Student Life

If you walked past WashU’s Chabad house the night of Oct. 4, you may have smelled the sweet scent of honey or seen students shuffling in and out of a small opening to a fenced-in yard. You certainly heard the excited chatter of over 400 Jewish students.

They flocked to the Chabad house to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and the first in a string of important Jewish holidays lasting roughly a month, known as the High Holidays. Four hundred students returned the following week to break the fast of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement and repentance. Similar festivities took place in the WashU Hillel house, in dorm rooms across the South 40, and in apartments lining Washington Avenue and Kingsbury Boulevard.

Such outward displays of Judaism have become increasingly less common on college campuses across the U.S. In the past year alone, the percentage of Jewish students nationwide who said they feel comfortable with others on campus knowing they are Jewish dropped by almost half. A plurality of Jewish students no longer feel physically safe on their college campuses.

Talk to Jewish students at WashU, however, and you will find a community strengthened, not weakened, engaged, not discouraged. Brazenly proud. As this year’s High Holidays have come and gone, WashU students reflect on celebrating the year’s holiest days in a troubling national environment.

Junior Lauren Eckstein, Chabad Student Board Co-President, transferred to WashU from Pomona College last year to avoid antisemitism. “It was incredibly hostile … Here, administration has gone to our events, reaching out to different student groups to make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable, which is very different than what I’m used to,” she said.

Read more at the link in bio.

✍️ by Will Rosenblum
📸 by Sam Powers

WashU released the results of their 2024 Higher Education Sexual Misconduct and Awareness survey on Oct. 21, revealing a 4.4 percentage point decrease in student response rate compared to the last time it was administered, in 2019. This low completion rate reflects a lack of effort by WashU’s administration to collect this information, as well as a campus culture that doesn’t see sexual misconduct as a problem involving everyone.

Of the 10 schools that participated in the study, WashU had the lowest response rate: 12.5%, which was 30.5 percentage points less than Stanford, the school with the highest response rate. ​

The survey found that, since entering WashU, 26.9% of surveyed undergraduate women reported experiencing sexual assault, compared to 35.1% in 2019. Of WashU respondents, roughly two times more undergraduate women filled out the survey than undergraduate me​​n.

In a statement to Student Life, the Sexual Assault and R**e Anonymous Helpline (SARAH), a student-run counseling hotline, called the 12.5% response rate “dismal.” They drew two conclusions from this minimal number of responses: first, students may not have felt comfortable responding to the survey or did not know about it in the first place; second, the survey does not accurately represent relationship and sexual violence on campus.

“From our own experiences as both WashU students and peer counselors, we have been given no reason to believe that such a decrease [in sexual assaults against undergraduate women] reflects students’ experiences,” SARAH wrote.

Kim Webb, director of the Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention (RSVP) Center, noted that the stigma that surrounds sexual misconduct is reflective of broader national culture, which minimizes instances of sexual misconduct. This invalidates people’s experiences of sexual violence, creating a campus culture that makes survivors less likely to report or share their experiences.

Read more at the link in bio.

*Staff editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of our editorial board members. The editorial board operates independently of our newsroom and includes members of the senior staff.

For the last two years, any physician practicing in Missouri who knowingly performs or induces an abortion can be found guilty of a class B felony and subject to suspension or revocation of their medical license, but following next week’s election, this could all change.

“I think we often take for granted that many of our WashU student population come from blue states, and we are, in general, a pretty wealthy student body. So it’s easy to think, on an individual level, ‘If I needed this type of care, I could just hop on a plane, fly home and get the care that I need safely and legally,’” Maddy Molyneux, Planned Parenthood Generation Action (PPGA) President, said. “But that’s not the case for every student or every professor or every employee of the University. There are many, many members of the WashU community for whom that would be a pretty severe undertaking.”

Read more at the link in bio.

✍️ by Sara Strassberg
🎨 by Elma Ademovic

Frequent visitors to the DUC’s second floor may know the orange, oldened-with-use armchairs that have been a staple of the second floor for many years. As of Oct. 8 this year, they have been replaced with 16 new gray chairs.

