions compared to nontenure positions.
Ken said the higher concentration of women in nontenure-track roles may be more pronounced at GW than at other universities because the administration makes “deliberate decisions” to avoid the large investments of tenured roles, which may cost GW more money because tenured positions require higher salaries.
Tenure status for all regular faculty dropped to an all-time low this academic year, falling from 77.8 percent of faculty in fall 2014 to 70.7 percent in fall 2024. Officials said schools with higher enrollment can financially support higher investment and more tenured faculty.
She said GW will have too many nontenure-line faculty if academic freedom and research are not a priority for the administration, so she hopes to see University officials “stand up” to the Board of Trustees and commit money and resources to tenure more faculty in the future.
Jennifer Musial, an associate professor of women’s and gender studies at New Jersey City University, said the quality of mentorship faculty receive when they’re in school and the age at which faculty complete their master’s and doctoral degrees are factors that contrib-
ute to the high representation of women in nontenure faculty roles. She said receiving poor mentorship as a master’s student can hinder networking and professional opportunities, which are a barrier to research and tenure. She said the lack of mentorship is a “sexism problem” and has been an issue since women first entered higher education. Musial said men are typically more willing than women to give up their “supportive network” and location for job opportunities, while women, specifically mothers,
are more likely to stay in the same place. She said since men are more willing and able to relocate, they are able to apply for the few tenureline positions at universities that women cannot.
“I think women and queer faculty members especially are less likely to give those things up because they’re what sustains us, like our communities and our family,” Musial said. “So that’s part of it. It’s the age at which you come out of graduate school, what your life looks like, what concessions you’re willing to make.”
Student tutoring program in DC to shutter at end of academic year
RYAN
SAENZ STAFF WRITER
A tutoring service for D.C. preschoolers staffed by GW student volunteers will shut down at the end of the semester after its national program decided to end its partnerships with universities, program leaders announced late last month.
The Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service houses Jumpstart, which sends GW student volunteers to 16 preschools in the District to help prepare preschoolers for kindergarten and build literacy skills as part of the national program’s partnership with universities and organizations in 13 states and D.C. On March 31, Jumpstart site managers and Nashman Executive Director Amy Cohen told student volunteers via email that AmeriCorps, the federal agency that manages Jumpstart, decided to end the program’s collegiate partnerships based on its goal to “re-envision and reorganize how they provide program-
ming to pre-K children and families.”
“We know that you have a deep connection to Jumpstart – its mission and focus – with many of you serving for multiple years,” reads the email, which was obtained by The Hatchet. “It is challenging to transition from our beloved partners and from one strategy to another and, at the same time, we encourage those of you not yet graduating to reflect on how you might now most effectively and joyfully support D.C. children and families.”
AmeriCorps is considering slashing its workforce by “up to 50 percent or more” as part of President Donald Trump administration’s effort to reduce the size of the federal government, according to an internal memo obtained by the Washington Post.
Jumpstart has partnered with GW since 1995 and supports federal work-study jobs, with about 70 students currently participating in the program both in FWS and non-FWS positions.
Jumpstart program leaders plan to work with the Nashman Center and community partners to continue serving the schools formerly staffed by Jumpstart volunteers, according to the email. Current Jumpstart volunteers can continue logging federal work-study hours under Jumpstart until the end of the semester, the email states.
Jumpstart’s national office did not return a request for comment. AmeriCorps did not immediately return a request for comment.
Cohen said the Nashman Center has reached out to the preschools and childcare centers where Jumpstart participants volunteer and has informed them of the program’s cancellation.
Cohen said Jumpstart volunteers will be able to apply for other Nashman programs to tutor D.C. students, like Math Matters or SMARTDC.
Jumpstart participants can get paid through FWS or the Education Award — an award of more than $1,500 offered to students who vol-
unteered for 300 hours with Jumpstart, according to the Nashman Center. Former Jumpstart participants will be able to apply to FWS positions within Nashman for next year, according to the
March 31 email. Sabrina Samaniego, a Jumpstart paricipant, said she and other Jumpstart participants are considering moving over to other Nashman volunteer programs,
like EngageDC. Jumpstart’s site managers said all materials that Jumpstart participants used will be donated to the schools that Jumpstart volunteers served in, Samaniego said.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JENNIFER IGBONOBA
A Jumpstart sticker placed underneath the GW Honey W. Nashman Center sign.
JORDAN YEE | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER The Admissions and Alumni Welcome Center o ce located in the University Student Center
NIDHI NAIR STAFF WRITER
GRAPHIC BY JOSHUA HONG
Outgoing Faculty Senate leader recognized for strides in shared governance
chair. Feldman will remain on the body as a senator for the 2025-26 academic year after reaching the twoyear term limit for serving on FSEC.
At the conclusion of Faculty Senate Executive Committee Chair Ilana Feldman’s tenure as the body’s leader this month, faculty senators lauded her advocacy, inclusivity and communication with faculty and officials in the senate.
Assuming leadership of the committee in May 2023, Feldman steered faculty through GW’s transition to University President Ellen Granberg’s leadership from interim President Mark Wrighton and led senate discussions on shared governance and academic freedom.
Faculty senators said Feldman was a guiding force who balanced, consulted and included all faculty perspectives in campus dialogue during a time of “tremendous change” at the University.
As chair, Feldman pushed for officials to uphold their commitment to academic freedom and shared governance through advocacy and initiatives, like holding regular meetings with the Board of Trustees Executive Committee and setting up an academic freedom reporting portal. She has also pushed for greater consultation and communication between officials and faculty on issues, like the Board ‘s decision to arm some GW Police Department officers, the University’s response to the pro-Palestinian encampment and the Medical Faculty Associates’ financial losses. Feldman also acts as the lead faculty representative at the University, crafting and delivering reports on behalf of the senate and its committees at meetings with the Board.
Feldman did not return a request for comment.
Katrin Schultheiss, an associate professor of history and a member of the committee, presented a resolution at the senate meeting Friday that recognized Feldman for her “distinguished service” as FSEC
“Professor Feldman has earned the highest level of respect, gratitude, and admiration of her colleagues on the Faculty Senate as well as the esteem and appreciation of the entire University community,” the resolution states.
Feldman at the meeting thanked committee members, faculty senators and the GW community for their “activation,” collaboration and “deep and abiding” commitment to students, research and scholarship as well as the “health” of GW.
She said she agreed to become FSEC chair in 2023 because she hoped to collaborate with Granberg at the beginning of her tenure. She added that she also took the position partly because it looked “relatively calm” at the University when she began.
“Despite the times and the myriad of challenges that have come with them, it has been a pleasure to work with all of you, and I look forward to continuing to do so as a member of the senate,” Feldman said at the meeting.
Feldman said senators will vote on the next FSEC chair at the senate’s May meeting — the first senate meeting of the 2025-26 academic year. Feldman said a nominating committee is in the process of nominating the next FSEC chair.
Granberg said at the meeting that it has been a “wonderful experience” to work with Feldman over the past two years as the first FSEC chair she’s worked with.
“I so appreciate your thoughtful and collaborative, intellectually grounded and always very calm voice that you bring to the room, that you bring to the Executive Committee meetings and that you have brought to the conversations that we’ve had the opportunity to have,” Granberg said at the meeting.
The Faculty Organization Plan stipulates that the FSEC oversee
the functions of the senate, including setting its agenda, carrying out its actions, making and submitting reports on the senate’s progress and other initiatives around GW and acting on behalf of the senate in emergencies.
Feldman also serves as the sole faculty representative on the University Steering Committee, which is charged with developing the University’s new strategic framework, a plan with goals and initiatives for the future of the University, according to its website.
Schultheiss said she has only been on the committee with Feldman for the past year, but she’s seen Feldman’s “consistent advocacy” for improving communication between the senate and administration. She said Feldman is very “skillful” at talking to individuals with
Officials refute faculty senator’s claim of business school ‘cutbacks’
Patricia Hernandez, a faculty senator and biology professor, said she received a “disturbing” email on Friday morning stating that researchers must submit their National Science Foundation grant proposals earlier than normal for reviewers to identify “naughty words” — like “woman” and “minority” — that federal agencies may flag as part of President Donald Trump’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion orders. Hernandez did not specify in her comments who sent the email. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
University President Ellen Granberg and Bracey said they were unaware of the email. Granberg said “some of that” is wanting to avoid the NSF’s rejection of “important science” due to the inclusion of certain words in grant proposals.
Trump’s administration has ordered agencies like the NSF to flag grants that include words like “antiracist,” “disability” and “marginalized” to determine if the grants comply with his executive orders aimed at eliminating DEI programs.
On the University’s federal research updates webpage, officials list federal actions “most likely” to impact research grant funding, including Trump’s rollback of DEI programs and the administration’s policy declaring there are only two
genders.
The webpage also states investigators should forward all federal communications to the Office of Sponsored Projects, which will provide “specific guidance” on how researchers should proceed.
