The Emory Wheel, 605 Asbury Circle, Drawer W, Atlanta, GA (2025)

04/07/2024

Graduate distance runner Brigid Hanley’s journey as an athlete has been an unrelenting test of resilience.

Hanley began her athletic journey in her freshman year of high school at La Salle Catholic College Preparatory (Ore.), where she joined the cross country team as a freshman. She was not planning to run during the track and field season until her coach told her that school rules stated she had to compete in both sports. Hanley said she enjoyed the additional season anyway because of her love for running.

“It’s really social honestly,” Hanley said. “You get to be outside every day … and you get a lot of time to talk with your friends and hang out with them.”

Early in her college career, Hanley was focused on learning in the classroom and getting faster on the track. However, her path to the finish line took an unexpected turn when she was diagnosed with cancer.

Hanley had to take multiple seasons off from competing to battle the illness, causing her to miss all her outdoor track seasons at Arizona, but she still ran when she could during her time in treatment. She said running helped her get through hard days of doctor’s appointments and treatment sessions.

“When you have any type of chronic illness, but especially cancer, you become a patient and not a person,” Hanley said. “Your life is full of doctor’s appointments. It revolves around your illness, people treat you like you’re your illness, they don’t treat you like a person. So I think for me too, running was a way to kind of keep my identity.”

Click the link in our bio or pick up a print copy on campus to read the full article.

Story by Misha Gupta. Photo courtesy of Brigid Hanley.

03/27/2024

Rapper Flo Milli will headline this year’s Dooley’s Week concert on April 5, with dance pop duo Icona Pop serving as the concert’s opener. As with previous years, the concert will take place on McDonough Field and doors will open at 6 p.m.

Student Programming Council (SPC) announced the lineup to Emory University students today at Wonderful Wednesday.

SPC’s band party chairs, Sean Sheikowitz (24C), Minna Thompson (24B) and Brendt Wang (23C), organized the event, according to SPC co-President Anna Sotirescu (24C). The band chairs wrote in an email to The Emory Wheel that this is the first time the concert will feature a female headliner.

“We felt like it had been long overdue, and we’re so proud to present a historic first all-female show,” Thompson wrote.

Like last semester, SPC will not sell guest passes for the concert. The Student Involvement, Leadership, and Transitions office made this decision to promote the safety and well-being of the student body.

According to the band party chairs, Icona Pop will bring “throwbacks and rhythmic house beats” before Flo Milli takes the stage.

“We anticipate a dynamic atmosphere because our artists cover a huge range of styles and appeal to a large audience,” Thompson wrote.

Click the link in our bio to read the full article.

Story by Lauren Yee. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

03/07/2024

Emory University is increasing undergraduate tuition from $59,920 to $63,400 — a 5.8% increase — for the 2024-25 academic year. The total cost of undergraduate tuition, fees, room and board is increasing by 5.9% from $79,054 to $83,715, according to a March 7 press release.

The Board of Trustees signed off on the increase in accordance with recommendations from University President Gregory Fenves.

This year’s tuition increase is greater than recent years, following a pattern of increasingly-large tuition mark-ups that began in 2022. Last year, Emory increased tuition by 4.9% for the 2023-24 academic year, following a 4.5% increase for the 2022-23 academic year and a 3% increase for the 2021-22 academic year. The Board of Trustees voted against changing tuition for the 2020-21 academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but previously planned to increase the price by 4%.

Click the link in our bio to read the full article.

Story by Matthew Chupack, Madi Olivier and Jack Rutherford. Photo by Ally Hom.

02/29/2024

“An earlier draft of the SGA presidential candidate endorsement article included allegations that candidate Abigail Dubinski (25B) had actively suppressed student voices and withheld resources from students in her role as SGA vice president. A portion of this earlier draft, including these allegations, was posted on the anonymous social media site Fizz on Feb. 27.