Manager of Furniture & Design at WashU, Audrey Metz, oversaw this change amongst other recent furniture projects, which include a number of places on the Danforth and Medical campuses.

Metz said in a statement to Student Life that the DUC chairs needed to be replaced.

“They were showing a lot of wear and tear and were due to be replaced,” Metz said. “They were 16-years-old and had already been re-upholstered once.”

The process of replacing furniture starts with individual campus departments. When these departments find furniture that needs replacing, they send a facilities request to Metz’s department for evaluation.

After the furniture has been replaced, the Furniture & Design department attempts to repurpose replaced furniture or dispose of the furniture sustainably.

“We are very sustainable with our choices — if we can reuse or repurpose, we do. We also look to donate to local nonprofits and work with the Office of Sustainability to find further opportunities on campus or through the SOS (Share Our Stuff) program,” Metz said.

For the chairs on the second floor of the DUC, Metz said that they could not be salvaged.

“In this particular case, the vendor that delivered the new seating took the old away. We always look for any opportunity to reuse on campus before getting rid of something, but in [this] case, they were beyond their usable life here on campus,” Metz said.

Junior Mason Mezel said he did not initially notice the difference in the chairs.

“I’m pretty neutral,” Mezel said. “I’m not a frequent sitter up there.”

Now aware of the change, Mezel said he is more likely to go to the second floor of the DUC to “check them out.”

Read more at the link in bio.

✍️ by Abbie Sapira
📸 by Scott Zarider

Click the link in bio to play every crossword we’ve ever made. Going forward, a new mini crossword will be released on the website every single day.

🌐 games.studlife.com

Senior Bri Lee, one of the founders of Art Mart along with seniors Sophie Floyd and Sophia Palitti, was proud of the event’s continued success. Lee said they all started Art Mart last year because they “wanted to create a creative space on campus where people could sell their art.”

In addition to being the Editor-in-Chief of Armour Magazine, Lee handles most of the logistics behind the event.

“The first time … was a lot of learning on the go,” Lee said, referencing the process of finding vendors, pitching the idea to Student Union, getting funding, and learning how to set up the event on the field. “This year went really smoothly,” Lee said.

This year’s event had noticeably high student traffic and a wide variety of artwork for sale. Students made and sold everything from wearable clothing items to prints to ceramics and sculptures.

Read more: https://www.studlife.com/scene/2024/10/24/washus-second-ever-art-mart-crochet-clothing-ceramics-and-more

✍️ by Elizabeth Grieve
📷 by Brandon Juarez-Ramos

The mural — titled “The Never Ending Story” — included portraits of prominent Black public figures like George Poage, the first Black American to win an Olympic medal in the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, and Robert L. Williams, a WashU professor who coined the term “ebonics.”

De’Joneiro Jones, the St. Louis-based artist commissioned to lead the group of artists that painted the mural, believes that Wagner’s sentencing should have happened much earlier.

“People have forgotten about what happened,” Jones said. “Now we gotta revisit and relive something that was going on during COVID.”

Brock Seals, another artist on the project, similarly described the sentencing as frustrating.

“It’s just another instance where the justice system has failed us,” Seals said. “Someone goes on the campus and defaces private property and expresses outright hate, and you get a slap on the wrist for that.”

When the vandalism initially took place, WashU administrators responded with condemnation, calling it “horrifying and distressing.” Students began to remove the Patriot Front symbols from the mural on the same night that the vandalism occurred.

Jones said that he wishes the University had made greater efforts to preserve the mission of the mural after the incident.

“This is the pinnacle of a lot of our art careers. To have it erased and then ultimately painted over is reducing it to a blur,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that the University doesn’t want to be on the good side of history in terms of sending a message that this is not accepted here.”

Julie Flory, Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications, declined to comment on Wagner’s sentencing on behalf of the University.

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/news/2024/10/23/man-who-vandalized-south-40-underpass-receives-two-years-probation

✍️ by Aliana Mediratta
📸 by Curran Neenan

While the weekend was WashU’s first UAA doubleheader, playing back-to-back games has been a focus for the Bears throughout the season to prepare for this weekend and the NCAA tournament — where many games are played within two days of each other.