Senior Associate Vice Provost for Research Gina Lohr said GW is “not saying” the proposals shouldn’t include those words, but instead is trying to “guide” researchers to word their grants in a way that will not immediately flag them as violating executive orders.
Philip Wirtz, a faculty senator and professor of decision sciences and psychological and brain sciences, said he received calls from School of Business faculty on Thursday raising concerns about “cutbacks” in the school’s operations.
Faculty attributed the alleged cuts to increased money requirements they must give GW from the school’s revenue, also called a school’s margin, Wirtz said. Wirtz said GWSB faculty told him that officials attributed the “cutbacks” to a “dramatically” boosted margin of revenue that professors must give back to GW’s “central administration.”
“All of the deans have now been imposed in an almost after-the-fact way with additional margin requirements that they had not expected,” Wirtz said. “And they are therefore expected to cut back from their funds in order to account for the
additional margin requirements for the central university.”
In response, CFO Bruno Fernandes said he’s “caught off guard” by GWSB’s alleged cuts and said officials did not impose them. He will “look into” any funding discrepancies happening in individual schools, Fernandes said.
He said the University has not ordered an increase on margin requirements to schools and that this year’s margin requirement was 1 percent, which he said is the minimum percentage for the University to “break even.”
Interim GWSB Dean Vanessa Perry said academic schools are in a “conservatorship” because officials do not report to academic deans regarding GW’s financial decisions. She said “leaks” are “usually” how deans learn about financial changes at the University.
Officials need to be financially transparent by directly telling deans their decision-making process and how schools will be impacted by their choices instead of deans having to hear speculation through the “rumor mill,” she said.
Faculty senators have previously pressed University officials to address if the MFA’s losses are impacting the services GW is able to provide students, like financial aid and academic programs. The MFA lost more than $107 million in FY2024 and more than $48 million in the first half of FY25.
various positions at the University, from the senate to the Board.
During the encampment last year, Feldman led the FSEC in an emergency meeting where members drafted a letter to Granberg and Provost Chris Bracey urging officials to take a “de-escalatory approach” and offered to have senators help officials communicate with student protesters. Feldman is very “evenhanded” as FSEC chair and will always listen to and respect the community’s “wide range” of opinions, regardless of her personal views, she said.
“I’ve always been very impressed with her sort of diplomatic skills and her communication skills, her openness to viewpoints that may or may not agree with her own,” Schultheiss said. “Those are some of the qualities I’ve really admired in her leadership.”
John Warren, a FSEC member and a professor and director of the graduate publishing program, said he admires what Feldman has been able to accomplish as chair of the committee. He said Feldman has been “very supportive” of faculty advocating for shared governance and communication between officials and faculty. Feldman said at a Board meeting in October 2023 that newly organized meetings between the FSEC and the Board’s Executive Committee have been “very valuable” in strengthening shared governance. The meetings followed discussions between faculty, University officials and the Board about shared governance principles at GW over the past several years and calls by the faculty that the decision to arm GWPD defied principles.
Pre-health student group for Black women debuts career conference
ADELAIDE PETRAS REPORTER
RAINA PAWLOSKI
REPORTER
The Black Girl PreHealth Collective hosted its first Black pre-health conference at the Milken Institute School of Public Health on Friday aimed at guiding students interested in health care careers.
The conference hosted discussions and panels centered on improving students’ medical skills and overcoming the challenges Black women face in health fields like a lack of representation and difficulty forming connections with colleagues due to implicit biases. BGPC student leaders said the conference gave Black pre-health students the opportunity to connect with Black professionals in the medical field.
Kayla McQuiller, a sophomore and the programming director for BGPC, said the conference platforms Black female professionals in the medical field to students, as only 2.8 percent of physicians in the United States are Black women. McQuiller said through the conference, Black women have a place to come together and reflect on challenges they face within their respective careers.
“It’s designed to help address the unique challenges faced by Black students on their journey to become health care leaders by providing knowledge, mentorship and practical insights,” McQuiller said.
McQuiller said BGPC does not receive “much” funding from the Student Government Association’s semesterly allocations, so they rely heavily on catering donations from outside organizations like Milken and businesses like Tonic and Call Your Mother.
The Princeton Review, an online test preparation website, raffled one free MCAT to an attendee, waiving the standard $335 registration fee for the exam.
Hope Rwaga, a copresident of BGPC, said she hopes the conference will increase confidence among pre-health students of color in pursuing their career aspirations by hearing from practicing physicians and advocates and how they suc-
ceeded in the field.
“A lot of people feel selfdoubt or have imposter syndrome, so as long as they’re able to see people like them at the conference and feel that confidence to pursue this field, especially since this field does not have a lot of Black physicians in it, that’s the main goal is to really push out inspiration and inclusivity,” Rwaga said.
Rwaga said the organization came up with the idea for the conference about three years ago when the group’s co-founders — 2024 graduates Bailey Moore and Tiffany-Chrissy Mbeng — wanted to establish a space to academically support Black female prehealth students. She said BGPC wanted to platform a young medical professional as their keynote speaker so they could answer questions about their pre-health journey.
Deborah Fadoju, the former regional coordinator of the Ohio Department of Health and a current resident at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, delivered the keynote address Friday. Fadoju, a 2020 Howard University alum, said she initially planned on entering a residency to become an obstetrician-gynecologist but switched into public health to advocate for people of color.
Fadoju’s presentation was titled “Built from the Breaking: My Journey through Medicine as a Black Woman.” She said she faced discrimination and microaggressions as a Black woman in the health care space, like her supervisors telling her she is “too passionate” or “intimidating.” Fadoju said one of the
biggest challenges pre-med students of color will have to face is maintaining confidence in themselves as they navigate the medical field, which she said will challenge their capabilities. Melissa Davies-Cole, a graduate student studying public health in epidemiology, led “how-to” sessions providing advice on strengthening job applications, maximizing study efforts and conducting research as an undergraduate student, along with Sabrina Altema, a clinical assistant professor in the physical therapy department at Howard University, and Kaitlyn Bell, an outreach specialist from The Princeton Review. Other breakout sessions included a suture clinic led by the U.S. Army and a dental-carving clinic. Each of the three sessions was taught by a different health professional giving handson instructions on researching, studying and clinics focused on blood pressure, dental carving and sutures. The conference featured a panel with graduate students from different universities, including GW, Howard, Marymount and Johns Hopkins universities, as well as the universities of the District of Columbia and Maryland, all of whom were Black women in health fields.
The panelists all discussed the challenges they had to overcome, the journeys to their respective fields, the importance of networks and mentors and ways to prevent burnout. Arlene Asante, a Marylandbased dentist and one of the panelists, said the path to becoming a medical professional includes adversity that everyone has to navigate.
ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Faculty senator Phil Wirtz at Friday's Faculty Senate meeting
RACHEL KURLANDSKY | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER U.S. Army representatives lead students through a suture workshop.
Some of us may not jump at the opportunity to attend free basketball games, but it is undeniably true that college sports bring in money and prestige. GW has to compete with the money that other schools rein in from name, image and likeness — an athlete’s legal commercial right to their image — to recruit and retain some of the best players out there.
Sports are essential to bolstering GW’s applications, community involvement, money and overall status. But before officials start investing more dollars into basketball programs to keep up with the University’s demand for players, we have to start small. To improve the status of our basketball program or other sports programs, we need to first focus on engaging the GW community to attract students and alumni with deep pockets, forging a path for GW to invest in the future of its athletics.
Some of the best basketball programs, like Duke University’s team, have massive and loyal fan bases, bringing in a stronger sense of community and significant revenue. The average attendance in the Smith Center this season for men’s basketball games was 1,869 people and for women’s basketball, 479 — not even filling half of the center’s 5,000 seats.
NIL has allowed athletes to earn money commercially through their image and likeness through projects, like brand deals, and universities then pour millions of dollars into their athletics programs. GW has an official NIL collective, Friends of George collective, that aims to provide NIL opportunities to GW athletes and benefits for its members, usually students or alumni. The University has overall spent more than $4 million on its
Our own city is becoming subjugated to President Donald Trump’s global trade war, immigration policies and wars of Eastern Europe and Middle East. The District’s officials and its communities must protect our city from the wrath of the expansive executive orders of Trump’s second term. Since Trump returned to office in January, he has instituted rampant changes that challenge the city’s individuality, values and landscape. And D.C. officials, like Mayor Muriel Bowser, are caving to them and refusing to admit their complacency.
After the death of George Floyd in 2020, D.C. erected the controversial “Black Lives Matter” Plaza just south of Trump’s White House. The White House pressured Bowser into dismantling the plaza last month. Bowser, who once proudly stood behind the plaza’s presence in the city, with a population of 44 percent Black citizens, claimed that “we have bigger fish to fry” and excused the dismantling for the sake of the city’s residents and economic survival.
