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WWW.STUDLIFE.COMVOLUME 141, NO. 23 MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019

STRANGER SINGSSensasians and Sur Taal Laya perform hits from the 80s for fall concert (Cadenza, pg 8)

SWEET 16Women’s soc-cer wins against Maryville College and Adrian College (Sports, pg 3)

STUDYING STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS(Scene, pg 6)

To increase class participa-tion, Accounting Lecturer Michael McLaughlin treated students in the 2:30 p.m. section of his Principles of Managerial Accounting class to a juggling per-formance, Nov. 14.

McLaughlin announced the event in an email to his class. After the post went viral on the Washington University’s Barstool Instagram account, McLaughlin invited students not enrolled in the class to attend.

The idea originated after McLaughlin noticed student engagement declining over the past couple of weeks. According to an email sent to his students, he asked the class, “What must I do to get your attention, bring in

a team of professional jugglers?” One of the students responded, “Yes.”

“People were getting tired and I was trying to think of something that would be kind of ridiculous, that would put a smile on their face,” McLaughlin said.

The performers, Wash. U. Juggling Club members senior Lucy Muller and junior Adam Litwin were accompanied by music and juggled balls, bowling pins and frisbees.

“They were really good jugglers. They started juggling bowling pins and frisbee discs,” junior Ryan Nordheimer said. “Everyone was cheering and recording them. It was really fun.”

Junior Gigi Garcia enjoyed the positive atmosphere of the performance.

“I thought it was really nice that

even though they were amateur jugglers…everyone was really sup-portive. Even when they messed up, everybody still cheered them on,” Garcia said. “They were really good, really talented.”

“I thought the jugglers were pretty good. I thought they did a really good job, in particular with the pressure,” McLaughlin said. “With so many people watching, I thought they were phenomenal.”

McLaughlin didn’t anticipate that the event would be so popular.

“It was a complete shock when I showed up to teach the class and meet the jugglers, to see that there were so many people there,” McLaughlin said. “I’m teaching five sections of that class, and I thought okay, some of the people from other sections will go to that section that day, but I never envi-sioned it.”

Part of the event’s popularity was due to its virality on social media. The performance garnered over 800,000 views on a post to the Instagram account, 5thyear.

“It blew up on Instagram, so the word spread around pretty quickly and got outside of B-school… Everyone knew about it. I think there were probably more than a hundred people who showed up,” Nordheimer said. “There were so many people in the room that no one could fit through the doors, and it was flooding out into the hallway.”

In addition to class partici-pation, McLaughlin wanted to improve student morale.

“Students work so hard. There’s always this stuff with the inter-views, and grades, and all this, and I just thought it would be something fun and ridiculous,”

McLaughlin said. “They par-ticipated after that…Every time I asked a question someone raised their hand to answer it. So it was effective.”

McLaughlin said he hoped the event brought joy to the students.

“With all these exams and job stuff and everything, some of these students never have a chance to really have fun and enjoy being a kid,” McLaughlin said. “And I just wanted to give them that.”

He also hinted that there were more events in store for his accounting students, such as a professional magician that will perform in his Wednesday section, Nov. 20.

“I hope I can live up [to that] with the next event,” McLaughlin said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever see anything like that again in my life-time, but that was pretty cool.”

Up in the air: Olin professor brings jugglers to Accounting 2620ELIZABETH PHELANSTAFF REPORTER

THYRSUS‘Pullman, WA’ humorously teaches how to live

READ MORE ON PAGE 8

Freshman Alexander Hewlett captures the audience’s attention in Thyrsus’ fall show. ‘Pullman, WA’ tackles the tough questions in a lighthearted manner.

GRACE BRUTON | STUDENT LIFE

The Washington University School of Medicine committed to donate $250,000 to Healthcare for Missouri, a PAC working to expand Medicaid to over 200,000 Missourians.

The commitment comes on the heels of a joint letter from Chancellor Andrew Martin and Dean of the School of Medicine David Perlmutter extolling the benefits of expanding Medicaid coverage in Missouri.

Healthcare for Missouri supports a 2020 ballot initiative to expand Medicaid coverage to any individual under 65 who makes less than 134% of the federal poverty line. Missouri is one of 14 states yet to expand coverage under those guidelines. The expansion was a key compo-nent of the Affordable Care Act, under which the federal government pledged to cover 100% of costs for states who signed up before 2017. Missouri’s delay means that only 90% of the funding will come from the federal treasury; it will be on the hook for the remaining 10%.

“I hate to say something politi-cal, but I will. It’s a travesty that the state of Missouri has not done it,” Perlmutter said. “The cost of not doing that is in the order of billions of dollars.”

Perlmutter said every department of the School of Medicine is pitching in money to the contribution, which he says is indicative of the School of Medicine’s cohesion on the issue.

“The decision was unani-mous,” Associate Vice Chancellor for Medical Public Affairs Joni Westerhouse said of the decision to contribute to Healthcare for Missouri.

The donation will come solely from the Medical School. According to Perlmutter, this is because the Medical School wanted to be respon-sible for “taking a lead” on the issue.

Medical School to donate $250,000 to PAC pushing for Medicaid expansion amendmentCURRAN NEENANNEWS EDITOR

SEE MEDICAID, PAGE 2

Student Union Vice President of Programming junior Charlotte Pohl filed a petition to recall Election Commissioner junior Randal Walker from her position.

According to the Constitutional Council, the ruling is on the grounds that Walker acted in “gross negli-gence” of her duties.

The petition follows an interpreta-tion request sent to the Constitutional Council by Pohl alleging that the Nov. 5 SU election should be rerun due to improper conduct. Student Union (SU) President Tyrin Truong, Vice President of Administration Nia Plump, Vice President of Finance Ariel Ashie, Vice President of Public Relations Beth Weisinger and Pohl will vote on Walker’s standing today.

While filling out the ballot on Nov. 5, Pohl noticed that she was able to vote for Arts & Sciences Council as an Olin Business student, even though only students enrolled in Arts & Sciences are allowed to vote for those positions. Another student pointed

out to her that the ballot did not limit voters from selecting more than eleven candidates for Senate and Treasury, despite the instructions not to do so.

Pohl then texted Walker, who informed her that the ballot had been updated. However, when Pohl tried to submit her ballot, she received an error message and was unable to submit.

Pohl submitted an interpretation request to the Constitutional Council, Nov. 6, alleging that the election should be rerun because it was con-ducted improperly and that Walker should be recalled from her position.

“I didn’t feel like my voice was being heard and I didn’t feel what I was saying was being taken seriously or even considered at all,” Pohl said. “All of the elected and appointed offi-cials of Student Union take an oath and the last line of that oath is to pre-serve and defend the constitution of [the] Student Union of Washington University in St. Louis. I was in the room when Randal was confirmed and when she took that oath, and I think that’s just blatantly disregarding the constitution.”

Pohl said that she was motivated to submit the petition not by Walker’s mistakes themselves, but instead by how she handled the situation.

“If she had done something to remedy those mistakes in a way that provided all of the students a fair chance of being elected and pro-vided all of the constituents a fair opportunity to vote, I would not have submitted the recall petition,” Pohl said.

Walker extended Pohl the oppor-tunity to manually submit her ballot, Nov. 7, two days after Election Day.

After receiving the petition, Constitutional Council Chief Justice junior Eric Cai issued a writ requesting that Walker, Truong and Weisinger not release the results until Nov. 9 at 5 p.m. to allow the Council time to investigate their validity.

On Nov. 7, the Election Commission released the results, along with a press release acknowl-edging the Council’s request to withhold the results.

Walker did not respond to requests for comment.

“We believe that the cons of

calling another election far outweigh the pros,” the press release read. “If this election were nullified and the process was to be repeated, voter turnout would be exceptionally low and our legislative bodies would be far less representative as a result.”

According to the press release, only 29 people had submitted their ballots as of 12:08 a.m., when the error allowing voters to select more than 11 candidates was resolved. The press release then claimed that at that point, no one had actually voted for more than 11 candidates.

Because of the ballot’s method-ology, it is impossible to determine what any individual person voted for, rendering Walker’s claim unveri-fiable. Walker informed the Council that the Commission came to that conclusion during their emergency meeting, Nov. 7, two days after the election, and since it is also impossible to determine when any individual person voted, the Council could not verify that 29 students sub-mitted their ballots by 12:08 a.m.

