Student Life

Student Life Student Life is the independent newspaper of Washington University in St. Louis.
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For the very first time in program history, the No. 10 WashU women’s tennis team has booked a spot in the finals of the ...
05/23/2025

For the very first time in program history, the No. 10 WashU women’s tennis team has booked a spot in the finals of the NCAA Division III Championships after defeating conference rival No. 1 University of Chicago in the Elite 8 on May 20 and No. 9 Johns Hopkins University in the Final Four on May 21. The Bears look ahead to one final match against No. 3 Pomona-Pitzer on Friday, May 23, to try and bring a national title back to St. Louis.

WashU will face No. 3 Pomona-Pitzer in the national championship on May 23. Pomona-Pitzer poses a tough test as it has three top-25 ranked singles and the No. 5 doubles partnership, ranked right behind Bui and Archer. The Sagehens, one-time champions in 1992, took down East Texas Baptist, No. 14 Trinity, No. 5 Wesleyan, and No. 6 Emory en route to the final and are riding a hot streak of 14 consecutive wins. For a chance to win it all, the Bears will seek to stop the Sagehens’ momentum and take down another top-ten opponent to set a championship precedent on Friday, May 23.

Recap their season at https://www.studlife.com/sports/2025/05/22/womens-tennis-advances-to-national-championship-for-the-first-time-in-program-history.

✍️ Christian Kim

WashU’s Danforth Campus and surrounding areas were in the direct path of a tornado which touched down early in the after...
05/17/2025

WashU’s Danforth Campus and surrounding areas were in the direct path of a tornado which touched down early in the afternoon of May 16. Radar from The Weather Channel confirmed the tornado struck the suburb of Clayton, where the Danforth Campus is located.

In a press release to The Source, WashU said that the campus sustained moderate damage, including to roofs, concrete areas, and numerous felled trees. No injuries were reported on campus and the University asked the community to avoid the area as much as possible as they assess damage and clean up debris.

Widespread power outages were reported in impacted areas, including on WashU’s campus, and WashU IT said that utility provider Ameren is actively working to restore power.

Josh Warner, a recent graduate and founder of WashU Weather, said he was alerted to the exceptionally dangerous nature of this storm when it was upgraded to a rare 4-out-of-5 risk level by the National Weather Service. He also noted that the storm was unusually early in the day, as severe weather normally occurs between the hours of 4 and 8 p.m.

“[A direct hit to WashU] is extraordinarily rare to the point where it’ll likely be a once in a generation event, given that tornadoes generally have a path that’s only at most yards wide, up to a couple 100 yards wide,” Warner said. “For a large, strong tornado to be on the ground at a specific geographical point in and around the school and surrounding neighborhoods is exceptionally rare, and something I never thought I would see.”

Student Life spoke to a few students and recent graduates who experienced the storm. Most of the damage reported to Student Life came from uprooted trees falling on buildings and vehicles in areas surrounding campus.

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/news/2025/05/16/washu-campus-and-surrounding-areas-sustain-tornado-damage.

✍️ Lauren Smith, Zach Trabitz, Elizabeth Stump and Sydney Tran
📷 Courtesy of Wilson Hou and Keyao Song
🔍 Additional Reporting by Nina Laser

Josh Warner was affiliated with WashU Weather published in Student Life’s newsletter, but did not contribute to the interviewing, writing or reporting of this article.

WashU announced plans to rename the Robert J. Terry endowed Professorship in the School of Medicine and the annual Rober...
05/14/2025

WashU announced plans to rename the Robert J. Terry endowed Professorship in the School of Medicine and the annual Robert J. Terry Lecture Series in the Neuroscience Department, following a recommendation made by the University’s Naming Review Board (NRB). The removal request was submitted to the NRB in fall of 2024 by then-senior Paul Scott, with support from 11 student co-signers and a letter from the WashU Native American Students Association.

The decision stems from Dr. Robert Terry’s outspoken support for the eugenics movement and the unethical means by which he collected human remains for research.

Both think more needs to be done to address Terry’s legacy. Overall however, Scott expressed that removing Terry’s name from the professorship and the lecture series was a step in the right direction.

“It is so moving and powerful to see WashU, a powerful institution, say in no uncertain terms, ‘we are dedicated to addressing this legacy’ and taking the first steps to really acknowledge these histories of structural violence and medical racism.”

Read the full story at https://www.studlife.com/news/2025/05/14/washu-to-rename-robert-j-terry-professorship-and-lecture-series.

✍️ Coby Rinke and Elizabeth Stump

On May 7, WashU announced the formation of a University-wide committee tasked with reviewing and recommending changes to...
05/07/2025

On May 7, WashU announced the formation of a University-wide committee tasked with reviewing and recommending changes to the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and activities. The announcement emphasized that the creation of the committee is the latest step in the University’s ongoing evaluation of its DEI efforts.

The University’s move to review its DEI programs comes at a time when colleges and universities nationwide are facing increased scrutiny over such efforts by the Trump administration. In January, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders targeting DEI programs in federally funded institutions, including colleges.

The University’s announcement of the review committee offered few additional details about its operations and did not name any specific programs or activities that will be reviewed. However, it emphasized that more information about the committee, including how WashU community members can get involved, will be shared in the coming weeks.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of the article stated that the DEI pages on WashU’s Human Resources site and the Office of the Provost’s site had been removed. While the individual pages were taken down, both offices included links to a centralized DEI resource on their sites. Because of this, this section of the article was removed at 7:49 a.m. on May 7.