Realistically, this “pick your battle” attitude attests to Bowser’s complacency and minimal responsibility to stand for her city’s identity. Admittedly, this is a somewhat understandable complex situation for the mayor. President Trump’s public threats of taking over
How many visas the Department of State revoked from GW students p.1
competitive. GW needs to play the game.
STAFF EDITORIAL
men’s basketball program this season but there are athletes at other schools receiving NIL offers in the hundreds of thousands of dollars alone — even millions in some cases. It would be extremely difficult for GW, a mid-major athletic program, to compete with a high-major basketball program. GW will lose out on recruits who are taking up more enticing offers if GW doesn’t contribute more money and energy to our athletics. The transfer portal incentivizes athletes to program-hop in search of teams that rake in more wins and NIL
DC is in denial
the city is an oppressively uphill battle, but Bowser’s quick surrender sets an explicit negligent tone and a bad precedent for the city authority in the age of Trump. I urge Mayor Bowser and city officials to make decisions backed by the city. Whether holding local meetings open to the voices of D.C. residents or speaking to local movement leaders.
Trump’s D.C. crackdown also set its gaze on Washington’s unhoused population. On March 6, just hours following Trump’s warning to Bowser to clear the encampments, work crews began clearing an encampment right next to GW’s campus near the E Street Expressway, which local officials said was part of ongoing encampment clearings.
Mayor Bowser’s immediate compliance shows the willingness of D.C. officials to play into Trump’s visions for the city. As Trump will likely become more aggressive in his plans for Washington, Bowser’s willingness to bend to Trump’s will poses a threat to the city’s autonomy. For D.C., a federal district with no congressional representation, it is especially essential for Bowser to set the precedent of D.C.’s autonomy early in Trump’s presidency. Washington’s city administration should publicize their approach and methods to working with the Trump administration, which allows transparency and citizen accountability. During my sister’s visit last weekend, I enjoyed showing her D.C.’s diverse architecture from Union Market to Dupont Circle, which reflects each neigh-
ABBY TURNER | STAFF CARTOONIST
money. The University shouldn’t try and ignore these realities — they’re here to stay and are ultimately a part of athletics’ competitive landscape. And if GW started investing significantly more money into our basketball programs to get into bigger leagues, its efforts might not come to fruition because of the limited enthusiasm that many community members give to sports at GW. It’s also admittedly not the most appropriate time to pour funds into athletics, given the widespread budget cuts threatening university academics and research.
borhood’s cohesive culture and attributes to Washingtonian’s love for the city. When I heard Trump’s recent attempts to “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture” alongside his discussion of the “Democracy in Design Act,” which promotes classical architecture for federal buildings instead of brutalist and modernist styles, I was surprised. Spending millions of dollars to reconceptualize the city is not what makes Washington beautiful, it’s the diverse and cohesive architecture.
Today’s sociopolitical climate seems to be a never-ending warfare of current events vying to grasp a viewer’s attention as the most detrimental and important event. And most of the time, these are important stories that are valid in their acclaim and deserve to be heard. However, it is important that we take time to recognize the consequential patterns happening here in our own city and hold those we elected into power accountable. The city government, spearheaded by Mayor Bowser has set an underwhelming tone for the city’s approach toward the new administration, which is especially concerning as over 56,000 federal workers have been laid off, and Trump has abruptly taken over the city’s cultural hub at the Kennedy Center. Therefore, as a city and not just a capital, Washington deserves your awareness so that we can hold leaders accountable.
—James Pomian, a junior majoring in history and political science, is an opinions writer.
WTo eventually attract investment into our athletics program, we must significantly expand its visibility and audience reach. We need to start by building upon GW’s existing efforts to do so. Basketball games are free for students, which isn’t usually the standard with more elite teams. GW tries to make halftime shows more attractive by hosting corgi races and bringing in various entertainers. Yet, attendance is still low. It’s not working well enough. GW has the right idea — officials understand the necessity of building community interest for
our athletic programs, or at least our basketball program, to keep growing. George’s Army, the official student section for GW sports, tries to motivate the student body to attend games by having themes, like or specific dress codes to foster a sense of community at games. But so far, its attempts haven’t had a large enough impact.
Instead of just offering to give away a prize worth hundreds of dollars, GW can instead have events like tailgates — which the University has successfully hosted a few times in the past — that the general public would get excited about.
Winning teams will also attract more students to GW and catch the attention of more alumni and donors. This season, men’s basketball had 21 wins, the most since 2016, which sets up a solid foundation for the rest of the GW community to rally around its basketball team. GW should schedule competition against more competitive programs with name recognition — games that the community would be more interested in attending over weak, cupcake-y nonconference matchups. In earlier seasons, GW has had more attention-grabbing exhibitions, like hosting the University of South Carolina in 2022 and GW actually managed to grab a win. The game was the second-most attended game of the year, with 2,216 attendees and managed to bring in 10 NBA scouts to the Smith Center to scope out players of the opposing team — who then have the opportunity to watch our teams too. If we boost the amount of money funneling to athletics, there’s room for the rest of the University to benefit. But first, officials must effectively address the GW community’s avoidance of athletics.
I learned to love the Vern
hen I got to GW, I dreaded living on the Mount Vernon Campus.
Ava Hurwitz Opinions Writer
I spent my first year living on the Vern as part of the University Honors Program. When I made my top college lists, proximity to a large city was my number one priority — landing me at GW. So imagine my disappointment when I discovered that students in the UHP had to live on the Vern. I was devastated, but I accepted my Foxhall fate. But as my first year comes to a close, I’ve learned to love the Vern with all of its quirks and charm, and I realize how much I will miss it. Coming from a graduating high school class of 68 students in Louisville, Kentucky, I was excited to express myself outside of small-town dynamics in the city. While I knew beforehand that I would be placed there as a part of the UHP, I still felt dismayed at the thought of being separated from living in the heart of the nation’s capital, as the GW experience is marketed. There is a disconnect from those who reside on the Foggy Bottom Campus because our homes are in an entirely different location.
Surprisingly, though, the Vern provided a better space to transition from my tiny graduating class to the much larger body of first-year students and undergraduates at GW. The
smaller campus and built-in community gave me a sense of grounding that I hadn’t expected I’d need.
I saw many students lamenting the absence of school spirit at GW due to the tunnel vision of internships and political opportunities. But when I got to the Vern, I was able to carve out a space for myself within the much smaller subset of the GW community. There is a sense of fellowship among the students on the Vern, from shared campus experiences, like being late to class because of the long Buff & Brew line or falling down the stairs on the way to The Eatery at Pelham Commons.
Many students hate on the Vern because of its inconvenient location and the dreaded Mount Vernon Express schedule. But even though I originally had my heart set on living in the city, I appreciate the worklife balance that residing on the Vern offers. After long days surrounded by noise and ambition downtown, stepping back onto the Vern allows me to decompress and make time for myself.
Part of the Vern’s charm comes from the neighborhood that surrounds it. I’m from Louisville, and the neighborhood and parks around the campus remind me of home in a way that Foggy Bottom never has. There’s plentiful green space in Foxhall. The neighborhood brick houses resemble the ones from my hometown and the quiet streets feel like the ones I spent my high school years driving through. Unlike Foggy Bottom, I never have to shout to be heard over
the screaming of a siren or worry about taking latenight strolls alone. Finally, my favorite component of living on the Vern is the Vex. Believe me, I’ve fallen victim to the Vex’s unreliable schedule. Nonetheless, nothing beats a late-night Vex ride — headphones in, forehead against the cool glass window, watching the blur of downtown D.C. as cars speed past. Those 15 minutes became my relaxation time, a break from the constant hustle and bustle of school, work and social life. Once, after taking two tests backto-back, I collapsed into my seat on the Vex, a muchneeded respite as I left the stress of the exams behind me.
Yes, I’ve been late to my economics midterm because the Vex was stuck in traffic. And the campus doesn’t offer many choices for food, as there is only one dining hall open after Buff & Brew closes in the late afternoon. That said, for me, the pros outweigh the cons. Community is one of the most important aspects of the college experience, and the Vern has allowed me to develop my own.
I’ll miss the little bubble of peace that the Vern gave me during a chaotic first year. I’m glad that I was able to have it as a helpful transition into the college experience, but now I feel ready to take on life in Foggy Bottom. Like everywhere else, the Vern isn’t perfect — but for 10 months, it has been home. And for that, I’m incredibly grateful. —Ava Hurwitz, a first-year majoring in international affairs, is an opinions writer. .
James Pomian Opinions Writer
NUMBER CRUNCH
Junior outfielder racks up homers, honors as softball finds its groove
KRISTI WIDJAJA STAFF WRITER
Sitting at the top of the Atlantic 10 softball leaderboard in doubles, home runs and batting average is junior outfielder Ashley Corpuz.
Over her first three years at GW, Corpuz has refined her performance, improving her .244 average in her freshman year over 45 games to .416 this season in 41 games so far. Corpuz is first for the most home runs in the conference this season with 15, leads with 13 doubles and has the second most RBIs, with 50 runs batted in.