‘We can only speculate now the results of a truly fair election’: SU VP of Programming recalls Election CommissionerJAYLA BUTLERSENIOR NEWS EDITOR

SEE PETITION, PAGE 2

MONDAY 18

‘Her Body, Our Laws: On the Frontlines of the Abortion War from El Salvador to Oklahoma’Anheuser-Busch Hall, 310, 12 p.m.Michelle Oberman, Katharine and George Alexander Professor of Law, Santa Clara Uni-versity, will deliver this Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series lecture. This event is in conjunction with the Washington University Global Health Center, Institute for Public Health, and Global Health Week and co-sponsored by the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute; the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement & Institutional Diver-sity and the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

TUESDAY 19

Friends of Music Concerto Competition560 Music Center, E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall, 4 p.m.This is a free concert featuring student performances.

WEDNESDAY 20

Trending Topics: ‘Community as Corporation - Talent Retention Strategies For Low-Status America’Graham Chapel, 7 p.m.Majora Carter is a real estate developer, urban revitalization strategy consultant, MacAr-thur Fellow and Peabody Award winning broadcaster. She is responsible for the creation and successful implementation of numerous economic development, green-infrastructure projects, policies and job training & placement systems.

theFLIPSIDEEVENT CALENDAR

MON 18MOSTLY CLOUDY51/38

TUES 19PARTLY CLOUDY58/36

WED 20MOSTLY CLOUDY61/54

JAYLA BUTLER | SENIOR NEWS EDITOR | NEWS@STUDLIFE.COM2 STUDENT LIFE MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019

During the process, Perlmutter consulted with the University’s Office of Government and Community Relations. He said they were initially hesi-tant to wade into the issue again, having been upset by past failed efforts in the state to expand coverage, and wanted to limit the University’s political expo-sure in a traditionally red state.

The School of Medicine has not commissioned a study into the possible effects of the Medicaid expansion on its bottom line, but Perlmutter says the amendment could end up as a revenue drain for the School of Medicine, since it loses money each time it

treats a Medicaid patient. Perlmutter said that this doesn’t matter since it is a part of the school’s mission to be a safety net provider.

Perlmutter pointed to the benefits reaped by other states that have expanded coverage such as better health outcomes across racial and economic lines and increased fund-ing for infrastructure and education.

“It’s such a logical thing for the state to do,” Perlmutter said. “Health correlates with education, and education correlates with health.”

According to Westerhouse, this is the first statewide initiative that the University has financially

supported in at least 10 years. The University has issued statements on a range of local and state-wide ballot initiatives in recent history, from its sup-port of a 2008 sales tax increase to fund MetroLink, to its more recent rejection of a statewide cigarette tax that blacklisted stem cell research and abortion services from recieving funding.

Perlmutter said he often declines entreaties from fac-ulty asking the School of Medicine to take a political stance, but the undeniable benefits of Medicaid expan-sion compelled Perlmutter to throw the School of Medicine’s support behind the initiative.

“This is something that is so positive for the com-munity we serve and for the community that we are in,” Perlmutter said. “It has such a huge potential to improve the economy of the state.”

The University has historically prized its political neutrality, rarely making statements on politi-cal issues. Recent exceptions include then-Chancellor Mark Wrighton’s open let-ter to Donald Trump in support of DACA and Chancellor Martin and Dean Perlmutter’s joint let-ter championing Medicaid expansion.

Healthcare for America has received considerable financial support from the healthcare industry

in Missouri. The Kansas City Star reported that they received close to $1.1 million from healthcare advocacy group Health Forward Foundation, as well as 250,000 from healthcare network BJC Healthcare. One of BJC’s hospitals, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, is a close partner of the School of Medicine.

According to spokesman Connie Farrow, Healthcare for America does not comment on individual con-tributions, but emphasized the importance of each con-tribution in a statement to Student Life.

“We will raise the funds needed to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot and get the facts out so voters

can decide what’s best,” Farrow wrote.

Farrow said that the cam-paign has already collected a quarter of the 172,000 signatures required to put the amendment on the 2020 ballot.

To Perlmutter, the School of Medicine’s support for the campaign is not just a one-off commitment, but part of a broader com-mitment to bettering its environs.

“Me, the medical school leadership and our new chancellor feel this is just really important for our community, and our com-munity is important to our success as a university,” Perlmutter said. “They go hand in hand.”

MEDICAID from page 1

PETITION from page 1Cai added that one student voted for 12 candidates based on voting data from Campus Life.

The Council took particu-lar issue not with the fact that the ballot contained errors, but Walker’s handling of the situation.

“I do not doubt that she had the best intentions,” Cai said. “But I do think she made some ill-advised choices and I think the consequences of those choices were pretty severe.”

Because the Commission chose to release the results prematurely, the Council wrote that no attempts to rec-tify the results could be made.

“We can only speculate now the results of a truly fair election,” the Council’s ruling read.

Cai said that due to the cir-cumstances, the results should continue to stand.

“I don’t want to make it seem like the people who are elected in these elections, their status as an SU officer is a sham,” Cai said. “I think they all deserve to hold the offices that they do. It’s unfortunate that their positions have been marked with asterisks, you could say. It’s kind of compli-cated. There’s some nuance here.”

The Council voted unani-mously to approve Pohl’s petition to recall Walker.

“It’s just a message that you need to really be here to support the student body,” Pohl said. “I just really hope that this shows people in the future that these are jobs that you need to take seriously.”

Cai maintained that the rul-ing was not an easy decision to make.

“No one on Con. Council takes any joy from this opin-ion,” Cai said. “Part of what makes this so disappointing, I think, is I spoke with Randal over the summer when we were initially appointing her. And I thought she was a fan-tastic candidate for election commissioner. It is kind of sad to see something like this have to happen.”

According to the constitu-tion, the vote traditionally would go to the affected body, the Election Commission. Cai said that because the Commission was complicit in many of the actions the Council found negligent, the vote should go to SU as a whole. However, the Council

determined that giving Senate and Treasury the vote was too divergent from the constitu-tion and that having just the five executive officers vote was the best possible option.

Cai admitted the conflict of interest of Pohl being included in the recall vote as the petitioner, and pointed out that another conflict of inter-est is the fact that Troung, Plump and Cai all initially appointed Walker.

“It’s certainly not the per-fect outcome. I don’t think there is a perfect outcome here with regards to who do we send it to?” Cai said. “I think the conflict of interest is not severe enough in this case to completely invalidate any vote that they have on this.”

Truong disagreed with

the Council’s ruling of gross negligence and said that he believes Walker has learned from her mistakes.

“A lot of times, people within Student Union say, ‘Give grace’ or ‘Don’t assume the worst intent,’ but we pick and choose who we afford that to,” Truong said. “If we hold one person to a standard, we should hold everyone to that same stan-dard. I don’t think recall petitions and publicly embar-rassing people is the answer.”

The five executive mem-bers will vote after hearing statements from the Council and Walker and being given time for questioning.

“This opinion is the result of many, many, many hours of investigation and delibera-tion and research,” Cai said.

“Given how much evidence we’ve provided, if exec chose to deny the petition for recall, I would like to see some sub-stantive claims on their end as to why. What I don’t want to see is a 15 page opinion on Con Council’s part and just a brief email on exec’s part.”

Truong characterized the petition as an example of callout culture, and refer-enced the fact that Walker and Pohl ran against each other for VP of Programming last spring.

“Students didn’t send us here to play petty politics,” Truong said. “They sent us here to make change and improve the campus experi-ence, and I’m hoping that after this, we can move for-ward and continue to do that.”

As of Nov. 17, Tau Kappa Epsilon is currently on social probation until Feb. 13.

This is the second time TKE has been placed on social probation this semes-ter. In October, the fraternity was placed on social proba-tion for serving hard alcohol at a dry mixer.

Interfraternity Council (IFC) Director of Standards senior Sean Dunnsue con-firmed the nature of TKE’s policy violation, but declined to provide additional details, citing the confidentiality of the Standards Board.

“The incident was related to alcohol as well as risk and guest management policy violations,” Dunnsue said.

Greek organizations on social probation are prohib-ited from having social events for a certain period of time. Additionally, according to the Campus Life website, chapters on social probation are warned that if they vio-late their probation, they may be placed under suspension.

Interfraternity Council

President Jimmy Abraham emphasized how social pro-bation can encourage Greek organizations to reevaluate their priorities.