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/news/2025/05/07/washu-launches-university-wide-committee-to-review-dei-programs-amid-national-scrutiny.

✍️ Aliza Lubitz
📷 Bri Nitsberg

We would like to remind the WashU community to continue engaging with a variety of news publications. Though Student Lif...
05/04/2025

We would like to remind the WashU community to continue engaging with a variety of news publications. Though Student Life’s regular content will be on summer break, the news doesn’t stop, and it’s important to stay up to date with information from reliable sources.

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

Sydney Tran, Editor-in-Chief

Riley Herron, Editor-in-Chief

Sylvie Richards, Managing Forum Editor

Amelia Raden, Senior Forum Editor

Dion Hines, Senior Forum Editor

Kate Theerman Rodriguez, Senior Forum Editor

River Alsalihi, Senior Forum Editor

William Fieni-Thies, Junior Forum Editor

Sophie Schwartz, Junior Scene Editors

Astrid Burns, Special Issues Editor

Ella Giere, Photo Editor

Matt Eisner, Managing Sports Editor

Hannah Much, Junior Sports Editor

Lewis Rand, Senior Sports Editor

Fiction MFA student Amy Peltz, who is finishing up her final year of the program and had planned on applying for the fel...
05/03/2025

Fiction MFA student Amy Peltz, who is finishing up her final year of the program and had planned on applying for the fellowship, said the third year would have offered a valuable chance to work at the University while processing what she had learned.

Additionally, according to nonfiction MFA student Monmita Chakrabarti, the MFA students were notified about the postgraduate fellowship being cut shortly before the applications were due. The application for the fellowship was due April 11, and students were notified about the cut on March 25.

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/news/2025/04/29/creative-writing-mfas-grapple-with-postgraduate-fellowship-termination.

✍️ Zach Trabitz
📷 Ella Giere

“I tried to organize a space within campus to create a time for play and coming together. It’s really nice to take a ste...
05/03/2025

“I tried to organize a space within campus to create a time for play and coming together. It’s really nice to take a step back from our work and routines, and just get together,” Elliott Andrew, a senior BFA in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, said.

Andrew was also excited to talk about how Capture the Flag might live on past his time at WashU.

“I hope that this will be a tradition on campus from now on. Maybe it becomes a myth or a rumor, but it may be carried on in the future. Thank you to everyone that came out,” Andrew said.

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/scene/2025/04/23/whimsical-warfare-capture-the-flag-on-mudd-field.

✍️ Ryan O'Connor
📷 Courtesy of Eloise Harcourt

Arianna Zeldin, who is the daughter of the current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, said she started the Beyond the Ballot ...
05/02/2025

Arianna Zeldin, who is the daughter of the current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, said she started the Beyond the Ballot podcast to encourage conservatives on campus to be more vocal about their beliefs.

“Even if they’re not vocal themselves, it’s so someone [has] a voice for them, because conservatives here on campus are definitely in the minority,” Zeldin said. “Right now, everyone’s pretty much quiet, so my goal is to reach these conservatives on campus [so they] speak out for themselves.”

In the first episode of the podcast, which served as an introduction and did not focus on any specific issues, Zeldin and Bruno discussed what they saw as discrimination against conservatives on campus.

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/news/2025/04/23/126635.

✍️ Coby Rinke
📷 Isabella Diaz Mira & Courtesy of Ella Bruno
🔍 Additional reporting by Lauren Smith and Lily Taylor.

Four postdoctoral researchers — Marc Blanc, Jessica Samuel, Jesse J. Lee, and Danielle Williams — spoke in a panel title...
05/01/2025

Four postdoctoral researchers — Marc Blanc, Jessica Samuel, Jesse J. Lee, and Danielle Williams — spoke in a panel titled “Humanities Politicized” on April 17 to address the status of humanities research in academia amid funding cuts and restrictions to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) by the Trump administration that began in early April.

The event drew a small crowd of attendees consisting primarily of professors and fellow researchers. Postdoctoral research fellows are contracted by universities for periods of typically no more than two years. Some are experiencing increased anxiety about their career prospects in the midst of funding cuts.

Read the full story at https://www.studlife.com/news/2025/04/24/postdoctoral-research-fellows-discuss-funding-cuts-to-the-humanities

✍️ Astrid Burns
📷 Rachel Benitez-Borrego

Hip hop artist Flo Rida headlined the spring 2025 WILD performance on Friday, April 25. Grammy-winning DJ and producer M...
05/01/2025

Hip hop artist Flo Rida headlined the spring 2025 WILD performance on Friday, April 25. Grammy-winning DJ and producer Mustard was one of two openers, along with WashU student band On Hold With The IRS.

📷 Anna Calvo

For the eighth year in a row, the No. 1 women’s track and field team returned home victorious after the University Athle...
04/30/2025

For the eighth year in a row, the No. 1 women’s track and field team returned home victorious after the University Athletic Association (UAA) Outdoor Championships in New York City on April 26 and 27. This is the 14th back-to-back UAA indoor and outdoor win for the women’s program, a title that they have been defending since 2018. The No. 19 men’s squad fell short of the podium, placing fourth behind Emory University, The University of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon University. With both of WashU’s teams combined, the Bears amassed a total of 27 All-UAA finishes, an award given to athletes who earned a top-three in their event.

Read more at https://www.studlife.com/sports/2025/04/28/no-1-womens-track-and-field-team-wins-uaa-outdoor-championships-no-19-mens-team-places-fourth.

✍️ Eliza Stulman

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