“My freshman self is not the same as I am today,” she said. “I think I’ve grown both technically in skills but then also in my mental game.”
A soccer player growing up, Corpuz said her dad pushed her to take up softball at 8 years old, but she was at first hesitant, held back by her fear of getting hit by the ball.
“I was so scared to play softball because I didn’t want to get hit, but my dad just kept pushing me to play, and soon enough, I said ‘Yes,’ and here we are,” Corpuz said.
Corpuz started in the outfield all four years at San Juan Hills High School in California. After tearing her ACL her junior year of high school, Corpuz’s recovery process allowed her to return to softball sooner than to soccer. Soon after, GW Head Coach Chrissy Schoonmaker recruited Corpuz, starting her journey to Foggy Bottom. Holding the top of the Revolutionaries’ lineup, Corpuz has received three A-10 Player of the Week awards this season — including one announced on March 31, after she went 3-3 with two home runs and four RBIs in a
game against Dayton. The Dayton series was her favorite memory of this season, Corpuz said, with a Revs celebration following a walk-off that cemented a series sweep.
In the final game of the Dayton series, freshman infielder Emi Todoroki hit a walk-off double to secure the series sweep against the Flyers, the back-to-back reigning A-10 champions. “That was the first time we swept Dayton, at least since I’ve been here, so it felt so good,” Corpuz said. “We all just ran out to her, just jumping and screaming. It was unmatched and knowing that we swept the series was a big win.”
Although the team lost four of five after the Dayton series, the 12-5 Revs swept previousfirst-place team Fordham to move back to a comfortable position in the standings at second, just half a game behind 10-4 Dayton, who sits in first.
The Revs have already eclipsed their 2024 conference win total of 11, marking significant improvement after two years of below-.500 finishes.
Corpuz credits the coaching staff, particularly Assistant Coach Jordan Gontram, with bettering the team’s hitting through expertise and team support. After Gontram’s arrival in 2023, the team jumped from seventh place in bat-
Rowing takes home gold at annual GW Invite
Rowing earned gold in the annual GW Invite on Saturday and Sunday, beating out St. Mary’s College, Georgetown, Old Dominion and West Virginia universities and University of California San Diego.
During last year’s GW Invitational, the Revs won most of their races — with their first and second varsity eight boats going completely undefeated — as gusts of 50 miles per hour swept through the race course, forcing officials to cancel or consolidate several events. This weekend, the first varsity eight boat found success, while the first and second varsity four boats struggled to best their competition.
Saturday events:
GW’s first varsity eight boat secured first place, crossing the finish line with a time of 6:25.10, Saint Mary’s following behind with 6:29.88 and Georgetown with 6:35.21.
The second varsity eight boat finished in third place, trailing behind Saint Mary’s who won with a time of 6:33.99 and the Hoyas who slotted for silver with 6:34.73. The Revs followed closely behind with a time of 6:36.22.
The first varsity four
boat ended its race in last place with a time of 7:48.04, trailing nearly 20 seconds behind fifth-place Old Dominion, which wrapped up with 7:29.71.
The second varsity four boat ended in third out of four teams, with 7:41.93, sandwiched between second-place Old Dominion, which crossed the finish line a second before with a time of 7:40.59 and West Virginia, which finished last with 7:49.16.
The third varsity eight boat also found success on the Potomac, finishing in first place with 7:11.36, compared to second-place West Virginia, which wrapped up several seconds behind with 7:14.01.
Sunday events:
Sunday brought a new racing slate, with the first varsity eight taking home another first place victory with a time of 6:25.95 out of six boats. The second varsity eight boat earned second — compared to Saturday’s third — with a time of 6:38.44, several seconds behind the Hoyas, who finished first with 6:35.97.
The first varsity four also markedly improved from the day before, earning second place with a time of 7:33.86, just a second behind West Virginia. The second varsity
the dugout as a whole.
“I think that’s been a really key factor to success, just that momentum and the high energy of the games and being able to get it done,” Corpuz said.
With three more conference series left in the season and just one game back of Dayton for the regular season title, Corpuz said she’s looking forward to spending more time with her team and enjoying the “fun environment” where she can spend time making memories and joking around.
“This team just loves one another,” Corpuz said. “I show up to practice every day with a smile on my face knowing that I have 18 other girls plus our coaches who all love and support one another.”
Corpuz said hacky sack, a 1980s-era game that revolves around kicking a small, bean-filled sack, has been the team’s bonding activity of choice as a pregame and prepractice ritual.
ting percentage to first in 2024.
“Especially Coach Jordan helping us with hitting, all the coaches really have taught us how to be technically better, but then also how to tackle the mental side of the game and just really building us up as both athletes and people in general,” Corpuz said. Corpuz leads the team in many statistical categories, but she’s not the only Rev having a career year. She’s one of five players batting over .250 and says having so many players getting on base assists the team on and off the field. She said knowing if she doesn’t “get it done,” the confidence that another Rev will get on base or score runs helps energize her and
four boat came in last of four boats with a time of 8:01.79, trailing behind third place West Virginia who finished with 7:47.89.
During the third batch of varsity eight races of the tournament, the Revs
once again secured first, with their fastest time of the weekend at 6:22.38. In the second varsity eight race, the Revs’ second and third boats competed, with the second varsity eight finishing with
“Before every single game, every practice, if we have five minutes to spare, we’re all in a circle,” Corpuz said. “You kick it with your feet, and we try to keep it up. But if you come out to a game or practice or anything, you will always see us playing hacky, and we love just doing it. It’s so fun.”
As she continues to rack up accolades, and the team moves forward on their championship quest, she said it’s the team’s success and “supportive environment” that allows her to win individual awards.
“Success has allowed for those individual rewards to come,” Corpuz said. “And I know everybody’s proud of each other. I have the support when I win it but then, Anna [Reed] has it when she gets it. And it’s just a really supportive environment that everybody wants to succeed as a team and then with the team success comes individual awards.”
6:38.83, and third with 7:33.85. The Revs first varsity four boat struggled on the water, earning last with 7:43.94, but finishing several seconds faster than their first race of the
weekend. Comparatively, the second varsity four boat also finished in last with 7:45.21. The Revs will travel to Worcester, Massachusetts, on May 4 for the Eastern Sprints tournament.
Tennis falls to Davidson in fifth-straight
ETHAN TSAI REPORTER
Tennis (6-10, 2-4 Atlantic 10) fumbled their final home match against Davidson 0-7 Friday. The Revolutionaries have extended their five-game losing streak, which puts them at a 6-10 record for the season. Davidson shut out the Revs for the entire match, with the only GW win coming from senior Alejandra Ramirez and sophomore Solange Skeene, playing as doubles partners, with a score of 6-4. Ramirez and Skeene have been partners for the majority of both this year’s and last year’s season, teaming up a total of 26 times in the last two seasons, in-
cluding for every doubles game this season. The last few matches have seen close competition, with the Revs falling to Longwood University 3-4 on April 5, despite the Revs dominating the doubles game. The preceding game against Saint Francis University was a 2-5 defeat for the Revs as well, managing to win a third of the matches they played. The close losses are a major shift from the beginning of the season, when the Revs started off with a 7-0 win against George Mason, quickly followed by three wins out of the next four games. Ramirez is the only senior on the women’s 2025 roster and is wrapping up a four-year GW
career with a current total of 19 doubles wins and 15 singles wins. Prior to joining the Revs, she reached a career-high ranking of No. 1383 in the International Tennis Federation and was among the top high school tennis players in her home state of Texas. She said in September that she serves as a captain and mentor for the younger players on the team. The Revs will compete next against Richmond Saturday at the Westhampton Tennis Complex in Richmond, Virginia. The game will be the last meet for the Revs before moving onto the A-10 Championships on April 24.
ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
The third varsity eight boat races in this weekend’s GW Invite.
ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Senior Alejandra Ramirez walks off the court.
KYRA WOOD | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Junior outfielder Ashley Corpuz talks to teammates from outfield during a game against Fordham.
SANDRA KORETZ SPORTS EDITOR
ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
The women’s first varsity eight launches their boat.
ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Head Coach Paul Allbright fists bumps a first varsity eight rower.
KAIDEN J. YU | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
The first varsity eight boat passes under the Georgetown Key bridge.
BEST OF NORTHWEST
FAITH WARDWELL MANAGING EDITOR
If the George Washington effigies of campus could talk, the George sitting in the foreground of University Yard would have a lot to say.
Under snow flurries and beating sun, flanked by tour groups and “Only at GW” events, U-Yard George has served as a centerpiece for GW’s most quintessential and controversial moments. He’s become a stethoscope for campus culture, standing at the heart of campus and taking the pulse of the student body as a constant in moments of turbulence.
corners of the University or sitting stoically alone on a bench in Kogan Plaza.
GEORGE WASHINGTON!” the email read.
DIANA ANOS STAFF WRITER
Nicole Bartels has to relearn the American presidency every year.
BEST PROFESSOR: Nicole Bartels
‘Not that much.’ It was not that exciting, but now it really is.”