The published article did not include these claims against Dubinski, as we, the Wheel’s editors-in-chief, felt we did not have enough information to corroborate these allegations as of publication time. Under any circumstance, the Wheel is committed to ensuring that our coverage is fair, accurate and trustworthy. We have a high standard for substantiating claims. To corroborate allegations, the Wheel requires documented evidence or multiple sources who can attest to the same claim. Additionally, it is the Wheel’s standard to allow individuals or groups to respond to allegations that are made against them.

Additionally, we would like to address a factual inaccuracy in the Editorial Board’s SGA presidential endorsement. In the article, the Board advised that Dubinski and her opponent, Jayden Davis (25B), issue statements explicitly addressing their stance on the University’s open expression policy and the on-campus political division related to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. Today, SGA’s Chair of the Elections Board Luxe Langmade (22Ox, 24C) informed us that candidates are not able to issue additional campaign statements or revise their platforms at this point in the election process, as all such statements had to have been approved by the Elections Board before voting commenced. We published the article less than 20 minutes before the voting period began, making this an impossible request of the candidates. Editors involved in reviewing the piece were not aware of this rule. Therefore the Editorial Board’s opinion has been updated to reflect this new information.”

Click the link in our bio to read the full letter from the editors.

Letter by Matthew Chupack and Sarah Davis.

02/28/2024

The Wheel’s Editorial Board presents endorsements for the 2024 Student Government Association (), College Council () and BBA Council () elections. Voting takes place from Feb. 27 to March 1.

For SGA, the Editorial Board does not endorse any candidate for president and Pranay Mamileti for vice president.

For OxSGA, the Editorial Board does not endorse any candidate for president and Chase Wallace for vice president.

For CC, the Editorial Board endorses Jannat Khan for president and Finn Johnston for CC vice president.

For BBA, the Editorial Board endorses Agha Haider for president.

Click the link in our bio to read the full endorsements.

The endorsements represent the majority opinion of the Editorial Board and Opinion Editor. Members with conflicts of interest have recused themselves from those respective endorsements.

01/27/2024

On the fourth floor of the Alumni Memorial University Center, a flier-plastered door creaks open to reveal Emory University’s student-run radio station. WMRE’s pink walls are crowded with homemade decor. Newly-installed disco balls rest on the audio-mixer, and the room bursts with color under LED lights. The new decorations revamp the space, ushering in the next era of WMRE.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic forced the station’s members to haphazardly abandon the room, leaving a mess for the next generation to clean up. WMRE General Manager Ruby Stillman (24C) said the former students left the “on-air” light on when they were forced to leave campus. The light burned for a year straight, waiting for WMRE’s uncertain return.

Stillman and WMRE Assistant General Manager Oli Turner (25C) spearheaded the wholescale reinvigoration of the organization. The club began working to reestablish their on-campus presence in August 2023, according to WMRE Zine co-Manager Klara Nitsche (24C). She explained that their goal is to carve out a new space for alternative groups of students and foster a community of acceptance.

Click the link in our bio or pick up a print copy on campus to read the full article.

Story and photo by Catherine Goodman.

01/01/2024

Emory University’s 2023 was marked by moments of unity and division. The University debuted new identity spaces and strengthened its partnership with the College of the Muscogee Nation, while campus protests and demonstrations related to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center created friction within the Emory community. Administrative changes also shaped life on campus, with the introduction of a campus life dean and new leaders for the Emory College of Arts and Sciences and Oxford College.

The Emory Wheel has compiled 23 of the many stories that defined this year at Emory.

Click the link in our bio to view the full compilation.

Story compiled by Matthew Chupack, Sarah Davis, Madi Olivier and Spencer Friedland. Photo by Tiffany Namkung.

12/07/2023

Emory Arts, The Hatchery and Fashion Design Studio hosted the inaugural Emory Fashion Show and Networking Gala on Nov. 30. The event was open to all members of the Emory University community.

Video by Grace Li.