“If going out and drinking and all that stuff is their main priority, obviously [social probation] is going to impact them more a lot more than someone who is trying to get more out of a fraternity,” Abraham said.

In addition to social pro-bation, Abraham described other measures that the IFC and Campus Life will take to prevent future viola-tions. These measures could include a facilitation with either the executive board or the entire chapter with a representative from Campus Life or the Alcohol and Drug (AOD) office.

“[The goal is] to talk about why these actions are happening, why people are drinking dangerously and what things that group as a whole can do to improve their current actions,” Abraham said.

However, Abraham acknowledged that cur-rent policies may need to

be updated in order to more effectively prevent violations in the future.

“I think currently those are our preventative measures: education and reminders about what you are and aren’t supposed to do,” Abraham said. “Obviously, that isn’t working too well. I don’t know if that means adding more trainings or just changing how the trainings look right now. I think that is something that the next IFC is probably going to have to deal with.”

Moving forward, Abraham said he is confident that TKE can avoid future violations.

“Personally, my interac-tions with the president and the house manager have been great, and I am honestly sur-prised by how consistently this is happening, because the president is fantastic…so I am hoping that he will be able to lead them down the right road,” Abraham said.

TKE president Ben Moore declined to comment.

Associate Director for Campus Life-Fraternity Sorority Life Austin Sandoval-Sweeney did not respond to interview requests.

After second violation, TKE placed on social probation until FebruaryTED MOSKALNEWS EDITOR

WUGWU goes to Washington, rallies for grad student protections

Members of the Washington University Graduate Workers’ Union (WUGWU) attended a protest in Washington D.C. object-ing to the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) proposal that graduate student workers be classified under fed-eral labor law as students.

Three graduate students from Washington University attended the event, join-ing students from over eight other universities including

the University of Southern California, Duke University and Marquette University. The NLRB’s proposed rule change would strip graduate students of federal labor protections allowing them to unionize and collectively bargain.

WUGWU member and Ph.D. student Lacy Murphy described the experience as “invigorating.”

Members of WUGWU met with Democratic representa-tive Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, who authored a bill to block the NLRB’s proposed rule

change.Later in the day, students

visited NLRB’s headquarters to deliver thousands of com-ments on the change from graduate students nationwide. Four protestors engaged in civil disobedience by blocking the door to the headquarters, while the rest of the students chanted in support. No arrests were made.

According to Murphy, not a single member of the NLRB board agreed to meet with their contingent.

“It was disheartening and

agitating to know that while there are clearly a lot of grad-uate student workers who oppose this ruling and want their voice to be heard, the NLRB is not willing to even begin a dialogue,” Murphy said.

The status of graduate workers has yo-yoed from stu-dent to employee four times since the turn of the century, with each administration reversing the classification of the one before.

“It is problematic to have the NLRB constantly changing

our status from employee to student with every administra-tion,” Murphy said.

WUGWU member Saumya Deojain, an econom-ics Ph.D. student, said that graduate students’ capacity to organize is integral to their abil-ity to function academically.

“I think that the power to unionize gives us bargaining power over the University and the ability to do productive work,” Deojain said.

Murphy also acknowledged the broader significance of these changes on a national

level.“Removing our right to

unionize really sends a mes-sage to all workers in the U.S., which is that your rights as workers are not safe,” Murphy said.

The organization will hold a rally outside the Danforth University Center, Nov. 20, to bring attention to the group’s less-publicized priorities, such as free childcare and justice for international students, with the auxiliary objective of reestablishing their on-campus presence.

NEWS EDITORS

‘Global Asias as Imaginable Ageog-raphy’Danforth University Center, Goldberg Lounge, 4 p.m.Tina Chen will present this talk, fo-cusing on the theoretical possibilities of ageography before elaborating on the ways in which Asian/American speculative fiction offers new means of imagining into being the structural incoherence of global Asias as both

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This season, it has been rare to see someone other than junior keeper Emma Greenfield protecting the Washington University goal. For most teams, seeing the backup goalkeeper in front of the goal with ten minutes to play usually means one of two things: the team has been doing either very well or very poorly.

For the Washington University women’s soc-cer team on Saturday, seeing freshman Katie Stender-Moore in goal was an instance of the former. Her presence was a testament to the Bears’ early success in their NCAA tournament first round match against Maryville College, a sign of how Wash. U. had coasted through the game to an over-powering victory, 4-0.

After beating Maryville, the Bears kept fighting for more on Sunday, beating Adrian College, 2-0, to advance to the Sweet 16, the third round of the NCAA playoffs. Wash. U. was dominant throughout the weekend, outshooting its two opponents by a combined 63-10 and allowing just five shots on goal.

Stender-Moore found herself in goal because the Bears had jumped out to an early lead against Maryville. The Scots mounted a strong attack on their initial posses-sion, pushing deep into Bears’ territory, but before even ten minutes had passed, Wash. U. had scored twice and estab-lished commanding control over the game. Sophomore Ariana Miles opened the scor-ing in the eighth minute when she sent a ball into the corner

of the goal from close inside the box. It was Miles’ sev-enth goal of the season and it opened the floodgates.

Senior Taylor Cohen, who led the University Athletic Association during the regu-lar season with 79 shots, added her tenth goal of the year just over a minute later. She broke through the Scots’ back line before beating the Maryville keeper 1-on-1. Both of the first two goals were unassisted, with Miles and Cohen creating opportunities for themselves before finding the back of the net.

“Miles and Cohen did a nice job of setting the tone for us up top,” head coach Jim Conlon said after the game. “Our women came in locked and focused. I thought they did a good job from the open-ing whistle.”

The Bears did not let up after the first two goals. They got off four shots in a six-minute stretch midway through the first half, forc-ing the Maryville keeper to make two saves within 50 seconds, and added two more goals before halftime, the first when junior Ellie DeConinck found the back of the net after a cross from Miles and the second on a give and go from sophomore Kally Wendler to sophomore Marissa Kalkar. The assist was Wendler’s first career point.

That was the end of Saturday’s scoring for the Bears. They kept Maryville away from the goal and kept attacking, however, forc-ing six saves in the second half. The wide lead allowed Conlon to rest some starters in the waning minutes of the game and let younger players get in on the action.

Sunday’s game was more

balanced, with the Bulldogs able to hold off the Bears for more than a half hour at the start of the game. An early Wash. U. shot attempt went into the goal but was called back when the referees whis-tled sophomore Erin Flynn offside. The Bears had plenty of opportunities early on, like when DeConinck found Cohen in front of the goal with Miles sprinting in from the right side, but Cohen’s pass for Miles was too hard and the Adrian keeper col-lected it before Wash. U. could finish the shot.

Sophomore Gabbie Cesarone was instrumental on both ends of the field. She intercepted multiple passes simply by sticking out a foot, a move that observ-ers in the crowd likened to a tip stop in hockey. Then, in the 35th minute, an Adrian foul gave Wash. U. a free kick. DeConinck slid the ball hard through traffic to find Cesarone cutting in toward the goal and Cesarone tapped it in, putting the Bears ahead for good.

“You kind of get to know the type of players that are on the field. Ellie D, you know is going to get over the ball and strike it hard, so once we saw that space she and I locked eyes,” Cesarone said. “I just came across and luckily just barely got a foot on it.”

Things were quiet again for the rest of the first half. The two teams combined got off just one shot in the final ten minutes, and the Bears took a 1-0 lead into halftime.

The Bears added their sec-ond goal in the 67th minute when junior Ellie Moreland hurried the ball down the right wing, juked an Adrian defender and delivered a long shot that ricocheted off the left post. Chaos ensued in the box before Cohen tapped the ball back to freshman Riley Alvarez, who shoved the ball into the back of the net for her first career goal.

The Wash. U. defense was stifling throughout. Adrian got off just three shots in the afternoon, two of which came on a single sequence in the first half: Greenfield made her one save of the day on a hard ball at the edge of the box, getting knocked down; Bulldogs’ star forward Caroline Fleming recovered a rebound and sent in another shot, but Wash. U. was able to clear it and breathe easy yet again. Adrian’s only other main opportunity had come earlier in the first half, when a Bulldog broke through the Wash. U. back line. Greenfield had come out of goal to defend, though, and slide-tackled the attacker to prevent the goal.

“That slide-tackle was big,” Conlon said. “She just trusted her instincts.”