CAMPUS LIFE
Bartels said she previously taught Introduction to American Politics and Government, an introductory lecture for undergraduate political science majors that usually fills almost 300 seats. But Bartels, whose classes are full of questions from eager political buffs on topics spanning from elections to legislative vetoes, said she decided the broad lecture covered too many topics with not enough time.
that makes her a beloved instructor among students. She said her favorite course to teach is The American Presidency, where she and students examine the executive branch’s authority and how executive policy making and personality make its mark on the office.
college and that campus’ largest stretch of grass is
ture drops and the winding paths of U-Yard passersby.
U-Yard George has watched frisbees whizz by on the first warm days of the year as students flock to the central plaza to pretend GW is a classic American college and that campus’ largest stretch of grass is a classic collegiate quad. He has stood alone as temperature drops and the winding paths of U-Yard lay void of passersby.
But U-Yard George sits at the center, literally and figuratively. He’s become a flashpoint for campus politics, standing flanked by tents during the proPalestinian encampment in the plaza last spring. For two weeks, U-Yard George served as the anchor of the demonstration, with protesters planting flags around his neck, signs at his feet and wrapping keffiyehs around his head and
Bartels, an assistant professor of political science, has taught classes on the executive branch at GW for the past seven years but said that teaching the course during Donald Trump’s presidencies has uprooted everything she thought she knew about executive power. She said Trump’s early-term actions and the reverberating impact of his return to power have dominated recent conversations in her course The American Presidency.
“I had a student ask me once, ‘What did you talk about in this class before Trump was president?’” Bartels said. “And I was like,
She said the more narrowly focused classes she teaches now, like on the presidency and women in politics, make her life “easier” because they are tied to the current news cycle and spark student curiosity.
GW is a school positioned to monitor changing political trends, and Bartels’ understanding of
Unlike some professors who check out as soon as class ends, Bartels is always reachable outside of the classroom. She said she wants students to be honest with her when they’re confused and always pauses class for even the smallest questions. She said she is inspired by her students’ knowledge and continues to leave every day feeling fulfilled.
“You have to put in the work, but I try to make it so I can create a vibe and an environment where you can feel comfortable and be successful,” Bartels said.
BEST PLACE TO ARGUE:
Bronze George statues pepper GW’s campus, but most sit away from the action — large busts guarding the
After the police cleared the encampment on its 14th day and arrested more than 30 protesters, George watched as officials cleared remaining tents from the lawn around him, leaving sun-bleached marks where they once stood. And he watched as the University erected a string of black, metal fences around the perimeter of the plaza, which have now surrounded him for nearly a year.
O’BRIEN
ues pepper GW’s campus, but most around his neck, signs at his feet and wrapping keffiyehs around his head and body. The ornamentation of U-Yard George the national political fray, with President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign sending a fundraising email with a photo in flags, stickers and FILTHY HANDS OFF
The ornamentation of U-Yard George was even pulled into the national political fray, with President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign sending a fundraising email with a photo of George covered in flags, stickers and signs. “KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF
Since officials placed the fences, students have returned to U-Yard, but not to the level before the plaza was enclosed. But George still stands, one hand on his staff. He’s seen generations of students take their first steps on campus and for decades watched graduates accept their diplomas. His eyes remain trained on the horizon of campus, and they’ll stay there for decades to come.
BEST METRO BUSKER: Steel drums player
On an unseasonably warm day in late March, a local musician set up their steel drums in front of the Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro station.
Sunlight blazed off their silver instrument as he tapped his mallet against the smooth, metal surface.
The soft, bubbly music stood out against the blare of ambulances headed to the neighborhood GW Hospital and the shouting of vendors as they hawked D.C. memorabilia lining tables at the mouth of the escalators.
If passersby removed their AirPods, they would find the Foggy Bottom Metro station offers a frontrow seat to an outdoor symphony, with the steel drum player as its star.
After emerging from the escalator, I veered to the side to watch the performer’s rhythmic drum hits instead of darting across 23rd Street to my next destination. I stood a few feet away from the drummer, wearing a purple shirt, as I watched him strike the hollow steelpan with the mallet. He nodded his head and tapped his foot as he played an upbeat, pop-esque song I could not name. After the mallet met the metal, a punchy note burst through the humid
air, stirring up my excitement for the next punch as a soothing, joyful sound reverberated.
The rhythmic pattern contrasted the uncertainty of the city life around me. I had no idea whether another ambulance would roar by or if a businessman boarding the Metro would run into me while I watched, not even bothering to mumble sorry as he left. But I knew I could rely on the composition of the steelpan player’s song: the jolt of impact and its quieter, yet no less interesting, echoes. Most passersby walked right pass, barely giving a glance to the performer as his eyes remained trained on the mallets they used to play the drum.
Staircase in Rome and Phillips halls
We’ve reached the point in the semester when tensions between roommates, friends and classmates begin to stack like rounds in a slow-motion boxing match. By April, crumbs on the counter and dishes in the sink have turned the air in shared apartments dense with unspoken grievances, and you catch yourself glaring every time that one classmate clears their throat to speak. When you need to settle the score, make the staircase in Rome and Phillips halls your glass arena.
Arguing while descending a staircase is like boxing without contact — the steps measured, points thrown, hesitations echoing like punches you failed to land. Too narrow to escape but too exposed for a knockout, the stairwell traps you in the push and pull of each word exchanged.
The seven fl ights of
BEN SPITALNY SPORTS EDITOR
glass-walled, open stairs in Rome and Phillips halls offer an environment of strange intimacy, a space where an argument feels both exposed and controlled. Each word bounces off the concrete, lingering in the air as if the stairs themselves are stretching the syllables and forcing you to confront the weight of your opponent’s point.
As you descend the fl ights in fierce discourse, you’re tempted to believe you have privacy, wrapped in the cool anonymity of concrete, certain the passersby below won’t glance up from their phones to notice what’s unfolding behind the glass. But you know that each floor, each landing, holds an audience from across academic departments. You’re pretty sure they’re all strangers — unless one is your professor, fi rst-year roommate or a friend of a friend. This uncertainty hangs over the exchange just enough to keep you careful with your words but not enough to curb your argument.
The possibility that someone could step into the stairwell, slip between your back-and-forth, is
a built-in obstacle that erodes the illusion of privacy. You must brace for the threat, careful not to lose your rhythm if an uninvited guest stumbles into the ring. How well you recover in that moment reveals to your opponent just how tightly you cling to your position. The wide landings between fl ights signal the end of each round, offering a brief respite where the tension dissipates and the playing field levels. It’s a chance to reset and recalibrate before taking your next verbal swing. These pauses prevent one person from dominating, granting both sides a chance to seize control in the next round. They become a quiet contest of who can catch their breath fi rst and reenter the ring with enough momentum to claim the upper hand. As you near the bottom of the stairs, the argument dissolves into a quiet standoff on solid ground. You meet each other’s eyes, weighing the choice: to chase the words back up the stairs or leave them limp on the concrete, unresolved but fading with each step you take away.
BEST FEMALE ATHLETE: Olivia Paquette
JADEN DEGRUY REPORTER
RYAN JAINCHILL
BASKETBALL EDITOR
Redshirt junior forward Rafael Castro turned quiet consistency into dominance this season, pulling down boards and scoring points without pause.
In his inaugural season with the Revolutionaries, Castro wore the jersey like it was his second skin, leading the team in points, rebounds and blocks. He’s bringing his frontcourt finesse back to the Charles E. Smith Center for his redshirt senior season, which he said will help him shine.
Castro said the shifting NCAA landscape — with record numbers of players entering the transfer portal, including three of GW’s own — made departing the team an option, but he ultimately decided against it “from a character standpoint.”
He owned the Smith Center court, ranking third in the country for field goal percentage and landing in the top 30 for total rebounds,
achievements Castro attributes to his confident demeanor. Castro said he credited Collin Nnamene, a graduate assistant for the team, for helping him tweak everything from his shooting to his on-court positioning. Castro recalled his favorite memory from this past season as the team’s 76-59 victory over Mercyhurst University.
Off the court, Castro said his main hobby these days is sleeping. He said taking naps keeps him from getting too “cranky.” “I take a lot of naps,” he said. “I need a nap.”
The Atlantic 10 named Castro to the All-Conference Second Team for his efforts last season, a sign of his improved play throughout the year. Castro, though, said the statistics he put throughout the year were worthy of first-team honors.
“Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t,” he said.
Castro said he’s aspiring to win some team hardware and take home the A-10’s top prizes next season.
“I want to go for that Player of the Year award, but as a team, honestly, I want to win the A-10 and get dancing in March with my teammates,” Castro said.
After clinching the 2024 women’s Atlantic 10 Swimming and Diving Championships by 420 points, junior diver Olivia Paquette said securing this year’s championship by only 27.5 points was even sweeter.