“I think day-two legs is something that our team trains all season long,” sophomore Sophie Viscovich said. “So whether that’s coming home from a trip and practicing the next morning, we’ve had a couple double non-conference games, coming home training on that third day to prepare ourselves for weekends like this. And I think we have a super deep roster this year — everyone’s just ready to go.”

With a spotless conference record, the Bears will travel to upstate New York to take on Rochester on Nov. 3. A win would solidify the Bears bid to the 2024 NCAA Tournament.

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/sports/2024/10/27/no-1-womens-soccer-alone-atop-uaa-table-after-defeating-no-3-carnegie-mellon-and-case-western.

✍️ by Lewis Rand
📸 by Bri Nitsberg

Walking from the underpass toward the South 40, perhaps you’ve noticed a glowing neon sign spelling out the words “Prolific Kickz.” Nestled between the familiar Uncle Joe’s Peer Counseling and Resource Center and fan-favorite Beary Sweet Shoppe, rows of Nikes, Jordans, Dunks, and Yeezys line the shelves of the newest Student Enterprise Program (StEP) business on campus, blurring by as students hurry to their dorms or Bear’s Den for a meal.

However, if you take a moment to pause and enter the storefront, you will be greeted by junior Kevin Chen, the founder and CEO of Prolific Kickz — a name with a particularly unique origin.

“I asked ChatGPT to help me come up with some keywords, and ‘prolific’ was one of them,” Chen said. “I liked that term, and then I [put] ‘Kickz’ on the end of it, and here we are now with ‘Prolific Kickz.’”

It’s an atypical start to the story of an atypical campus business. But Chen is no stranger to the world of shoe sales. He started his online business, KC Resells, in high school. The business now has over 10,000 followers on Instagram and made over one million dollars in sales in 2023.

Chen describes the success of his business as having met expectations, despite a seeming lack of foot traffic.

“Going into this, I knew foot traffic wasn’t going to be a huge number, because we’re all college students — not everyone’s looking for sneakers to buy all the time. But I think it’s still been pretty good and near[ly] meeting my expectations, on track for breaking even from all the startup costs and bringing in more people.”

To all of the students who hesitate, even for a split second, before walking past his business, Chen has one message to deliver:

“Please come in. I’m a friendly guy. I’m here to help. And if you want to just come look at shoes, you’re not pressured to buy anything. You’re always welcome to come in and take a look.”

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/scene/2024/10/23/steping-into-prolific-kickz.

✍️ by Kritika Maheshwari
📸 by Sam Powers

Sophomore Amira Sinclair said she was excited that the AYCTE Pilot Program made her meal more customizable.

“I liked that I was able to try out multiple stations at a baseline price and kind of pick and choose what I wanted from each. I wanted green beans from here and some fruit from there, and I wanted to top my sandwich with mushrooms from the salad bar,” Sinclair said.

Sophomore Caroline Roth said that it may be more economical for some students because it allows them access to more food at a less expensive price than purchasing multiple rounds of entrees and sides to feel satisfied by their meal.

“I think it might take a little time to get used to, but I think it’s overall a better value for what we’re paying for, and it could be more affordable for people with lower meal plans for sure,” Roth said.

Sophomore Tali Jarmond has a contrasting opinion about the pricing, saying that it could be improved by offering various tiers of AYCTE at differing prices.

“I have heard that some students would have appreciated if there were multiple different options with the amount of times you can go through the line, or have cheaper options in terms of sides or single plates and stuff,” Jarmond said.

Jarmond explained that he may be paying more for certain meals now than he was before.

“There [are] some days where I used to spend eight or nine meal points for my dinner. I can no longer do that with this program,” Jarmond said.

Read more at the link in bio.

✍️ by Odessa Buell
📸 by Marco Zhang

From Oct. 23 through Oct. 26, WashU’s All Student Theater (AST) will perform “The Rest is Silence,” their immersive adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy “Hamlet.”

Rather than the typical proscenium setup, where the audience sits directly facing the stage, AST’s fall performance throws the audience directly into the action. The performance takes place in the Village Black Box Theater (on the lower level of Village House), where AST’s crew has transformed the space into a winding collection of rooms and scenes, complete with props, lighting, and sound design.