“I was proud of our women for fighting and

battling and finding the back of the net twice today,” Conlon told Bears broad-caster Jay Mury after the

game. “It was important to get the win.”

Next up for Wash. U. is the Sweet 16. The Bears will

face the winner of Sunday night’s California Lutheran vs. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps matchup next weekend.

Women’s soccer sails through opening rounds of playoffsMATTHEW FRIEDMANSENIOR SPORTS EDITOR

MATTHEW FRIEDMAN | STUDENT LIFE

CURRAN NEENAN | STUDENT LIFE

Junior Ellie DeConinck unleashes a shot on goal against Maryville College Saturday. The Bears overpowered Maryville 4-0 and Adrian College 2-0 to move on to the Sweet 16 next weekend.

Sophomore Ariana Miles evades an Adrian College defender Sunday. Miles notched an assist and a goal against Maryville.

DORIAN DEBOSE & MATTHEW FRIEDMAN | SENIOR SPORTS EDITORS | SPORTS@STUDLIFE.COM4 STUDENT LIFE MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019

Washington University’s women’s basketball team opened the season with a split in the Loras College Tipoff Tournament this weekend, falling to Loras College on Friday night, 93-81, before respond-ing with a win in the tournament’s consolation game against Augustana College, 75-64. The Bears come home from their trip to Dubuque, Iowa with a 1-1 season record.

For Wash. U., a young team (10 freshmen) that graduated six seniors last year (including top scor-ers Madeline Homoly and Rachael Sondag), the week-end opened a new chapter.

The Bears started just one upperclassman in each of the games, senior Kristina Schmelter, and the starting lineup featured two fresh-men on both nights.

The Bears came out strong in the first quarter on Friday. Freshman Molly Gannon recorded the Bears’ first points of the season with a three-point jump shot early on before the teams began a back-and-forth. Wash. U. climbed to a 10-5 lead with 6:30 left in the quarter, but Loras responded and fin-ished the quarter leading Wash. U. by 11 points with a score of 30-19.

The Bears responded in the second quarter, out-scoring Loras 22-15 to end the half down by just four points, 45-41.

Wash. U outscored Loras again in the third quarter, 23-19, and the teams went into the final quarter tied at 64. The Bears then stag-nated, however, scoring just nine points in the last 5:53 of game time. Wash. U. fouled Loras players six times in the last minute, but the strategy did not pay off, as the Duhawks con-verted on all twelve of their free throws, finishing with a 12-point margin over the Bears.

Bears’ sophomore Isabelle Hren led the team with 18 points and three assists, while sophomore Samantha Weaver tallied eight rebounds. Wash. U. had a field goal percent-age of 46.8%, but the Red and Green committed 25

turnovers.“We played a very tough,

veteran Loras team. Once we got a few first game gitters out, I thought we competed the rest of the game,” head coach Randi Henderson said. “We gave Loras a good fight. I was happy we didn’t back down from the challenge.”

The Friday night loss meant that the Bears would face Augusta in the consola-tion game on Saturday.

The Bears found their rhythm during the first quarter, hitting five of their eight three-point shots and making five of their six free throws. The quarter finished with Wash. U. ahead of the Vikings by eight, 24-16.

The Red and Green con-tinued to dominate in the

second quarter as the team held a 16-point lead, 32-16, just two minutes into the quarter and then 19-point leads at the 4:13 and 3:36 marks. Wash. U. went into half-time winning 47-36.

The Vikings outscored the Bears in the third quar-ter, but Wash. U. still held a 64-58 lead at the end of the quarter. Wash. U. out-scored the Vikings in the fourth quarter and the Bears secured a 75-64 victory to tally their first win of the season.

Senior Kristina Schmelter led the Bears with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Weaver earned had assists.

In the Bears’ first win of the season, four different players reached double fig-ures in points. This group

included three freshmen: Naomi Jackson, Molly Gannon, and Sammi Matoush.

The team hopes to use their experiences this week-end to help them for the rest of the season. “I believe we are learning the importance of playing together, valuing every possession offensively and finishing every posses-sion defensively,” Henderson said.

Two starters from last sea-son are still recovering from ACL injuries, Henderson said, and a returning junior is out with a concussion, but the Bears hope to be healthy soon.

Wash. U. faces off against Rhodes College on Friday at 3 p.m. in the Bears’ home opener.

Women’s basketball has mixed season opener, splits tournamentDANIEL COHENCONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Head coach Larry Kindbom and his Washington University football team stepped onto the green for the 311th and final time in his career on Saturday, look-ing to bounce back after a devastating overtime loss last weekend to Millikin University.

The Bears made the game one for Kindbom to remember, sending their head coach into retirement with a blowout victory over Carroll University, 62-14. Wash. U. finishes the season 7-3, their 24th winning season in Kindbom’s 31 years coach-ing the team.

“It was great for our seniors to be part of what was really a complete football game,” Kindbom said. “It was a great way to finish: offense, defense, special teams, playing well, playing sharp and feeling good when they left.”

Wash. U. had 550 yards of total offense, includ-ing a season-high 192 rushing yards, and the Bears’ defense—a strong suit throughout this sea-son—kept clamps on the

Pioneers, sacking the Carroll quarterback four times and grabbing three turnovers on the day.

An early defensive stop granted senior quarter-back Johnny Davidson and company an excellent field position to start off their own first drive of the game, quickly leading to a one-yard rushing touch-down from senior running back John Fisher to open the scoring. The Bears soon added more, lead-ing 17-0 by the end of the first quarter after a field goal and a 30-yard con-nection from Davidson to sophomore tight end Luke Wilkin.

The second quarter had more of the same from the offense. Freshman kicker Chris Vartanian kept the scoring going with a career-long 47-yard field goal to extend the lead to 20 points before Davidson found sophomore wide receiver Jared Harrison for two passing touch-downs in a row. Harrison ended his afternoon with 54 total receiving yards. Carroll answered with a short-yardage rushing touchdown of its own in the second quarter, but the Bears went into halftime with a commanding lead,

34-7. Although the Wash.

U. offense kept scoring, defense highlighted the second half. Senior line-backer Jeff Gurley sacked the Carroll quarterback midway through the third quarter, forcing a fumble that sophomore linebacker John Christensen recov-ered in the endzone for a touchdown. Then, with just over two minutes to play, senior linebacker Matt Giles intercepted a Pioneer pass and returned it 12 yards for a touchdown, putting an exclamation point on the win for the Bears.

“We came off of a tough loss and that was really hard and then we went into the cold weather—we were out there Tuesday morn-ing at 6:30 after a tough loss. There were a lot of circumstances that could have made the week miser-able, but it was totally the opposite,” Kindbom said. “Our players were sharp and focused and energized and it was really a good week of practice. All they did was take that to the ball game.”

Davidson finished off his career with a 296-yard passing performance, pass-ing for three touchdowns.

He ends his time at Wash. U. with 7400 career pass-ing yards, placing him second all-time in school history.

Senior wide receiver Mitchel Groen also passed a milestone on Saturday, collecting 36 yards in to push him over 1000 career receiving yards. He fin-ishes his career with 1013 yards.

“Knowing my last ever football game was over, I was thinking about how much my family has sup-ported me and all the

friends I’ve made through football. It has also made me think about the impact Coach K has had on me and countless other foot-ball players that he’s come in contact with,” Groen said. “Football has had such a large impact on my life the last 14 years, and it’s taught me lessons that I’ll carry with me through-out my life.”

Junior running back Emmanuel Ebirim led the charge with a game-high of 61 rushing yards, closely followed by Fisher

with 52 yards.Junior defensive back JT

Streepy led the Wash. U. defense with 11 total tack-les, followed by Gurley, who had eight tackles, which included two two sacks, four tackles for loss and the forced fumble.

Kindbom finishes his 31-year career at Wash. U. with a record of 192-119, a .617 winning percent-age. He is the winningest coach in Wash. U. football history.Additional reporting by Matthew Friedman.

When Washington University first faced Claremont-Mudd-Scripps this year in the East to West Battle Sept. 13, both teams were in different places. Despite a 7-3 record, Wash. U. had sputtered out of the gate, losing two of its first four games. With three losses to unranked teams, the hope for a 33rd-straight NCAA tournament appear-ance seemed uncertain. CMS, on the other hand, had steamrolled through its competition to a 8-1 record and No. 3 ranking.