If it wasn’t for Paquette, who picked up Most Outstanding Female Diver at the February meet and single-handedly contributed 37 points, the team might have lost its status as the reigning A-10 champion and ended its four-year title run. She made quite the splash at the meet and made the podium for two events — the 1-meter and 3-meter — setting a program record for the former.
“It made it a lot more stressful this year but a lot more worth it because we really had to come together to cheer each other on and every single point counted,” Paquette said.
Paquette has led GW swimming and diving all season, picking up accolades, like women’s Performer of the Week at the December Big Al meet at Princeton University. There, she picked up first place in
two events — the 1-meter and the 3-meter — setting a program-record in the former with a score of 288.05. The record only lasted three months before she set an even higher record of 288.35 at the A-10 Championship. During her time at GW, Paquette has garnered a reputation for breaking her own records — setting a new program record for her 6-dive score in the 3-meter during a January 2024 meet after breaking the record earlier in the season.
Women’s swimming and diving has won the A-10 Championship every year for the past four seasons, leading the Revs to levels of success unparalleled in the University’s other athletic programs. At
last year’s championship, Paquette also picked up Most Outstanding Female Diver, after taking first place in the 1-meter and 3-meter dives. Her freshman year, she placed top six in both events, including picking up a bronze in the 3-meter. Paquette’s scores this year earned her a trip to NCAA Diving Zone A in March, where she competed for a chance to make nationals. After not making it past the finals, Paquette said her sights are set on qualifying for nationals next year.
“I’ve made zones every year, and each year I get closer to qualifying, but it’s really tough,” Paquette said. “And so if I could qualify my senior year, that would be really, really awesome.”
FIONA RILEY SENIOR NEWS EDITOR
ANNIE
STAFF WRITER
ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Rafael Castro sits for a portrait in the Tin Tabernacle Club.
ARWEN CLEMANS | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Olivia Paquette sits for a portrait on a diving board.
HATCHET FILE PHOTO
Students walk through University Yard
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Readers’ choice: Kogan Plaza George
Readers’ choice: Kogan Plaza
Readers’ choice: Delaney DeHaan
BEST OF NORTHWEST
BEST PLACE TO GO DANCING: DC Square Dance Collective
CAITLIN KITSON
CONTRIBUTING CULTURE EDITOR
As Bill Hader’s “Saturday Night Live” character Stefon would put it, the District’s hottest club is a square dancing extravaganza in an episcopal church.
The D.C. Square Dance Collective, a volunteer group of self-described “music and dance lovers,” has been throwing dances in Columbia Heights’ St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church and other venues across the DMV area since 2011.
Today, when the collective sets up shop at the church, dancers crisscross and spin beneath the sanctuary’s creamcolored arches as a folk band plucks out jaunty tunes on string instruments below the altar’s crucifix.
Square dancing is a form of American folk dancing that draws influences from Scottish, Irish, English, French, West African and Native American traditions. A typical square dance consists of couples gathering in a square formation and
following a sequence of steps announced by the “caller,” who directs the dancers along to the live music.
Bradley Kennedy, one of the collective’s original organizers and a current caller and dancer, said her passion for square dancing started more than 15 years ago, when she and her roommates would throw jam-packed house parties when they lived on the border of Northeast D.C. in Maryland. Local dancers and musicians would flock to the parties, as one of her roommates was a wellconnected fiddle player, and they eventually started calling square dances in their living and dining
rooms during the gatherings, she said.
“They were really popular, and they were so crowded, like you couldn’t really move,” Kennedy said. “So it seemed like people were pretty into it. We were like, ‘Maybe we should get a bigger space.’”
She said attendees — who range from families with young kids to 30-somethings to older square dancers — can decide if they want to dance or hang out with their friends on the sidelines and jam out to the music.
“One time, someone who was at the dance told me, ‘This is the most fun that human beings can have,’” Kennedy said.
METRO ESCALATOR: Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan
earth.
CHINOWSKY
Good things come in threes.
One such “good thing” is the Woodley Park-Zoo/ Adams Morgan Metro station escalator. The escalator is the third-tallest out of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s 588 total escalators and the tallest in D.C., coming in at a soaring 204 feet.
In order to experience the architectural feat, riders must fi rst ascend a pair of smaller sister escalators from the Metro platform, resembling a brief trek to base camp. From there, passengers take the notoriously steep side-by-side escalators to the summit (or Connecticut Avenue).
The design of the
Woodley Park station is textbook brutalist, with uniform concrete craters pocketing the escalator’s steep enclosure. Most GW students likely know the station from ventures down the Red Line — which houses nine of 10 of WMATA’s tallest escalators — to classic D.C. attractions, like Porchfest or the National Zoo. In fact, a failed attempt to report on the zoo’s holiday “Zoolights” production in the winter most recently brought me to the station. Reaching the journey’s destination was ultimately unsuccessful, but the Woodley Park-Zoo/ Adams Morgan Metro station served as the setting for soul-searching conversations about The Hatchet’s future between me and a fellow editor. I still remember the crisp blast of winter air freezing my cheeks as the escalator emerged from the
But my fondness for the escalator came a year before that, when the escalator’s wind tunnel brought autumn leaves instead of flecks of snow. My friend and I often visited Adams Morgan that fall to interview passersby for a journalism class. The long, slow ascent up the metal moving staircase often offered a moment of reflection amid lively discussion between two friends. And after a few hours worth of interviewing and a break for a sweet treat, the descent felt like a signal my job was done.
My reasons for appreciating the escalator are evidently nostalgic, so I accept that not everyone will share my affi nity. But next time you take a trip down the Red Line, try to savor your moments on D.C.’s best “third-best” piece of machinery.
CAVANAUGH
As a heavy metal band rocked out on the stage of The Pocket, a group of high schoolers formed a miniature mosh pit as their parents lined the walls to avoid the thrashing.
Inconspicuously located on the top floor of the mustard-yellow 7DrumCity music school in NoMa, The Pocket is a hidden gem for aspiring rock stars and music-lovers. Since opening its doors in 2019, the Truxton Circle venue has become a hub for Washingtonians to jam to the city’s up-andcoming artists.
Dimly lit with colorful LEDs and string lights, The Pocket holds just 75 people — though even at concerts with lower attendance, the room quickly gets hot, packed and sweaty. At the February concert headlined by the rock and metal bands Scoria, Texas Palm Tree and Arid Bloom that featured moshing teenagers, the dull red glow of stage lights illuminated the long hair and baggy pants that accompanied the room’s loud voices.
On the ground floor, underneath the tiny yet booming concert space, homey practice rooms filled with drums, pianos and guitars line the hallway. Musicians looking to groove and students taking private lessons with 7DrumCity teachers to learn anything from the ukulele to the hand drum fill the rooms each week.
DC LIFE
BEST SITE OF POLITICAL SCANDAL: Washington Hilton Hotel
EDITOR
The first four lines of a “National Historic Place” plaque at the Washington Hilton hotel would have you believe March 30, 1981, was a pretty chill day.
president had visited the hotel. But as Reagan stepped outside at 2:27 p.m., the day took a turn:
Hinckley shot Reagan and three others. Hinckwas
Those lines explain that on that day, then President Ronald Reagan visited the hotel to speak to a union, marking the 100th time a president had visited the hotel. But as Reagan stepped outside at 2:27 p.m., the day took a turn: John Hinckley shot Reagan and three others. Hinckley was delusional, convinced he had to
I have an itch for vintage postcards that always needs scratching.
Luckily for me and my bank account, The Lantern Bookshop on Georgetown’s P Street has a bounty of used books, paintings and cards out of the way of the mainstream M Street. The shop is entirely run by volunteers, who resell used books to raise money for scholarships and internships at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
The smell of aging paper greets you as you walk into the pastel pink townhouse. Aptly named, the Lantern makes me feel like Harry Potter walking through the restricted section of the library in his invisibility cloak and a glowing lantern in hand. As you peruse through the vintage titles, you feel like a 20th-century student unbridled by Google or ChatGPT, foraging for the
When I visited The Pocket in fall 2023 for an open mic, my friends and I explored the downstairs area after the show. We admired the sticker-covered bathroom and ended up playing one of the pianos — which, in hindsight, was likely not allowed — for more than an hour.
In a residential neighborhood on the corner of Rock Creek Church Road and Warder Street, a brick wall covered in a motley assortment of front doors opens its colors to onlookers.
kill a president and become famous so actress Jodie Fos-
The then-president, seriously but not fatally wounded, was rushed to GW Hospital to recover. Since being released from a mental hospital in 2016, Hinckley has become a traveling folk artist. Traveling may be an overstate-
kill a president and become famous so actress Jodie Foster would fall in love with him. The then-president, seriously but not fatally wounded, was rushed to GW Hospital to recover. Since being released from a mental hospital in 2016, Hinckley has become a traveling folk artist. Traveling may be an overstatement: He’s repeatedly had venues cancel on him once they find out that he tried to kill Reagan. Despite my fascination with the assassination attempt and Hinckley, I had never actually been to the Washington Hilton, the site of the failed assassination attempt. So last week, with the sun finally out, I made the half-hour trek to the hotel, the ultimate brutalist structure, with a curved front featuring hundreds of identical concrete-outlined rectangular windows. I
kill Reagan. Despite my fascination with the assassination attempt and Hinckley, I had never actually been to the Washington Hilton, the site of the failed assassination attempt. So last week, with the sun finally out, I made the half-hour trek to the hotel, the ultimate brutalist structure, with a curved front featuring hundreds of identical concrete-outlined
perfect book to aid me in finishing an assignment. The signed, antique books on the first floor boast the rarity of the bookstore’s offerings. Those who gravitate more toward the works of Anthony Bourdain and Barefoot Contessa can find books on travel and cooking on the main level.