It isn’t just the impressive technical components that set this performance apart. Junior Eva Cohen, president of AST, explains how this year’s fall performance is different from the past.

“In terms of production, we do our fall event, which in the past has been haunted houses [or] escape rooms,” Cohen said. “This is haunted house-style, but much more scripted than we’ve done before — much more actor-heavy, which is exciting.”

As for excitement, the cast brings their A-game. While most characters act unaware of the audience, some characters look and speak directly to the viewers. Hamlet, who, in this version, is a woman played by sophomore Charlotte Bartels, stares down individual audience members to pull them in during her most intense monologues, injecting the scenes with emotion and excitement.

Senior Annie Powell is the director of “The Rest is Silence,” and is responsible for many of the performance’s unique creative decisions.

Powell said she took direct inspiration from visiting the Globe Theater in London during her trip with the Ampersand program, Shakespeare’s Globe: All the World’s a Stage.

“At the Globe, it became very clear to me how important the audience is in a show … how to feed off of the audience and include the audience,” Powell said.

Read more at the link in bio.

✍️ by Ryan O'Connor
🎨 by Jamie Hebel

Recently, head coach Jim Conlon’s backline has relied on a back three, with the center back trio of graduate student Ally Hackett, senior Emma Riley McGahan, and sophomore Regan Cannon typically lining up in front of graduate student goalkeeper Sidney Conner this season.

Conner holds the all-time (38) and single-season (16) records for clean sheets at WashU. Growing up, however, she was mainly a forward, and it was not until she got to St. Louis in the fall of 2020 that she began to consistently play in the net.

For the Bears, keeping up with the rigor of WashU academics as they chase a national championship on the pitch is difficult. But, according to Conner, the team has a saying: “Pressure is a privilege.”

In 2024, as the Bears’ backline continues to impress, they will look to continue leaning into the “pressure” in their pursuit of the program’s second national title.

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/sports/2024/10/21/how-no-1-washu-womens-soccer-built-one-of-division-iiis-best-defenses.

✍️ by Riley Herron and Lewis Rand
📸 by Clara Richards

For most WashU students, there are just eight miles and a short metro ride that separate campus from Busch Stadium. For 2021 graduate Ryan Loutos, the journey was a little more complicated.

Before signing his contract with the Cardinals, Loutos led the Washington University baseball team to the semifinals of the 2021 D-III College World Series. Loutos was a standout pitcher in his four years at WashU, leading the Bears’ starting pitching staff in earned run average (ERA). Beyond the mound, Loutos graduated with a Computer Science degree from the McKelvey School of Engineering.

At the root of Loutos’ success is his experience as the ace of the WashU pitching staff. On campus, he and his teammates would eat lunch and hang out at Stanley’s Sushi in Lopata Hall. The community he found at WashU remains strong — so much so that many of his WashU teammates made the trip to St. Louis to be at his first MLB game.

“The best part about WashU, for me, was that it was one of the first times where I felt like the people I was around were my people,” he said. “I got to WashU as a freshman, and I had 30 teammates and 30 best friends the day I got there.”

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/sports/2024/10/21/i-just-wanted-to-see-how-far-i-could-take-it-inside-ryan-loutos-journey-from-washu-to-the-mlb.

✍️ by Riley Herron and Matt Eisner
🎨 by Annie Tian

The CDI is open to all students — graduates and undergraduates alike — of all identities and is an important resource on campus for many individuals and identity-centered clubs.

“[Its] work in creating a safe, inclusive, and empowering environment has really helped amplify our voices and given us the tools to build stronger communities,” Hindu Students’ Association Co-President, Jay Maddukuri, said. He added that the CDI’s prayer rooms have been “monumental for our club and for Hindus at WashU who want a place to pray.”

After a tumultuous and tense spring semester surrounding the Israel-Hamas war and subsequent campus protests, the CDI launched Unity Fest early this fall semester to foster connection between a polarized student body. In collaboration with Campus Life, Unity Fest hosted various student organizations and served as an “intentional space” for students to learn about other identities and cultures through dialogue, games, and performances.

“​​How can we remind students that a lot of them have the same values or similar values, and kind of get them rerouted and grounded in that? And so we started Unity Fest this year,” Cooper said.