But CMS did not

steamroll Wash. U. in September. The first three sets went to extra points and CMS outlasted Wash. U. 25-20 in the fourth set to escape with a 3-1 victory. But that is just what it was: an escape. A match that, if replayed, could have gone either way.

The two teams met again on Friday, this time in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Yet little changed from the first tournament in terms of the result. It was another see-saw battle, but the Athenas came out on top yet again, 3-1, handing the Bears an early exit from the tourna-ment and putting an end to

their season. The Bears fin-ish the year 24-9.

Wash. U. had come into the match ranked 24th in Division III, so from afar one might have expected a blowout win for No. 5 CMS, but that was not the case. “Once you hit post-season, it’s a fresh season. Everybody is coming to play and there are no under-dogs,” Wash. U. head coach Vanessa Walby said in the postgame press conference.

As the first set came to a close, Wash. U. led 19-14. Everything was clicking. Five kills from sophomore Michaela Bach. Seven assists from junior Kirby Knapp. Just six more points

and Wash. U. would be up 1-0 on a top-five team in the country. Just six more points and the Bears would be that much closer to advancing to the sec-ond round of the NCAA tournament. Just six more points and they would have another upset under their belt—just one week after taking down No. 19 Carnegie Mellon University in the University Athletic Association (UAA) third place game.

But the Athenas came roaring back, scoring 11 of the next 13 points to win the first set 25-21. The Bears started the second set down 7-2. The promis-ing start had vanished, it seemed, and so too had the hopes of an NCAA tourna-ment run.

This time, Wash. U. got off a string of five straight points to even the score. The early cohesion had returned. The rest of the set went back and forth, back and forth. But, once again, CMS squeaked by, securing a 25-20 victory.

Every time it looked like CMS would pull away, Wash. U. came back. And every time Wash. U. started clawing back into the game, CMS would tip-toe ahead. Wash. U. won the third set 26-24, but fell in the fourth and final set 22-25, despite coming back from a 12-17 deficit. CMS escaped again,

in a game that was eerily similar to their first outing two months earlier.

“[Wash. U.] is a tough first-round opponent. That’s a team that we’re familiar with,” CMS head coach Kurt Vlasich said in the postgame press conference. “They always play us tough every year.”

Wash. U. used a bal-anced scoring attack to give CMS trouble, as three players finished the game with double digit kills. Bach led the team with 13 kills but senior Leila King, who ranked first in the UAA in hitting percentage, was not far behind her, compiling a .545 hitting percentage and totaling 12 kills.

The Bears also got some late-season help from senior Hannah Turner. After fall-ing out of the rotation midway through the sea-son, including eight games in which she did not play, Turner started the final three games of the season. She averaged 12 kills per game during that stretch, including 7 against CMS.

“[Turner] has been play-ing with nothing to lose,” Walby told Student Life. “You could see her senior leadership come out. She has been a great swing and block.”

Kirby Knapp led the team with 43 assists, her highest total in five games. Knapp was second in the

UAA with 1,226 assists this season, placing her 10th on Wash. U.’s all-time assist leaderboard.

In the final game of her career, senior Zoe Baxter paced the team with 17 digs, finishing her time at Wash. U. second on the all-time digs list.

Despite the success of the team’s veterans, Wash. U. still relied heavily on younger players.

Freshman Alaina Bohrer played in 29 games, while freshman Taryn Gurbach played in 32. Sophomore Michaela Bach had 350 kills, compared to 122 in her first season. Sophomore Caitlin Lorenz went from playing in only 11 games her freshman year to starting in the NCAA tour-nament game.

“A lot of our underclass-men took on new roles and gained some new experi-ences, which I think will be helpful in our growth and development,” said Walby.

Maybe that is why there was not an overwhelm-ing sense of sadness in the postgame press conference. Instead, there was a sense of optimism, even from the seniors who had played their last game at Wash. U.

“We have amazing team-mates, an amazing coach and the culture that this volleyball team has created, it’s not going anywhere,” Baxter said.

Football sends off Kindbom with one final winMIGUEL CAMPOSSTAFF REPORTER

Despite hard-fought performance, volleyball knocked from tourneyBENJAMIN SIMONSTAFF REPORTER

CURRAN NEENAN | STUDENT LIFE

Junior Kirby Knapp sets the ball for a kill against Centre College Nov. 2. Despite Knapp leading the Bears against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps with 43 assists, Wash. U. fell to CMS, 3-1.

GRACE BRUTON | STUDENT LIFE

Senior Mitchell Groen finds an opening in the Augustana College defense. Groen added 36 yards to his career total against Carroll University Saturday, surpassing 1000 yards for his WU career.

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Upcoming Events: Nov. 18-29

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Save the Date: SPRING CAREER FAIR

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4 PM: Consulting Recruiting Season “Ending” – Now What?, DUC, Room 234

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4 PM: Search Acceleration Team – Med Campus, (Graduate Students and PostDocs)Becker Library, Center for the History of Medicine (6th Floor)

4 PM: Consulting 101 Panel, Bauer Hall, Room 150

5 PM: Carnival Cruise Line, Corporate Finance 101, Online

6 PM: Teach For America Info Session, DUC, Room 234

7 PM: [Architecture] International Student Seminar, Givens Hall, Room 113

10 AM: Mock Block: Small Group Practice Interviews, DUC, Room 232

12 PM: Lunch with a Pro: KPMG, Andrew Aronoff, EN09, Manager, DUC, Room 239

4 PM: Career Connections: Los Angeles + Southern California, DUC, Room 110 (Career Center Lobby)

4 PM: Search Acceleration Team – Danforth Campus, (Graduate Students and PostDocs) DUC, Room 111 (Career Center)

5:30 PM: Wall Street Journal Reading Club, Simon Hall, Room 224

The Career Center is open during winter break!

Winter break is a great time to touch base with a career advisor. Even if you are at home, we can meet with you by phone or skype.

Just give us a call to set up an appointment at 314-935-5930, or use our online scheduling at careercenter.wustl.edu/onlinescheduling

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STUDENT LIFE 5MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019

SCENEJADEN SATENSTEIN | SENIOR SCENE EDITOR | SCENE@STUDLIFE.COM6 STUDENT LIFE MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019

The Abstract is a new Student Life science column which presents research findings from Washington University experts and instructs students on how these findings can be appli-cable in real life.

Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences Henry L. Roediger III has seen it many times before. A student does poorly on his exam, comes into office hours, and asks Roediger for study tips and feedback. Roediger’s first question: “Did you try the practice problems at the end of the chapter?”

Roediger says students tend to reread, highlight and scan their notes repeat-edly as a primary study strategy, which is not the best way to learn material. Rereading can produce an

“illusion of mastery”—a familiarity with the mate-rial that tricks the learner into believing they under-stand it on a deeper level. Often, such a technique leads to studying that is too easy, takes little effort and fails to engage the learner on a deep level.

“Rereading and highlighting notes and materials is not the worst thing you can do, but it’s certainly not the best either,” Roediger, who co-authored the 2014 book “Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning,” said. “It’s best to use active study strate-gies like practice, trying to recall or flashcards—test-ing yourself.”

Roediger and Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences Kathleen McDermott have spent years researching optimal study techniques for people of different ages and

backgrounds. Both strongly advocate for learning through retrieval practice, which is often referred to as the “testing effect,”—or the tendency for knowl-edge to be more durable and applicable when it has been tested over repeatedly.

“The best way to get yourself ready [to remember something in the future] is to remem-ber it now and to maybe remember it under difficult circumstances, like a little while after you study, or when you have no cues in front of you but a blank piece of paper and no support, and you are try-ing to make it abundantly clear, label your axes and explain everything step by step,” McDermott says. “It becomes hard—not just because you figure out what you know but because you solidify every-thing you’re on the verge of knowing.”

Retrieval practice often gets a bad rap, as students tend to despise high-stakes quizzes and tests that dramatically alter grades. However, retrieval practice can take the form of prac-tice problems in the back of the textbook, vocabu-lary flashcards a students makes or writing down all the knowledge one can recall on a piece of blank paper.

“You don’t have to have a teacher hand you a quiz, the main thing is that you practice remembering,” McDermott says.

Students can design their own practice prob-lems or test questions, and questions can be multiple choice, short answer or any other format. The goal is to produce a challenging task that elicits critical thinking and solidifies knowledge to last long-term. Even gener-ating an incorrect answer and then using an answer

key to self-correct is better than simply rereading.