12/07/2023

Danielle LeSure (02C) had never heard of the hammer throw event before college. Today, she holds a 21-year-old program record for the hammer throw at 52.5 meters in addition to eight of the top 10 farthest throws in program history.

Hundreds of athletes across 19 varsity sports have written their names in Emory University’s record books. However, few records have remained unbroken for decades. The Emory Wheel spoke with two long-standing record holders about their journey to Emory and the legacy they have left on the University.

LeSure initially tried out for track and field in high school because everyone was guaranteed a spot on the team. On the first day of practice, she began training for the track events, but almost immediately, her workout morphed from running into jogging and then power walking. Looking for an alternative, LeSure’s high school coaches introduced her to throwing. There, she discovered her love for discus and shotput. The hammer throw was not allowed at LeSure’s high school because it was deemed too dangerous, but her coaches at Emory told her that since she was explosive with a discus, she could replicate that with a hammer.

Derrick Beare (82Ox, 84B), another Emory Hall of Fame inductee, also has a lasting legacy in Emory athletics. His men’s soccer record of 25 goals in a single season has remained standing for nearly 40 years. The South-African-born striker was finishing his secondary school in London when he received a call from former Oxford College Men’s Soccer Head Coach Richard Chappell to join the team for two years. During his time at Oxford, the team was nationally ranked and featured players from “all over the world,” he said.

Click the link in our bio or pick up a copy of The Hub on campus to read the full article.

Story by Sasha Melamud and Madeline Shapiro. Photo by Natalie Sandlow.

12/06/2023

The struggles that Savannah Soto (26C), a first-generation student from Las Vegas studying film and media with a minor in theater studies, has endured as an Emory student — food insecurity, balancing a work schedule, family obligations and medical bills — are threads that tie many Emory students together. Even when students aren’t experiencing immediate financial insecurity, that weight is replaced with academic stress, exhaustion and social anxieties. And yet, students have found a way to use their shared struggle to weave community around them.

Sometimes, that feeling of community originates from student or campus-run initiatives, like Students for Students or Empowering First.

“If we can extend our care to others, to see ourselves in others, then there’s more of a willingness, more of a connection there to think about providing aid and to think about caring for others,” Raya Islam (24C), vice president and research committee head of Students for Students, said regarding Students for Students’ vision for a campus community knitted together through unity across socioeconomic statuses.

Click the link in our bio or pick up a copy of The Hub to read the full article.

Story by Sophie Reiss. Photo by Hannah Xu.

12/05/2023

Emory University’s museum has existed in some form or another since 1876. The University expanded the museum and renamed it to Michael C. Carlos Museum in 1993 after museum benefactor Michael C. Carlos made a $3.5 million donation. As the child of Greek immigrants, Carlos was passionate about increasing the museum’s Greek and Roman Art collection. The largest and most notable of his donations came in 1999, when Carlos donated $10 million specifically for the purpose of collecting Ancient Greek and Roman pieces.

The Carlos Museum’s Greek and Roman Art collection currently contains over 6,500 pieces, according to the museum’s online catalog. The growing collection of Greek and Roman Art eventually included pieces like a Minoan bathtub, known as a larnax, from the 14th century BCE, over 300 Ancient Greek pottery fragments and a seated figure missing its head and limbs.

These objects are a few examples of the at least 562 objects that passed through owners or dealers that authorities have connected to the illegal antiquities trade, according to a survey conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Click the link in our bio or pick up a copy of The Hub on campus to read the full article.

Story by Bridget Mackie. Illustration by Ivana Chen.

12/04/2023

“Emory University’s community involvement statement advertises its location in Atlanta as a valuable institutional feature: ‘For us, Atlanta isn’t just a location. It’s a relationship that has inspired partnerships and affiliations for years. And it’s a means to our mission of empowering community and making a real difference.’

