46011 research outputs found
Sort by
Sunrise
No full textScannedIII134SabaH is a Bosnian-language weekly newspaper that was published in the United States between December 1997 and October 2014. It was founded in Astoria, NY. In 2006, publishing was relocated to St. Louis, MO, but the newspaper continued its national distribution. A typical issue contains about 50 pages and features bold headlines and many photos, with articles from both Bosnia- and US-based contributors. SabaH was established to help Bosnian immigrants deal with life in their new home and keep them informed of events in their war-torn country. Its name translates to 'sunrise', symbolizing the arrival of a new generation of Bosnian immigrants in the US.Click on the blue Maximize button in the top right corner of each image to browse the pages of an issue. This project was made possible by a generous donation from Susan Powers of St. Louis, MO. Digitization is ongoing
University News - Volume 100[a], Issue 008 (April 28, 2022)
No full text24 pages.VOL. C No. 8 / April 28th, 2022
photo by Catherine miller
COver design by Grace Dunlavy
PAges 6 & 12
E
02 NEWS
Photo Courtesy of TexasTech University
arlier this month,
SLU’s chess team
continued its domi-nating
perfomance by
winning the team’s
first President’s Cup,
beating out Webster
University, Texas Tech University and
the University of Texas at Dallas.
The President’s Cup, collo-quially
referred to as the Final Four
of collegiate chess, was held April 2-3
on the campus of Texas Tech Univer-sity.
It was the first time in two years
that the tournament was held in per-son.
Each team brought four players
and two alternates. Over the course
of three rounds, the four teams faced
off, with players earning a full point
for their team with a victory and a
half-point for a draw.
SLU won the tournament with a
total of 7.5 points out of 12 possible
points.
The victory in this year’s Presi-dent’s
Cup comes after SLU narrowly
missed out on first place in last year’s
Final Four.
Chess coach Alejandro Ramirez,
a chess grandmaster and the first per-son
from Central America to earn the
grandmaster title, spoke to the Uni-versity
News about the team’s suc-cess
in the President’s Cup and over
the past couple of years.
Ramirez said: “This is an incred-ible
success for the program. In the
past year Saint Louis University’s
chess team has won just about every
By CONOR DORN
Editor-in-Chief
The SLU chess
team continued
this year’s win-ning
streak with a
victory at the 2022
President’s Cup
tournament we participated in,” refer-ring
to the Fide Rapid Online Cup and
the Pan-American Intercollegiate Chess
Championships.
In the first round, SLU faced off
against UT Dallas, dominating the match
with three wins, one draw, and no losses.
This convincing victory in the first round
set the tone for the rest of the event. In
the second round, SLU faced Texas Tech.
SLU was not able to match their domi-nating
performance of the first round
and split the match with one victory, two
draws, and a loss.
In the final round of the tourna-ment,
SLU went up against Webster,
who trailed by just half a point, and SLU
needed a tie in the match to bring home
the victory. Senior Nikolas Theodorou
won an exciting game against Webster’s
Benjamin Gledura, clinching a tie in the
match for SLU and a victory in the 2022
President’s Cup.
The team’s meteoric rise since its
inception as a program in 2016 is not a
matter of luck or of pure talent. “These
players breathe and sleep chess. There
is always a tournament to follow, play
in, do commentary for. Practice tourna-ments
keep the players sharp, and it is
important to travel to them to improve,”
Ramirez said.
He added: “Of course, all of this is on
top of the weekly individual and group
training sessions with the coaches.”
Ramirez also said: “It’s clear that
team chemistry is playing a huge role in
our success.”
Ramirez wanted to highlight the
play of two players in particular. Of Ce-mil
Can Ali Marandi, a Master’s student
from Turkey, Ramirez said: “Cemil Can
Ali Marandi is one of the most improved
players on the team, jumping from In-ternational
Master when he started the
program to a full Grandmaster player.”
Marandi’s undefeated score of two wins
and one draw was integral to the team’s
victory. Ramirez also pointed to the play
of Polish Grandmaster Dariusz Swiercz,
who scored 2 wins and lost only one
game, as key to victory.
“Special congratulations to both,
who obtained their Bachelor’s at SLU
and are now completing their master’s
with us. They have been part of the pro-gram
since day one” Ramirez said.
Even after achieving this important
milestone victory, Ramirez and his team
are only looking ahead. “We have really
won it all. Collegiate chess is a sport that
is rapidly expanding. The next few years
will bring more global events to the fray
as travel and over the board chess re-sumes
in other parts of the World. We
won the World Rapid Cup online last
year, and it would be great to defend it in
person. We also have a pending invita-tion
for a friendly match with Shenzhen
University, the strongest university in
China.”