The venue hosts multiple concerts a week, with tickets averaging around $18. Local bands like the emo and post-hardcore Scene Queen and the Sidekicks and alternative multigenre Alligator Hands have headlined shows in the past month, along with touring musicians like the New Jerseybased Surfing For Daisy.
Wikipedia page, and looked at
from the
I
pulled up the applicable Wikipedia page, and looked at photos from the event, which showed Reagan collapsing to the ground in front of a rocky wall. I spotted the wall next to the hotel lower’s enThe site itself is, well, underwhelming. There’s a tiny gold-andblack plaque that takes a while to talk about Reagan’s assassination on the wall above some dying vegetation and rounded overhang. I wondered if listening to Hinckley’s music might unlock the secrets of the otherwise underwhelming historical site, so I opened Spotify and put on his 2023 album “Redemption.” While I stood there, looking at the tiny plaque and blocky monstrosity above it, Hinckley crooned the phrase “Nobody knows the places I’ve been.” Well, I guess I now do.
After talking myself out of buying some cookbooks, I made a beeline for a stack of postcards sitting atop of a small bookshelf. They were 20 cents a piece, and I rifled through the stack to find some additions to my collection before settling on a few cards advertising Malaysian tourism, an art deco card of people partying and a card with a photo of a brown bear with its mouth open, ready to catch a fish.
Like any good bookstore, the Lantern has a creaky staircase that leads to a second floor of books and other vintage goods. History, nov-
els and poetry books lined the yellowed walls — at least, those parts of the walls not covered by bookshelves. I gravitated toward a little room dedicated to art. Ready to check out with my postcards, I squeaked down the staircase to meet the friendly volunteer on the first floor. Along with my purchase — which the volunteer said was the first of the day as of that afternoon — customers also get a butter ored bookmark with information on the store. I left the Lantern satisfied, spending just shy of $2, bounding down the squeaklessbrick steps in front of the townhouse thinking of whom to send my postcards to.
The site itself is, well, underwhelming. There’s a tiny gold-andblack plaque that takes a The venue hosts mul-
subtlety, the pastels slowly beckoning the viewer in. The colors gleam enough, especially in the sun, to almost blind you as you stare into the otherwise white building.
“The Doors of Perception” mural features doors weaving through each other to create a collage of multicolored entryways, like a replicated Monsters, Inc. animation. Painted by Juan Pineda in 2014, the mural matches the turnof-the-century townhouse rows of red brick mixed with bright coats of yellows, reds and blues.
The mural, painted on the side wall of Rock Creek Market, contains doors with rounded tops interspersed among those with typical square heads. The doors are every color — including multiple shades of gray — hiding the actual, unpainted, black door to access the building’s side.
In October, GW’s own Alexander Dent, a professor of anthropology and international affairs, headlined a show at the site with his punk and hardcore band, Cash On The Nail. Other campus musicians, like the student group Corduroy Conjunction, have belted and shredded on the little stage, making The Pocket a staple for musicals Revs. Aspiring musicians can participate in open mics each Tuesday night, signing up beforehand to perform or hoping for an walk-in spot. For those who prefer a calming ambiance, with fresh air and relaxing tunes, The Pocket might be a lessthan-ideal way to spend a weeknight. The music is thundering, the scents are questionable and there’s a certain grimy aura that permeates the at-times suffocating room. But for those who want to explore the local music scene in an unpolished way, The Pocket’s the place to be — for the offstage headbangers, onstage guitar shredders and everyone in between.
D.C. is steeped in historical murals, with many on U Street featuring famous musicians and other prominent figures. What makes “The Doors of Perception” stand out is its
Effervescent squares of an aqua blue and white sky are visible through painted panels of a brown window frame, deviating from the closed-off doors. The ocean blue of the exposed window matches the rounded door laying atop. Pineda employed the artistic tactic of reverse shading, adding glints of white and lighter tones of color accent the doors instead of highlights with darkened areas.
Very few white spaces make it into the mural, save for winks of white and circles on a three-tiered port-
hole door on the far right top corner. The glimpses of snowy paint on the rusted tangerine-colored door evoke the soon-to-be-forgotten winter days. The top of the wall used to contain wood lettering spelling “Rock Creek Market,” before painters covered the sign up with a cool gray version of the same words. A Rock Creek Market employee told me the locale with the mural closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and saw its sign painted over during that time but has reopened since.
The group of doors wedged into the wall of art resemble chairs on porches that I stroll past, like doors of lived-in dwellings lying cheek-to-cheek.
NICK PERKINS CULTURE
CARLY
STAFF WRITER
SHEA CARLBERG STAFF WRITER
IANNE SALVOSA MANAGING EDITOR
GRACE
EDITOR IN CHIEF
JERRY LAI | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
“The Doors of Perception” mural
photos
event, which showed Reagan collapsing to the ground in front of a rocky wall.
spotted the wall next to the hotel lower’s entrance.
COURTESY OF THE DC SQUARE DANCE COLLECTIVE
The DC Square Dance Collective shu es at a church.
tising Malaysian tourism, col-
Readers’ choice: Kiki
Readers’ choice: Watergate Complex
Readers’ choice: Dupont Circle
Readers’ choice: Second Story Books
Readers’ choice: DC9
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GRAPHIC
BEST OF NORTHWEST FOOD AND DRINK
BEST CRAB: Hot N Juicy Crawfish
If your meal comes with a plastic tablecloth, gloves, a bib and a bucket, it’s probably about to get seriously saucy.
Although D.C. is thousand miles away from Cajun Country, Washingtonians don’t have to travel farther than Woodley Park for a taste of Acadiana’s tangy and earthy flavors. Hot N Juicy Crawfish’s Dungeness Crab Cluster ($28) was worth braving the Metro transfer at Metro Center for a chance to savor the combination of the D.C. region’s most iconic form of seafood with the South’s most recognizable spice.
Directly across the street from the Woodley Park Metro station, a patio sprawls in front of the Hot N Juicy townhouse underneath a black canopy emblazoned with the restaurant’s name in flaming letters. A collection of wooden anchors and
close-up photographs of models with various orange crustacean chapeaus — a lobster along the hairline here, a crab balancing atop a head there — lined the brick walls of the cozy yet bright establishment. After all, the orange hue of a boiled crab is the new black.
ters, we began to literally crack into the meal by snapping the joints of the crab’s sauce-coated exoskeleton to reach the pillowy crab meat on the inside. We opted to add a third of a cob of corn ($1.75) and a singular potato ($1.50) into the bag to marinate alongside the cluster.
The corn was the ideal vehicle for the piquant sauce, which seeped into the crevices between each kernel, and the chopped up bits of potato provided almost a respite from the symphony of flavors as the fluffy core of the spud chunks were untouched by the zesty marinade. But as flavorful as the crustacean was, I would’ve appreciated a bit more claw for my buck.
Readers’ choice: White Cheddar Cheez-Its, Raspberry Pure Leaf Iced Tea and a Rice Krispies Treat
To me, shopping for snacks in the deli is akin to rummaging through Mary Poppins’ bag — you never know what you will find, and the possibilities are endless.
My deli order is a spin on a classic “gas station order,” which typically consists of
a sweet snack, a salty snack and a beverage to wash it all down. After searching through the packed shelves, I landed on these snacks as my ideal order: blackberry Dr. Pepper, Zapp’s Evil Eye Potato Chips and Twizzlers Tropical Blast Filled Twists. Arguably the centerpiece of the order is a crisp can of blackberry flavored Dr. Pepper. Fizzy, tart and a little jammy, Keurig Dr. Pepper released this iteration as a permanent flavor earlier this year.
Zapp’s Evil Eye Potato Chips, a New Orleans-style
kettle potato chip with Cajun-style seasonings, are an absolute winner in the “salty snack” category. A tropical twist on traditional licorice, Twizzlers Tropical Blast Filled Twists will satisfy any sweet tooth. Before I departed with my loot in hand, I asked the cashier how they source their emporium of odd goodies and rare refreshments. He said “a guy named Joe” who’s worked at the deli for 30 to 40 years is the answer. So if the deli’s supply ever leaves you wanting more, just ask for Joe.