“What you really want to do is solve the problem yourself. If you don’t get the answer then go back and figure out, ‘What did I do wrong?’” Roediger says. “Even if you miss it, and then you go back, you’ll learn it better if you try it for yourself.”

Roediger and McDermott also caution against cramming, or intensively preparing for a test for a short period of time. While cramming is a popular study technique amongst busy college students, in a 2008 study, Roediger and associates showed clear benefits of spacing practice.

“We showed if you have people repeatedly reread or read once and then repeat-edly test, if you give people a test 5 minutes later, they do better if they repeat-edly read,” Roediger says.

“That’s cramming, which is a really bad strategy for long-term retention, but if the test is that day, it’s not bad. Other groups we gave a test two days or one week later, and the repeated test group did much better.”

These tactics consistently transfer outside the lab. McDermott worked on a study at Columbia Middle School, where these tactics were applied success-fully in a real classroom. Low-stakes quizzes greatly improved performance on a final exam in com-parison to simply rereading material.

Roediger and McDermott liken the dra-matic benefits of spacing and retrieval practice to a common sports phrase.

“In baseball, it’s prac-tice as you play and you’ll play like you practiced,” Roediger says. “And in studying, it’s the same thing.”

Practice like you play: WU psychologists reveal key to successful studyingALI GOLDSENIOR EDITOR

After Bronwen Konecky, award-winning organic and stable isotope geochemist, finished her first year of organic chem-istry in college, she threw out her notes and sold her textbook.

“I was like, welp, never going to use this again,” she said. Konecky, who has been an assistant professor at Washington University’s Earth and Planetary Sciences depart-ment for nearly a year, also tried a few geology classes in college. But she didn’t end up pursu-ing more because she just “didn’t really like them that much.”

Almost twenty years later, on Oct. 15, 2019, Bronwen Konecky was named a Packard Fellow. With the honor came $875,500 of flexible fund-ing towards her research on discovering the effect of climate change on rain-fall and ecosystems in the Earth’s tropical regions.

Extremely prestigious and competitive, the 2019 cohort of Packard Fellows comprises only 22 scientists from all around the nation. According to Barbara Schaal, dean of the faculty of arts and sci-ences, Wash. U. has just 11 Packard Fellows, plac-ing Konecky “among a very elite group of faculty members.”

Even before Konecky arrived at Wash. U. in December of 2018, Dean Schaal thought Konecky was an “absolutely terrific hire.” Professor David Fike, a colleague of Konecky’s in the Earth and Planetary Sciences department, agreed.

Konecky, he explained, brought a unique depth in both fieldwork and

analysis. She completed her Ph.D. on this and computer modeling of climate systems. Later, she focused her postdoc on this modeling.

“Then the idea of her coming [to Wash. U.] was [to] build a lab that integrated those both, and that for us was truly exciting,” Fike said. Each of these two skill sets is very difficult, making Konecky’s expertise in both rare. Their combina-tion is essential to moving the field forward, which is what makes Konecky’s research so exciting.

Konecky’s career is a testament to the value in taking the road less traveled. Although it has wound across various disciplines and all around the nation, every piece has converged to create an outstanding scientist who does extraordinary research.

As a high schooler in California, Konecky could be found build-ing sets for her school’s theater productions or reporting on meetings of the San Francisco Youth Commission for the school newspaper. She had “no interest in science whatsoever” and “really wanted to go into either arts or communications.”

The catalyzing moment arrived senior year. Konecky was taking AP Environmental Science to fulfill a requirement. For that class, she had to design her own research project on any envi-ronmental topic of her choosing. Konecky chose to focus on the ecologi-cal communities in tide pools at a nearby nature preserve.

She spent her senior year waking up early to drive down to the nature preserve and observe what

she could. Konecky ended up discovering that one area near a steam clearly had less biodiversity than the other areas, which she then linked to contami-nation coming in from residential areas along the stream.

“That process of discovery and figuring something out and work-ing in really cool natural setting was really intrigu-ing to me,” Konecky said. The next year, Konecky flew to the other side of the nation to Barnard College at Columbia University.

Although she pursued her interest in the environ-ment at Barnard College, she was still following her passion for the arts and communications. In addition to minoring in writing, Konecky worked as both a writing tutor and an audiovisual technician throughout college. Even after graduating magna cum laude, Earth and Environmental Sciences degree in hand, she said she still lacked direction.

She had left her home in San Francisco for the hustle and bustle of New York City, and hustle she did. “I think I had four different jobs at the time,” Konecky recalled. She was working for Columbia University updating faculty webpages, still had her old job as an audio-visual technician and babysat “a lot.”

It was her fourth job that put her on the right path. She started working part-time for the Earth Institute at Columbia University, doing “ran-dom assorted things.” She eventually parlayed that position into a full-time role coordinating envi-ronmental research for an African sustainable development program at

the Earth Institute. While doing fieldwork

in East Africa in that role, Konecky found herself talking to small-scale farmers in various rural areas. She was struck by how many of them “were mentioning how difficult it was to deal with rainfall variability. And how they all thought the rains were changing,” but no one had any idea why. As people in this region depend on rain-fed agriculture, “whether the rains come on time or what happens with them is very much a matter of life or death.”

Konecky fixated on the question. She began researching which types of jobs were concerned with finding the causes of rainfall variability over time. Initially wanting to explore data from the last century, she quickly discovered that the cli-mate processes she was interested in operated on the scale of millennia. This process of discovery led Konecky to the field of climate science, and within that, the subfield of paleoclimate, which is still a major research focus of hers today. Then, she looked for scientists who were specifically concerned with rainfall variability in East Africa over long timescales. In her search, Konecky found Jim Russell, a paleoclimate and trop-ics expert at Brown University who more than fit the bill.

From there, she decided to quit her job and apply to graduate school, although not necessarily in that order.

“I had kind of a non-traditional background, at that point, right?” Konecky said. “I really appreciated that [ Russell] took a chance on me.”

Furthermore, Russell was instrumental in helping Konecky transition from the working world to grad school, a transition Konecky found “really rough.” She was taking classes for the first time in four years and working in a lab for the first time ever. On top of that, she was learning a totally new field.

But it doesn’t appear that Konecky finds adversity particularly off-putting. She persevered through a challenging first year and the rest of her Ph.D., becoming an expert in the organic chemistry she thought she had left in college. When Student Life reached out to Russell, he wrote back in less than an hour, explain-ing how Konecky “has approached research with a high degree of rigor and creativity” and further “has always been a real joy to work with.”

And in addition to all that, Konecky found time during grad school to write, sing and play guitar in a band called SwampBirds, which she describes as “Americana but electric.”

Of course, after a resounding success acquir-ing this difficult skill set in organic geochemis-try fieldwork, Konecky decided to do something completely different after receiving her Ph.D. Konecky had “naively” believed she would be able to incorporate computer modeling into her Ph.D along the way, but quickly found out “that merging of people who work on data and people who work on models is actually a huge challenge in our field.” Her solution to this challenge was to focus her postdoc at Georgia Tech completely on computer

modeling of climate sys-tems. “[I]t was almost like getting a second Ph.D,” she admitted.

At this point, I had to ask the obvious question: How in the world did you do it? But it didn’t seem Konecky was ever fazed by the difficulty of her path. “Even when things were hard, I knew I loved the subject. I knew I ulti-mately wanted to be doing things that were good for the world.” Throughout her career, Konecky has stayed committed to the question inspired by her conversations with those small-scale farmers in East Africa. Even as it has evolved past what she could have imagined when she first asked it, she has done what needed to be done in the moment, so that she could achieve her goal in the long-term.

Although Konecky’s nontraditional back-ground has presented a challenge at times, Konecky attributes to it the sense of purpose that saw her through her at times roundabout, but ultimately worthwhile path.

With the Packard Fellowship, Konecky is looking forward to spend-ing less time writing and rewriting research grants and more time “think-ing big.” Although her colleagues Schaal and Fike both commented on the prestige of the award, Konecky unsurprisingly only has eyes for her goal. She hopes that by 2120, the data gaps about rainfall variability in the tropics will be gone. She also plans to expand the geographic and temporal reach of her research.

“Ultimately,” she said, “I wanted to do research that was helpful to peo-ple.” And now she can.

Path to the Packard: Bronwen Konecky pushes envelope in climate researchDIVA HARSOORCONTRIBUTING WRITER

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STAFF EDITORIAL

Much attention has been given to the SU fall election

regarding the technical errors within the online ballot form and the inefficiency of the Election Commission.