He added: “The next couple of
years will be challenging as we lose both
Dariusz and Cemil Can, so it will be par-tially
rebuilding years. However, with
the team chemistry as high as it is, I ex-pect
to be winning many events.
SLU CHESS
TEAM WINS
FINAL FOUR
OF
COLLEGIATE
CHESS
News 03
By ULAA KUZIEZ
Associate News Edior
ebecca Townley had
expected a simple
email or letter. In-stead,
she found that
she was awarded the
prestigious Harry S.
Truman Scholarship
when Saint Louis University Pres-ident
Dr. Fred Pestello, informed
her of the good news while she
was in class.
The Truman Scholarship
Foundation rewards aspiring
leaders commitmented to careers
in public service. Each year, col-lege
juniors compete for approx-imately
60 awards. Townley, a
junior studying political science
and African American studies,
was one of 58 scholars selected
for the scholarship this year out
of a pool of 705 candidates from
across the country.
“I was not expecting Dr. Pes-tello
to walk into my class. That
was a pleasant surprise and it
was really great of the university
to show their [congratulations],”
Townley said.
Townley first heard about the
scholarship when a friend casual-ly
sent her a flyer about it. She set
up an interest meeting with SLU’s
Competitive Fellowships and
Scholarships Office to where she
discussed her career goals and in-terests
and where Dr. Brooke Tay-lor,
told her she would be a good
candidate. Despite being abroad
in Madrid, she was determined to
apply.
The scholarship involves es-says,
letters of recommendations,
a policy proposal, and an inter-view.
Upon starting her applica-tion
in Fall 2021 and submitting it
to SLU in December, she received
the university’s endorsement and
sent in her final application to the
foundation on February 1.
“Before submitting it, I had
to take the feedback I got about my
application and edit some of my es-says
to add specifics about what they
are really looking for,” Townley said.
“Then, I was just a sitting duck wait-ing
to hear back.”
The public policy proposal that
she crafted was aimed at improving
healthcare for pregnant women in
prisons and immigration detention
facilities. This specific topic was a
culmination of her interests in public
health, justice and public policy.
Ten days after submitting, she
learned she was a finalist for the state
of Nebraska, her home state. Upon
hearing this, she began practicing
for her upcoming interview by doing
mock interviews with some SLU advi-sors
and faculty.
“The virtual interview was
nerve-wracking because I had a lot
of preparation to do beforehand. It
was only 20 minutes and consisted of
rapid fire questions about the policy
proposal,” Townley said.
Townley’s interview panel con-sisted
of seven top national and state
leaders, many of whom were past
Truman Scholars.
As a SLU student, Townley has
been involved in various leadership
and service organizations. After grad-uating,
she plans to take a year of
service and apply to a joint law and
masters in public health graduate
program at a university on the East
Coast.
“I will see where that year of ser-vice
takes me, where I feel called. I
would love to work in research and
advocacy for public policies. I find a
lot of power in the community so I
would love to work at a community
organization that works to help mar-ginalized
individuals” Townley said.
“Promoting mind, body and spiritual
well-being within a community and
hopefully helping meet the needs of
communities in whatever aspects and
capacities I will have.”
n Monday, April
15, the Health
Care Policy
Pod in partner-ship
with SLU’s
Center for Social Action hosted
a Naloxone, commonly known as
NARCAN, training and harm re-duction
program.
The training was sponsored
by the State Opioid Response 2.0
Grant through the University of
Missouri St. Louis and the Mis-souri
Institute of Mental Health.
Around 50 students were in at-tendance,
and learned how to
identify signs of overdose and ad-minister
Naloxone (NARCAN)—
an FDA-approved medication de-signed
to rapidly reverse opioid
overdose.
Currently at SLU, NARCAN
is only accessible by calling DPS.
This restricted access presents a
unique challenge. “We know that
interactions with the police can
be incredibly harmful to people
who use drugs and those with
marginalized identities,” Casey
Nichols, a senior and leader of the
health care policy pod at SLU, ex-plained.
The administration of NAR-CAN
requires training, and the
speaker from the Missouri of In-stitute
of Mental Health, Rithvik
Kondi, addressed the idea of tak-ing
a trauma-informed approach
during administration. Anushah
Sajwani, a SLU senior who attend-ed
the training, felt it was help-ful
that the speaker stressed this
approach. “If you are delivering
Narcan it’s important to be aware
of ensuring the individual you are
assisting wakes up to an environ-ment
in which they are safe and
does not trigger any more anxiety
than what they are already feel-ing,”
Sajwani said.