Along with the various lectures, workshops, and annual events the CDI holds, the center’s multifaceted nature also helps strengthen culture clubs on campus.

“The CDI has also been a great help with connecting potential members to our club and raising awareness of our presence…by helping us organize some of our meetings and being a discourse to the higher-up Washu governing body,” Maddukuri said.

Read more https://www.studlife.com/scene/2024/10/16/center-for-diversity-and-inclusion-celebrates-10-years

✍️ by Sara Gelrud
📸 by Bri Nitsberg

Student Life looked into the process of recycling at WashU by talking to the Office of Sustainability. Cassandra Hage, Assistant Director of the Office of Sustainability, explained the details behind the process.

The first step of recycling involves students. For example, when a student chooses to recycle a plastic cup, they are participating in the first level of sorting.

After that, what happens to the plastic cup depends on which recycling bin it was put into. If it was in a University dining hall, then Sodexo, WashU’s dining provider, is responsible for moving it to the dumpster. WashU’s housekeeping contractor, HES, is responsible for ensuring other waste and recycling end up in dumpsters outside of Residential Life-managed areas.

After that, the plastic cup is picked up by Waste Connections, WashU’s waste hauler for all recycling and landfill waste.

Read more: https://www.studlife.com/news/2024/10/16/where-does-it-all-go-behind-the-scenes-of-washus-recycling-program

✍️ by Sara Gelrud, Coby Rinke and Elizabeth Stump
📷 by Bri Nitsberg

When sophomore Eleanor Archer and first-year Caitlin Bui stepped onto the courts at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Cup, they became the first WashU women’s tennis team to make an appearance at the tournament in seven years. By the end of the weekend, they had accomplished something no WashU team had ever done — bringing home an ITA national doubles championship.

Over the four-day tournament from Oct. 10-13, Archer and Bui swept the competition, winning four straight matches without dropping a single set.

“It felt really special, felt like I was able to make a difference,” Bui said. “I was just really proud of us. We played really well together, and I’m just proud that we got WashU’s first ITA cup.”

Throughout the tournament, Archer and Bui consistently went up against teams who were higher-ranked and more experienced than the young pair. However, no matter who they faced, their self-confidence never wavered.

“We didn’t think about the rankings, because in these types of tournaments, the rankings don’t mean much, and upsets happen all the time…” Archer said. “Even when we played a team that was higher seeded or higher ranked, we knew that we definitely had the potential to win.”

Singles and doubles teams qualify for their division’s ITA Cup —the culmination of the fall season, which has brackets for Division II, Division III, NAIA, and JUCO — by finishing first or second in their regional qualifiers. WashU entered the qualifier ranked No. 4 in the Midwest. Despite losing in the regional championships on a tiebreaker against a team from the University of Chicago, Archer and Bui’s run to the regional final was enough to earn their spot in the Division III national tournament.

“We knew we had a strong team in Caitlin and Eleanor heading into the tournament, and we also knew we would be competing against the best national competition,” head coach Paige Madara wrote in a statement to Student Life. “We have not qualified anyone to [the] ITA Cup since 2017, so our goal was to compete hard and enjoy the experience.”

Read more at the link in bio.

✍️ by Riley Herron
📸 courtesy of ITA

After over 30 years of usage, WashU is moving on from WebSTAC. WebSTAC, a software used for housing, billing, and course registration, will be replaced by Workday Student in time for fall 2025 registration. The switch to Workday is being carried out through a project called Student Sunrise.

Senior Associate Provost and Executive Director of Student Sunrise Project, Erin Culbreth, said that WebSTAC is no longer supporting the school efficiently.

“Our systems were built in the 1990s, so they’re quite old. They’re really just not modern anymore,” Culbreth said. “They don’t support things like mobile [device usage], and there’s a lot of barriers to how they’re architected that make it difficult for us to manage academic priorities.”

Culbreth said the idea to find a system that better supported WashU’s programming needs started over seven years ago.

“Roughly around 2016 and 2017, the institution, broadly, was working on strategies to refresh and replace our core administrative systems,” Culbreth said. “At that point in time, there was a process to select a vendor that we would go with as an institution, and Workday was the one that was selected.”