At the beginning of the elec-tion (12:02 a.m.), voters were able to choose more than the permitted maximum number of candidates. The ballot was soon updated to fix the issue, but voters started having trouble submitting it, and non-ArtSci students were able to vote for ArtSci Council. Approximately five hours later

(4:56 a.m.), the errors were “fixed.” Election Commission was notified about each of these failures and released several updates of the ballot, but submissions during the updates were unregistered.

We don’t know the exact number of votes lost, but it is reasonable to assume that many students started vot-ing at midnight, which was not late at all for us college students. In fact, this mishan-dling might very well have contributed to the extremely low turnout rate of this elec-tion—below 15%.

Due to these afore-mentioned issues, the Constitutional Council has found that the fall election was “improperly conducted”

because of three proved breaches of election rules: “electronic errors preventing students from voting, voting for a position that one is ineli-gible to vote for and voting for more than the permissible amount of candidates.”

Now you might be sur-prised and wondering why we, as voters, were never notified about this failure on election day or later, despite three emails of “Vote!!” spam-ming our inboxes. Or maybe you were already suspecting something fishy from the delayed release of results. It is not absurd for us to view the Election Commission as clandestine in their attempt to solve their failures.

Besides the lack of

consideration and clarifica-tion in their handling of this technical difficulty, we have reasons to believe that the ballot had even more flaws than what is already known. For every SU election, the roster on the ballot is supposed to be randomized to prevent implicit unfairness—let’s be honest, a lot of us would just open the WUGO website and check off the names on the top of the list and hit the “Submit” button to save time. Therefore, a fixed roster on the ballot is inherently unfair against candidates with their names at the bottom of the list, and it has been a standard procedure in each SU election to shuffle the candidate list every time the website is accessed by a

new voter. However, based on feed-

back from several candidates and confirmation from many voters, it was highly possible that the order of candidates’ names on the ballot stayed uniform. Students who voted also recalled that the names of new candidates running for their first term were placed at the bottom, whereas the names of several incumbent SU officers occupied the top of the list. In other words, there could have been a failure of the randomization process.

All of these incidences have set a negative precedent, one that could possibly affect future candidates. The lack of candidness and openness from the Election Commission has

us concerned about future elections. How can we prevent this from happening again? The Election Commission, and particularly the election commissioner, need to be held responsible for handling this election in a way that does not reflect the values of the Student Union. The past election cycle contained several missteps and has revealed the inadequacy of the Election Commission. These failures cannot be ignored or brushed aside, for the sake of the Student Union and for the sake of our shared values as students.

Editor’s note: Arora lost their fall 2019 election campaign. Both Liu and Spio are on First Year Class Council.

Breaking down the failures of the fall election and why you should careAARON ARORA, JEF-FERSON LIU, JOJO SPIOCLASS OF 2023

OP-ED SUBMISSION

Why I don’t want increased policing on or near campusJORDAN COLEYSTAFF WRITER

In light of election snafu, SU needs more transparency

On Sept. 10, 2019 Chancellor Andrew Martin wrote

in a statement to students, “Immediately following the armed robberies, our univer-sity police (WUPD) and the St. Louis City Metropolitan Police Department increased patrols in the affected areas. There are other more intensive law enforcement-related efforts underway, as well.” Martin went on to write “Please know that Washington University Police Department is here to support anyone in our community who needs help.” Sure, these people are meant to protect civilians, but what do you do when you fear those who are supposed to protect you?

On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, an unarmed Black

man, was choked to death by Daniel Pantaleo. I was only 13 at the time, but I still remember the horror I felt when I watched the video of his murder. Watching Garner sob “I can’t breathe!” 11 times, my heart fell to my stomach. Garner’s death was later ruled a homicide, but Pantaleo still wasn’t indicted. At a shy 13 years old, I real-ized that in the United States, my skin color put me at risk.

There have been numerous other instances of police vio-lence against unarmed Black people, and I remember those moments almost as vividly as I remember Eric Garner’s death. April of my senior year of high school, I was stopped by a police officer for cutting him off at a stop sign. As soon as the officer got to my car, I began to cry. I didn’t think my mom would overre-act about me getting a ticket, but rather, I was focused on a more pressing issue.

Here I was, alone at a traffic stop, with no one to witness whatever was to come. I wanted to get out my phone to record, but I didn’t want the officer to think I was being belligerent. Was this police officer going to shoot me? When I went to reach for my registration, would he think I was lunging for a gun? Philando Castile was murdered at a traffic stop, his girlfriend recorded the aftermath, and the officer still wasn’t indicted. Would I end up like him?

Physically, I left that encounter unscathed; the officer let me off with a warn-ing because it was my first offense. Emotionally though, that traffic stop is ingrained into my memory. When the officer asked why I was crying, I said I was afraid. I didn’t say that I was afraid he was going to shoot me. I didn’t say he’d probably get away with it if he did.

I often think about the jux-taposition between my recent acceptances to elite schools like Washington University and the vulnerability I felt during that moment. I was a 4.0 student, at the top of my class, and I was headed to a top-20 university. When I was pulled over, I was even wearing a college hoodie.

But in the moment, none of that mattered. No matter how many elite universities I got accepted to or attended, no matter how good of a stu-dent I am, that won’t change the fact that as a Black per-son, I do not feel safe around the police.

Whenever I see police officers on campus, I am reminded of that time dur-ing my senior year. I am reminded of the history of police officers harming Black people. There was the beating of Rodney King in 1991, the murders of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice in 2014,

and the murder of Atatiana Jefferson just last month. I cannot feel safe around the police force when I am also afraid that I’ll be the next name attached to the Black Lives Matter hashtag.

Off campus, my fear of the police is heightened. At least on campus, I have the privi-lege of saying I am a Wash. U. student, which grants me and other Black students at least a minimal layer of pro-tection. Off campus we lose this protection, and are thus more likely to be stereotyped as “ghetto” or “bad” Black people, which may make police officers feel more justified in doing whatever violence they choose to enact against Black bodies.

I know that the police theoretically exist to protect us, but every time I hear about another murder of an unarmed Black person, I begin to wonder who this “us” is. I become afraid for

my brothers, myself and everyone who looks like us. How can I be sure the police will protect me if I’m also deeply afraid that they’ll murder anyone with my skin color?

Increasing police presence on and around campus is supposed to make the student body feel safer, but with the trend of police brutal-ity against unarmed Black people, this will inherently make me feel unsafe.

I appreciate Wash. U. for all of the good opportunities it has granted me, but attend-ing this University does not and will not make me feel safer around armed forces. I am a Wash. U. student, but I am first and foremost Black. I believe we should make efforts to make Wash. U. and the surrounding community safer, but I don’t believe these efforts should be made at the expense of Black students’ comfort.

Since Student Union’s Nov. 5 fall election, multiple issues have surfaced. In brief,

these issues include whether the results of the election were valid, whether the elec-tion should be rerun, whether the Election Commission was right to release the election results while the previous problems were being investi-gated and false information being present in the press release that accompanied the results. These concerns have led to deciding whether Election Commissioner junior Randal Walker should be recalled from her position as the result of the mis-handling of the election, a question that SU will vote on tonight.

In light of these issues, the

Student Life Editorial Board advocates for greater trans-parency from and within SU, and professionalism from SU toward resolving this situation and thereby ensuring future elections proceed in line with SU’s espoused values.

The flaws in the election were not immediately made known to the student body or even to the candidates. And more glaring than the lack of transparency is the false information in a press release that was sent to the entire student body. If SU is representing and advocating for the concerns of students, students need to be kept in the loop when things are not running smoothly. This problem seems to stem from a lack of communication within SU, which must be

resolved. Walker’s decision to release the election results—which she was told not to do by the Constitutional Council—came before the Constitutional Council had reached a decision on the matter, and the Council noted in their report that they were unable to reach members of the Election Commission as this occurred. Infighting and miscommunication among members of SU hinders the work of their colleagues and subsequently negatively impacts their service toward their constituents.

As SU moves to determine the consequences of the mishandling of the election, the Student Life Editorial Board trusts that SU will make the best decision with integrity. We agree with the

Constitutional Council that the issue lies not in mistakes in the ballot but rather in how the Election Commission responded to them and approached subsequent deci-sions. SU asks to be entrusted with a portion of students’ tuition as well as our time and attention in voting. SU is only justified in doing so if they act in line with the highest values of Washington University students.