Each year, the University hosts the Carter Town Hall and the Coke Toast — traditions that aim to welcome eager first years to campus through connections to major local cultural and economic powerhouses. The festivities also draw on Emory’s historical ties to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who is a university distinguished professor, and the University’s partnership with the Coca-Cola Company, whose founder Asa Griggs Candler provided the original land grant for Emory to relocate to Atlanta’s Druid Hills neighborhood in 1915. According to University President Gregory Fenves’s 2023 ‘One Emory’ strategic framework, ‘Emory is a global research university, but [it] also [has] a responsibility to Atlanta, DeKalb County and the entire metro region.’

It is ironic, then, when the University conveniently neglects this community responsibility and remains appallingly silent on the issue of Cop City. The name refers to the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a police training facility already in the early stages of construction. If successfully implemented, the project would devastate the local environment and perpetuate police brutality on the area’s diverse population. The University’s stubborn silence is mirrored in the PATH Foundation’s proposal to construct a multi-use trail that would cause severe ecological damage to nearby forests along South Fork Peachtree Creek. Emory’s position on both causes stipulates how and when students should engage with the wider community, neglecting Atlanta’s past as a microcosm for the nation’s watershed moments and as a historical hub for advocacy and social change.”

Click the link in our bio or pick up a copy of The Hub on campus to read the full article.

Story by Saanvi Nayar and Safa Wahidi. Photo collage by Hayley Powers.

12/03/2023

Jane Halpern knew Emory University was not the right fit soon after beginning her first semester in 2022. Halpern wanted a larger school with more camaraderie. She applied “virtually everywhere” to transfer out of Emory, including the University of Florida, University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia. Halpern accepted a transfer offer from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She became part of the 3.8% of the 1,434 enrolled students who left the Emory College of Arts and Sciences after their first year, according to data from Associate Vice Provost for Institutional Research and Decision Support Justin Shepherd. At Oxford College, approximately 6.9% of the 429 students who enrolled also left after spring 2023.

Although Emory’s first-year retention rate has been consistently over 90% throughout the past decade, it remains below peer institutions’ retention rates, spurring conversation around how Emory can retain more students. Emory College reported that 93.6%, 94.9% and 95.2% first-year students returned for their sophomore year in 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively. Coincidingly, Oxford reported first-year retention rates of 95.5%, 95.1% and 95.1%. The 2023 first-year retention rate was 96.2% for Emory College and 93.11% for Oxford, according to Shepherd.

This has sparked questions about what is driving students to leave after their first year at Emory. In five former students’ conversations with the Wheel, most reported leaving to attend an institution with a specific academic program that is more highly ranked. Some students, such as Halpern, also expressed social concerns, pointing to struggles with fitting into the campus community and a lack of school spirit.

Click the link in our bio or pick up a copy of The Hub on campus to read the full article.

Story by Eric Jones. Graph by Claire Fenton.

12/02/2023

Check out this year’s issue of the Wheel’s magazine, The Hub. The new issue focuses on Emory University's retention rates, student activism, student finances at Emory and more.

Click the link in our bio or pick up a copy on campus to read the full magazine.

11/29/2023

Where are you now? Where will you be decades from now? The Wheel’s first photo essay, “Alumni Then and Now,” delves into the memories of 14 Emory alumni, recounting their most cherished moments as they retraced their time on campus at Emory Homecoming on Oct. 18-22.

Click the link in our bio to view the full photo essay.

Story by Alya Khoury and Hayley Powers. Photos courtesy of Emily Heller (left) and by Hayley Powers.

11/21/2023

Content Warning: This article contains references to domestic violence.

“The Second Amendment, which codifies Americans’ right to bear arms, will not loosen its grasp on American politics any time soon. On Nov. 7, the Supreme Court of the United States finished hearing arguments in the United States v. Rahimi case, which considers whether the Second Amendment should extend to domestic abusers. The plaintiff, Zackey Rahimi, committed a series of shootings after being placed under a domestic violence protective order.