Both the Center for Social
Action and SLU’s Health Care Pol-icy
Pod want to continue to advo-cate
for student and community mem-ber
accessibility to NARCAN and harm
reduction. “We hope to continue these
important efforts by working with SLU
administration to get NARCAN readily
available for all SLU students in resi-dence
halls for free and with no ques-tions
asked,” Nichols said.
After the training, students
wrote letters to the City of St. Lou-is’s
Board of Aldermen and Mayor
Tishaura Jones, advocating for harm
reduction policies in St. Louis. This
part of the event was not sponsored by
the State Opioid Response 2.0 Grant.
Harm reduction is a set of practical
strategies that are designed to reduce
the negative consequences associated
with drug use. These policies center
around the idea that that drug use and
addiction should be treated by target-ing
the mental health issues associat-ed
with them rather than making it a
criminal offense.
“Fentanyl test strips and needle
exchanges, for example, are evi-dence-
based harm reduction strate-gies
known to save lives—but Missouri
criminalizes them as drug parapher-nalia,”
Nichols said.
Missouri has experienced a dramat-ic
increase in opioid use and related
deaths over the last decade. Between
2010 to 2019, opioid overdose deaths
in the state nearly doubled, according
to the Missouri Foundation for Health.
“We firmly believe that overdose-re-lated
deaths are the culmination of a
long history of policy failures and lost
opportunities for harm reduction, and
we want to help change that,” Nichols
said.
While syringe exchange programs
in St. Louis and Kansas City exist, they
are only permitted through local laws
and were still illegal in Missouri as
of 2021. Senate Bill 360 is an act that
would legalize the selling and distri-bution
of addiction mitigation med-ication
by a pharmacist or licensed
physician.
Currently, there are no active harm
reduction programs on SLU’s campus,
but entities like the Center for Social
Action and the Health Care Policy Pod
continue to work for change and the
destigmatization of drug use.
O
By Gabby Chiodo
News Editor
HEALTH POLICY POD
HOSTS NARCAN TRAINING
BECCA
TOWNLEY
WINS TRUMAN
SCHOLARSHIP
R
Photo Courtesy of Becca Townley
News
By ULAA KUZIEZ
Associate News Editor
he Missouri Governor´s
Council on Disability
(GCD) awarded Saint
Louis University junior
Seyoon Choi the 2021
Youth Leadership
Award.
The honor “recognizes
an outstanding Missouri youth (age
16-26) with a disability that has
demonstrated exemplary leadership
by making a difference in their
community”.
“Often, I feel like even some of the
most basic involvements throughout
high school, such as being a part of
the high school marching band made
huge headlines simply because I’m
blind,” Choi said.
However, this GCD award was
different. He was nominated by Lynn
Berger, his former teacher of the
visually impaired who supported
him through assistive technology in
middle and high school.
“Once she found out that I became
involved in the community, she
believed that I’m worth being
nominated for,” Choi said. “This
award felt as if I’m being recognized
specifically due to the impacts I’ve
made to the disability community,
and therefore am humbled for the
recognition,” Choi said.
Choi, a visually impaired student
studying social work, is a research
assistant in SLU’s Chrome Lab, an
engineering space that aims to build
technologies that agument human
ability. He is also the co-chair of the
communications committee of the
National Association of Blind Students
where he co-produces its podcast.
The award was presented to Choi
at the end of the PowerUp Missouri
Assistive Technology Conference which
took place April 4-5 in Blue Springs,
MO. Choi recalls a large audience in
attendance including special education
teachers, vocational rehabilitation
professionals and assistive technology
vendors at the banquet hall. TyReeke
Garnett, a high school student in the
state, was given an honorable mention
for the award as well.
“Lynn always believed that despite
my blindness I would be very successful
and achieve a lot of great things for
many years ahead,” Choi said.
n April 21, 2022,
fifteen of Saint
Louis University’s
students traveled
to Los Angeles,
California to
attend a Model United Nations
conference hosted by the University
of California, Berkeley.
The last of the academic year,
this competition was the first time
the team had been able to travel to
California since the beginning of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
“Rebuilding the team has been
a really big focus this year for our
executive board.” First-year SLU
student and Model UN member,
Mariya Yasinovska said.
Model UN is a popular
extracurricular activity at both
collegiate and high school levels.
There are two types of competitions
or “committee sessions,” General
Assembly and Crisis Committee.
General Assemblies encompass
almost all members in which
students portray members of the
United Nations.
“It’s the most common form of
committee session,” Hayden Turley,
first-year Model UN member, and
next year’s treasurer said.
In General Assemblies, delegates
of each team will represent a country
in an attempt to resolve a mock issue
by acting in the interest of their
nation. These assemblies require
research and critical thinking as
they face potential alliances and
enemies throughout the session.
The sessions themselves are not
quick endeavors.