The transition is expected to take place gradually throughout the next year in order for the system to be completely implemented for fall 2025 registration. WebSTAC will still be used for spring 2025 registration, but will thereafter be obsolete, according to an email by Project Director of change management for the Student Sunrise team, Ellen Rostand.

Meghan Street, a recent WashU alum on the Student Sunrise executive team, said that students should look for email updates on Workday’s implementation from her team.

Some students, like Johnson, say that they are not familiar with Workday and are unsure of what is expected of them at this time.

“I know that Workday is replacing WebSTAC, but that is about all. I have absolutely no idea what I should be doing in the meantime,” Johnson said. “I just don’t know anything about it.”

Read more at the link in bio.

✍️ by Bella Behrle
🎨 by Anna Dorsey

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum has unveiled its newest exhibit, titled “Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s-1970s.” This exhibit, which will run until January 2025, features multimedia pieces highlighting St. Louis architecture, through the context of social and spatial changes in a post-World War II society.

The exhibit was curated by Eric Mumford, The Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture, and Michael Willis, a visiting professor at WashU. Both shared their inspiration behind this exhibition, what they hope viewers will take away, and their intended impact on changing perceptions about St. Louis architecture. Their ultimate goal is to pave the way for better urban design strategies in the future.

Willis began his architectural journey in high school, drawing inspiration from the 1965 construction of the St. Louis arch, but more significantly, from his upbringing in the Pruit-Igoe community and its later demolition. Pruit-Igoe was a failed, segregated government-subsidized housing project. Its destruction served as an example for Willis about using failed architectural plans to inform a more robust construction style.

“I was in school [when] it got blown up, knocked down, and [this] basically put the coda on it as a failure in public housing. It was a failure…I try to use those lessons in my own architectural projects, especially when it involves public housing and neighborhoods,” Willis said.

Mumford, a St. Louis architectural historian, specializes in combining architectural and historical relics to encourage public engagement in regard to urban design. He emphasized the consequences of poor design constructions and how this exhibit will teach about them to foster positive changes.

“Some people do not know about Pruit-Igoe and the whole failure of urban clearance, which was massive here and super destructive,” Mumford said. “[Its destruction] kind of shaped a lot of outcomes — the highways that were cut through the city, displacing a lot of people, most of them Black, and lots of neighborhoods around downtown that were removed.”

Read more at the link in bio.

✍️ by Sophie Schwartz
📸 by Sam Powers

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum has unveiled its newest exhibit, titled “Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s-1970s.” This exhibit, which will run until January 2025, features multimedia pieces highlighting St. Louis architecture, through the context of social and spatial changes in a post-World War II society.

The exhibit was curated by Eric Mumford, The Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture, and Michael Willis, a visiting professor at WashU. Both shared their inspiration behind this exhibition, what they hope viewers will take away, and their intended impact on changing perceptions about St. Louis architecture. Their ultimate goal is to pave the way for better urban design strategies in the future.

Willis began his architectural journey in high school, drawing inspiration from the 1965 construction of the St. Louis arch, but more significantly, from his upbringing in the Pruit-Igoe community and its later demolition. Pruit-Igoe was a failed, segregated government-subsidized housing project. Its destruction served as an example for Willis about using failed architectural plans to inform a more robust construction style.

“I was in school [when] it got blown up, knocked down, and [this] basically put the coda on it as a failure in public housing. It was a failure…I try to use those lessons in my own architectural projects, especially when it involves public housing and neighborhoods,” Willis said.

Mumford, a St. Louis architectural historian, specializes in combining architectural and historical relics to encourage public engagement in regard to urban design. He emphasized the consequences of poor design constructions and how this exhibit will teach about them to foster positive changes.

“Some people do not know about Pruit-Igoe and the whole failure of urban clearance, which was massive here and super destructive,” Mumford said. “[Its destruction] kind of shaped a lot of outcomes — the highways that were cut through the city, displacing a lot of people, most of them Black, and lots of neighborhoods around downtown that were removed.”

Read more at the link in bio.

✍️ by Sophie Schwartz
📸 by Sam Powers