Far removed from the stuffy atmosphere of Downtown D.C. sits a small, redpaneled storefront that is easy to miss on the bustling 14th Street, unless you know what’s cooking inside.
Elizabeth’s Pupuseria and Deli is a small, family-owned restaurant in Petworth, serving hearty Salvadoran staples seven days a week — 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. The 34-minute trek from campus by Metro is well worth it, and you’ll know you’ve reached the storefront when the aroma of chilis and sizzling meat begins to waft down the sidewalk.
Elizabeth’s offers pupusas and daily lunch specials that rotate through stews, grilled meats, vegetables and sides like rice and beans, all at budget-friendly prices. A meal here won’t hit your wallet too hard — pupusas
If you’re looking for the best bar to get into some cheap shenanigans, there’s no better place than, well, Shenanigan’s.
Every Friday and Saturday, the Adams Morganbased Irish pub offers a $15 open bar from 8 to 10 p.m. Brimming with D.C. students desperate for cheap booze and a DJ blasting an odd mixture of modern pop and the occasional Irish folk song, the lively dive-bar vibe of Shenanigan’s is hard to beat. When my two best friends from out of town visited the District last month, the bar felt like the place to take them for a glimpse into the life of a D.C. student. We showed up late because one of my friends forgot he needed to bring his ID to get into bars, arriving at the shamrockgreen doors of the pub at 9:30 p.m.
Channeling our inner sea ot-
Two TV screens on opposite sides of the room played staticky live feeds of March Madness. My friends and I enjoyed our meal sans utensils or plates. I tied the bib behind my neck and donned a pair of plastic gloves as if I were a surgeon entering the operating room. Our crab arrived wrapped in a plastic bag that was half full of the restaurant’s signature marinade sauce. We ordered our crab coated in Hot n Juicy sauce at spice level two out of five at the request roommate. The vinegary, sweet and spicy edge of the sauce paralleled its strong garlicky and buttery undertones.
are $3.50 each or two for $6, while lunch platters hover around $15. I visited with a friend at the end of March in search of a casual, no-frills meal, where bold flavors matter more than table settings. Walking into Elizabeth’s, I felt like I was entering someone’s home. The space was intimate and comforting, and the enclosed front patio had a distinct backyard feel, with fake turf flooring and plastic outdoor furniture. Inside the small, dimly lit restaurant, eager customers waited to order at the front, chatting in Spanish while pupusas sizzled on a griddle in the back.
We placed our order of pupusas: queso y espinaca (cheese and spinach) and queso y chicharrón (cheese and pork rinds).
After about 10 minutes, we got our food: two plates filled with large, steaming pupusas, a side of curtido — fermented cabbage salad — and small cups of salsa. We found a table on the empty patio and dug in. The pupusas — thick, savory patties made from corn flour — had
With no surface left unsauced at the table, our check
BEST PUPUSERIA: Elizabeth’s Pupuseria and Deli
visible griddle marks and a slight crisp around the edges. The chicharrón pupusa was packed with pulled pork and melted quesillo, a soft, stretchy cheese. It added just the right amount of creamy saltiness to balance the smoky pork, which carried hints of garlic.
The queso y espinaca pupusa was filled with chopped, sautéed spinach and the same soft and velvety cheese. The mild saltiness of the cheese contrasted with the earthy, slightly bitter flavors of the sautéed spinach, making for a simple yet flavorful bite.
The curtido, a slaw made from cabbage, carrots and cilantro was crunchy and tangy, and had a bright vinegar-forward contrast to pupusas’ richness.
I left feeling full and content, not just from the food, but from Elizabeth’s itself. The deli doesn’t try to be trendy or overly fancy. It’s a place where locals can gather, where strangers can strike up conversations and where the focus is clearly on good food and good company.
worth.
woman named
Lipa once said one kiss is all it takes to fall in love, but a single sip of Compass Coffee’s Cherry Blossom Cream Cold Brew is enough to break any coffee lover’s heart. With locations stretching across Georgetown, Rosslyn and Downtown D.C., the District-based chain has 23 locations around the D.C. region, offering GW students dozens of opportunities to get their caffeine fix. Despite Compass’ Matcha Latte being a reliable menu option, the sour aftertaste of sipping on the chain’s Cherry Blossom Cream Cold Brew will leave you wishing you had stuck to a trusty, on-campus Peet’s visit.
Compass Coffee’s menu boasts enticing, floral-based spring syrups like cherry blossom and lavender, add-
ing a vibrant twist to your brew — along with a Bitcoin blend, a “vibrant and caramelly” collaboration with the Embassy of El Salvador crafted to celebrate the country’s adoption of Bitcoin. Yet their rumored packing of their stores with anti-union employees as workers attempt to unionize smells as rotten as a corpse flower in full bloom at the U.S. Botanic Garden.
The Cherry Blossom Cream Cold Brew ($6.50) arrives as an electric shade of pink definitely not found in nature, and with only a thin layer of light pink foam floating on top — disheartening for a coffee labeled as a cream cold brew. Compass Coffee doesn’t skimp on the ice, either, leaving disappointingly little room for coffee despite its nearly $7 price tag.
The presentation of the drink is unfortunately the best part of the experience. Between the too-sweet notes of cherry blossom syrup dominating the bitter cold brew and the rap-
idly melting ice watering the drink down, the cold brew ends up mostly tasting like sugar-flavored water instead of smooth coffee mingled with hints of cherry blossoms. Calling the drink a cherry blossom cold brew is also misleading, as the syrup mostly tastes like artificial cherries, not anything rosy or blossom-like — though Compass Coffee states their syrup has floral notes. To make a bad experience worse, when I first had the drink two years ago, the pink color of the syrup stuck with me long after I chucked the cold brew in the trash, making a concerning reappearance when I went to the bathroom later that day. Ultimately, the mingling of cherry blossom syrup and cold brew doesn’t work in this drink — or in the human body. If you chose to order it yourself, make sure to snap a good picture of the cold brew to bait others on your Instagram story. That’s all this beverage is good for.
ing between us, images of whiskey mixed drinks dancing in our heads like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Navigating the crowd took about a third of our remaining 30 minutes, only making us more desperate for our first sip of the night, before we finally reached the bar and ordered our first round. We downed our drinks in three gulps and immediately ordered another round. We weren’t giving up our bartop spot — a rarity in the superpacked bar — until we got our money’s
Between the rows of produce in Columbia Heights’ Streets Market and Cafe is a vibrant coffee bar that’s easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. As you step into the market, you’ll see fresh fruit crates stacked high, frozen goods neatly lined up, grab-and-go sandwiches and vibrant bouquets of flowers lining the front wall. But when you fi nally make your way to the back corner, you’ll spot the small coffee bar quietly set apart from the market’s main bustle.
With only 30 minutes to get our $15 worth of drinks, we began our trek through the barricade of people stand-
Unwilling to spend more money on drinks, we headed upstairs to Shenanigan’s second floor, which has more open space, louder music, a DJ and a more open floor to create a scene set for dancing. Just as we reached the second floor, “Rattlin’ Bog” by the Irish Descendants began playing, and we began belting out the folk song and swaying our arms. After the song ended, we left for another bar in Adams Morgan. But I don’t think any of the other bars quite matched the excitement of “the bog down in the valley-o.”
Little Hat Coffee is home to some of the District’s highest rated matcha across social media, crafted with care behind
a sleek marble countertop adorned with four cozy wooden barstools. The café offers a variety of different green tea drinks to explore, ranging from an intriguing Oaxaca matcha to a bright and citrusy yuzu matcha lemonade. I opted for the triedand-true classic iced matcha latte with vanilla sweetener and whole milk ($7.15). The latte was a bit higher priced than I tend to opt for, so my expectations for the drink’s quality rose. I couldn’t help but marvel as the barista poured the vibrant green matcha powder into a shallow bowl, adding a splash of hot water before using a bamboo chasen to froth it into a velvety mixture. The barista scooped ice into the cup, added milk and topped it off with the light, frothy matcha. The vibrant green foam settled on the
creamy milk, creating a marbled effect before they mixed the drink together and handed it to me. The initial burst of sweetness from the vanilla mingled with the rich, earthy matcha flavor, quenching my high expectations. The creaminess of the milk softened the intensity of the tea, while the vanilla added a pinch of warmth to the cold, refreshing drink. Each sip felt cool and smooth, with the ice adding an extra layer of chill, making it perfect for a warm, spring day. A good matcha must be slightly acrid but not too overpowering in order to wow myself, an amateur matcha connoisseur. I’m happy to report that Little Hat Coffee got the drink just right. For any matcha enthusiast — or anyone who’s looking to break from coffee — this is a go-to
A wise
Dua
RACHEL
ALEX
LINDSAY LARSON STAFF WRITER
JACKSON LANZER STAFF WRITER
HANNAH MARR NEWS EDITOR
NIKKI GHAEMI SENIOR STAFF WRITER
COOPER TYKSINSKI | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The Shenanigans Irish Pub facade on a Thursday evening