As residents of Georgia — one of the states with the weakest gun legislation in the country — it is our responsibility to advocate for reform. The current debates surrounding gun control are proof that Emory University students must not give up on the fight for gun control, as Georgia is tied with Arkansas, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming for having the second-lowest number of gun safety laws in place. Georgia has expansive protections for gun owners, with laws allowing individuals to respond with ‘deadly force’ to perceived threats, openly carry fi****ms without any license and purchase guns from unlicensed dealers without background checks. These laws directly enable the possibility of armed, hostile and reckless behavior.

Georgia law does not prohibit individuals with domestic violence charges or restraining orders from possessing fi****ms. It should be common sense that to minimize instances of domestic violence, Georgia also needs to implement laws against flagrant gun abuses. Even if the Supreme Court does ultimately side with Rahimi, Emory students can still fight on behalf of domestic abuse survivors in Georgia through locally active organizations like Everytown and the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition. Calling for strong gun regulation is not a partisan, ideological battle. It is a call for help.”

Click the link in our bio or pick up a print copy on campus to read the full article.

Story by the Editorial Board. Photo courtesy of Mark Fischer.

11/19/2023

“On the rainy evening of Nov. 10, I entered a dimly lit basement retrofitted into a concert venue. I had already received a pair of earplugs and two flyers from a greeter upstairs. One sheet featured QR codes for donations to Stop Cop City, the broader movement against the project, and the other was lined with lyrics to ‘Bella Ciao’ (1906) with certain verses altered for a rendition unique to Stop Cop City, some mentioning the sovereignty and beauty of the South River forest. Inside, a menagerie of chairs lined the wall opposite to a makeshift stage where a drum kit and a handful of mic stands and amps huddled together. This intimate space grew even cozier as the crowd flowed in with smiles and casual banter. Emory undergraduates, alumni and older community members alike were among the roughly 65 attendees at the Emory Musician’s Network’s Stop Cop City benefit concert. After all the chairs filled up, the venue owner passed out cushions for people to sit comfortably on the floor.

Music plays a salient role in political movements, the Emory Stop Cop City educators remarked. The coalition is a labor of love for the people affected — showing up for one another in support is liberation in its own right, the unifying force of music aiding in that process. Altogether, the benefit concert highlighted the essence of communal love and joy that fuels Stop Cop City, palpable in the renditions of ‘Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)’ (1961) and ‘Rich Man’s House’ (2020), led by the Stop Cop City Choir.

Although I often feel powerless in the face of Cop City, I left the event feeling more motivated. Just attending the concert among a crowd chock-full of exuberant passion and unity spoke volumes. No matter what happens in the future, a demand for more benefit concerts like this will persist. In the presence of Cop City, this is not a desire, but a need.”

Click the link in our bio or pick up a print copy on campus to read the full article.

Story by Eliot Vaughey. Photo courtesy of Victoria Register.

11/17/2023

Emory University community members are pushing to establish a disability identity space to give neurodivergent and disabled students a relaxing space to decompress and build community on campus. Students are still developing ideas for the space, with Caroline Quan (24C) and Chloe Wegrzynowicz (24C) recently releasing an interest form to anonymously collect student input on what the space should look like and how it should function if it is created.

The University debuted a new identity space center at the beginning of this fall semester on the third floor of Cox Hall. A disability identity space was not included.

This is not the first time that students have proposed a disability identity space to the University. Emory Autism Advocacy Organization President Sabrina Schoenborn (24C) has been working on the initiative since her sophomore year but stated that the Department of Accessibility Services (DAS) did not take action after the Autism Advocacy Organization submitted a proposal for a disability identity space in partnership with Emory Oaks one year ago. The groups initially gave the proposal to Emory’s Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which then passed it onto DAS, according to Schoenborn.

Click the link in our bio or pick up a print copy on campus to read the full article.

Story by Hilary Barkey. Photo courtesy of Sabrina Schoenborn.

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