We also ask that VP of Programming junior Charlotte Pohl recuse herself from the vote on recalling Walker, as the two previ-ously competed for the VP of Programming Position and Pohl submitted the initial recall petition. This consti-tutes a conflict of interest and she should take this action to

rid the decision of potential bias.

Students should take greater interest in SU’s proceedings generally, as they wield a massive budget and make decisions directly affecting every student group. Students in Arts and Sciences, for example, ought to know that students in other schools were able to cast votes for ArtSci Council during the election, potentially interfer-ing with ArtSci students’ ability to make their interests heard, and students should raise these issues to SU.

Aside from the actions of SU, it is worth remind-ing students that part of the burden is on all of us. The glitches in the ballot may have been less of a cause for concern had voter turnout

not been so low, thereby giving an individual vote the potential to flip the results. The student body would also benefit from greater interest in serving one another. In this election, four of the six positions available on ArtSci Council went unfilled. Lack of competition for positions prevents any form of screen-ing for quality of candidates, and can lead to significantly more work being placed on fewer people, who will be strained to properly execute their role regardless of their abilities and commitment.

We hope that in future elections SU does a better job of maintaining a system that functions properly and more efficiently handles crises such as this.

�����CAREER

Thursday, Nov 7 @ 4pm�������������

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Thursday, Nov 21 @ 4pm�������������

Friday, Nov 22 @ 1pm�������������

First-Year Students and Sophomores,already thinking about Summer 2020?

All First-Years and Sophomores are encouraged to attend. We’ll cover:

How to figure out what to do over summer breaks How to network and what to ask in an informational interview Search strategies for summer opportunities

RSVP through CAREERlink

Come to Career Early Action!

ISABELLA NEUBAUER & SABRINA SPENCE | SENIOR CADENZA EDITORS | CADENZA@STUDLIFE.COM8 STUDENT LIFE MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2019

CADENZAStudent experimental the-

atre group Thyrsus opened a production of “Pullman, WA” on Friday night, directed by senior Madison Lee. A short play, “Pullman” consists of only one act, which is by turns whimsical, painful, obscene, existential and simply bizarre.

The play began in imita-tion of a lecture; there was no fourth wall to speak of. Three speakers directly addressed audience members, even walking among them at some points. Each of the speakers

attempted to comfort the audience but eventually berated them. Two of the speakers were dressed in a businesslike fashion; one was wearing ostentatious pink clothes and glittery makeup.

The play was accompanied by a sort of pseudo-Pow-erPoint presentation: a projection of images, often of stock photos or WikiHow illustrations, flicked behind the characters as they spoke. The maneuver accentuated both the absurdity of the show and underscored the supposed professionalism of the characters, and was a unique way of integrating

media into a theatrical context.

The content of the characters’ lectures involves harshly condemning thinking patterns and life habits that aren’t conducive to hap-piness—it is a criticism of self-criticism. At some points, it’s impossible to tell if the speakers are addressing the audience or one another. Their speeches quickly devolved from confident lec-ture platitudes into desperate raging, shocking vulnerability and chants of nonsense with shifting light colors.

Despite this seeming hodgepodge of theatrical

elements, the play was surprisingly cohesive. Under Lee’s guiding directorial hand, actors freshmen Sarah Camacho and Alexander Hewlett and sophomore Dom Bottom gave impas-sioned, sincere performances conveying tremendous emotional nuance while simultaneously plumbing the depths of the human condition.

While containing unde-niably comic elements, “Pullman” also had moments that were exceed-ingly difficult to watch. The audience was forced to bear witness to (sometimes gory)

descriptions of bodily pain, ranging from mildly dis-comforting to excruciating. This suggested a connec-tion between the physical confines of the body and the psychological turmoil that is omnipresent in postmodern America.

The fundamental question that the entire play revolves around—How should we live?—never gets answered to anyone’s satisfaction. Although the characters make claims of understand-ing the proper way to live, they are confronted with the realization that their philoso-phies don’t hold water. The

play captures the fundamen-tally human experience of being lost in the depths of existential suffering.

How to help yourself: Thyrsus performs ‘Pullman, WA’ELIZABETH PHELANSTAFF WRITER

GRACE BRUTON | STUDENT LIFE

The three performers of ‘Pull-man, WA’ share life advice.

Purple lights cast an eerie glow on the stage in Emerson Auditorium. Low, soft covers of songs I was pretty sure I knew played on the speakers. Attendees filed in slowly, filling the first half of the auditorium easily but leaving the back half sparsely populated. The show was about to start: Stranger Sings, The Sensasians and Sur Taal Laya’s (STL) 80s-themed fall concert.

The show opened with PL4Y, a K-pop dance cover group, performing “Boom” by NCT Dream. Their black and white outfits, highlighted with strips of bright yellow, felt more like something from a cyberpunk club than from the 80s. All the dancers main-tained a serious expression for

the entire performance, and their coordinated, smooth moves drew cheers from the audience.

That enthusiasm persisted as Sur Taal Laya took the stage. Decked out in jean jackets and tinted sunglasses, the group gathered in the center of the stage, looking as if they could’ve just come off the set of “Stranger Things.” For any audience members who attended Diwali, their first song was familiar—a mashup of “Talk Dirty” by Jason Derulo and “Humma Humma” by OK Jaanu, fea-turing soloists freshman Faris Shaikh and junior Samika Kikkeri.

All of Sur Taal Laya’s other mashups fit together well, and they show off the group’s talented vocalists. However, there is one area where they come up just a

bit short. Both “Talk Dirty” and their later mashup performance of “Havana” by Camila Cabello miss the sort of low, seductive tone required by the songs. On other songs, though, the group brought the emotion—a mashup of “Raabata” by Nikhita Ghandi and “Just the Way You Are” by Bruno Mars was both catchy and genuine. The soloists—sophomore Priyanka Iyer and junior Anya Pawar—stole the show, but the arrangement backed them up nicely, fading away near the end of the song, as Iyer and Pawar sang the last line by themselves to loud applause.

The Sensasians’ perfor-mance before the break was also on the 80s theme. Most members wore bulky, brightly colored jackets and a few sported colorful scrunchies.

However, their first two songs were anything but joyful—the Sensasians opened with “When I Was Older” by Billie Eilish, and there’s no word for their performance but ‘spooky.’ The arrangement whispered words I couldn’t quite make out, growing louder but still incompre-hensible. Soloist sophomore Lacy Wilder’s voice accentu-ated the atmosphere, and soloist junior Jihoun Im’s voice layered with hers to make Eilish’s lyrics echo. The arrangement grew louder, nearly reaching a scream, before falling abruptly silent, leaving Wilder and Im to fin-ish the song alone and leaving me wishing the song was just a bit longer.

The last song before the intermission, “Take You Down” by Illenium with soloist senior Mackenzie

Cappelle, was equally stun-ning. Cappelle’s high notes were awe-inspiring and filled with emotion, and the arrangement easily kept the energy up during lyric-less sections.

For their second set, the Sensasians abandoned the 80s, stepping out in dress shirts and dresses. First, they performed another emotional number—“If You Leave Me Now” by Charlie Puth and Boyz II Men, with soloists junior Nat Thomas and sophomore Dakotah Jennifer. The arrangement amplified the song’s feeling by echoing the lyrics, supporting Thomas and Jennifer’s performances. But the real showstopper was the final song of the night: a mashup of “My New Swag” by VAVA, “No Diggity” by Black Street and “Growl” by EXO.

The mashup began with a rap by soloist and graduate student Eric Zhu and a beat that reminded the audience that a cappella doesn’t have to be emotional; it can just be a good time. Zhu and the other soloists—Cappelle, senior Meredith Liu and junior Teri Park—were energetic, and the arrangement was too. By the end, the audience was clapping along with the per-formers as Capelle sang the chorus of “No Diggity.”

Stranger Sings was a demonstration of what a cap-pella can be: emotional and impactful, but also simply enjoyable. The show was fun, not because every song was perfect every time, but because the performers never failed to bring energy and enthusiasm to their perfor-mances, and that kind of pure enjoyment is infectious.

Sensasians, Sur Taal Laya bring fun 80s-themed a cappella with ‘Stranger Sings’ISABELLA NEUBAUERSENIOR CADENZA EDITOR