“Each commitee session will last
upwards of three or four hours,”
Turley explained.
The committee session attended in
Los Angeles was a Crisis Committee
rather than a General Assembly. In
this format, members respond to
a historically fictional event, during
which Model UN participants take
on the role of legitimate historical
figures or countries. The session
is a reenactment of the event and
contributors are encouraged to use
creativity and flexibility.
“You can literally do the craziest
things,” Turley laughed.
The team competed on Thursday
for a half-day and Friday and Saturday,
attending committee sessions all day.
“The two days we were in committee
we really didn’t have much time for
anything besides lunch and dinner,”
Yasinovska said.
“It’s really cool that we get to do
that through Model UN because, going
to LA and Boston, that’s not really
things everybody gets to say they did
during their freshman year of college,”
Yasinovska said.
Not only does the team grant
participants the opportunity to
travel, but it also offers students the
opportunity to hone several different
skills. “Being able to give speeches in
front of maybe 100 people, knowing
how to think quickly and how to
cooperate with others, these are all
incredibly valuable skills that can be
applied to anything in the professional
world,” Turley said.
Both Yasinovska and Turley agree
the team itself is also a source of
connection and growth. “I’ve met
some amazing people and developed
amazing friendships,” said Yasinovska.
The team continues to grow its
membership, having the largest number
of first years the team has experienced
in several years, with its doors open to
all years and majors. “It’s something
that really helps you break out of your
shell,” said Turley “You can really make
it your own.”
The team will continue its weekly
meetings next year. Information about
upcoming events can be found on their
Instagram page and newsletter.
O
SLU’S MODEL UN TEAM
FINISHES SEASON
IN CALIFORNIA
04
By GABBY CHIODO
News Editor
SLU JUNIOR EARNS GOVERNOR’S COUNCIL
ON DISABILITY YOUTH LEADERSHIP AWARD
T
Seyoon Choi at the award cermony
with his service dog, Kaplan
O
NEWS 05
(Abby Campbell/ The University News)
n April 13, Saint Louis
University’s new Stu-dent
Well-Being Task-force
released its first
comprehensive draft
of strategies to move
SLU “toward a culture
of well-being.” With 3 different ways to
interact with the draft, the SLU commu-nity
was invited to review and provide
feedback on the recommendations.
This announcement comes after
the tragic string of suicides SLU has un-fortunately
experienced this academic
year.
The Student Well-Being Task
Force, created in Sept. 2021, is a combi-nation
of students, staff and faculty fo-cused
on finding areas in SLU’s culture
that can be improved to promote the
mental well-being of everyone in the
community.
The task force was charged with
assessing SLU’s health and well-being of
students and developing recommenda-tions
to advance a culture of well-being
for all students. The task force met in Oc-tober
and November and began listening
sessions in order to do a “deep dive” into
SLU’s culture. They spent March and
April drafting their recommendations
and creating a cohesive document.
The longest form of the task force’s rec-ommendations
is a thirteen-page docu-ment
split into four sections. These sec-tions
are labeled as strategic priorities
STUDENT WELL BEING TASK FORCE RELEASES DRAFT
OF STRATEGIES FOR A CULTURE OF WELL BEING
By GABBY CHIODO
News Editor
and can be considered the committee’s
main goals. Inside each of these goals
are detailed plans, expectations, and ex-planations
for execution by SLU.
The first strategic priority is
“Our commitment to student flourishing
is embedded throughout the institution
and is reflected in our priorities, actions,
and communications.” This priority in-cludes
revision of the academic calendar
and the development of a well-being
toolkit that can be used by faculty, staff,
and students. Eric Anderson, Assistant
Vice President for Student Wellbeing
and co-chair of the Student Wellbeing
Task Force, explained that the toolkit is
to be designed and implemented differ-ently
among departments.
“It would be a toolkit that would
be available for faculty members as they
develop their curriculum and classroom
setting,” Anderson said.
The next strategic priority is
using evidence-based approaches to
support student well-being and under-standing
that different groups require
varying approaches. When evaluating
mental wellness, an evidence-based
approach can mean several different
things. “Assessment might look at what
the resources are that we have available
for students and how students are ex-periencing
them,” Anderson explained.
Bolstering the capacity of mental health
resources and developing a Student
Well-Being Coalition are a few ways
the task force envisions evidence-based
solutions being applied.
At first glance the Student
Well-Being Task Force and the Student
Well-Being Coalition share similari-ties.
However, Anderson and the task
force hope that the Coalition will be a
source of accountability for SLU’s ad-ministration.
“The purpose is to be a
body that would ensure the strategic
priorities and recommendations are
moving forward,” Anderson said.
The third strategic priority has
the intention of creating “spaces and
opportunities for connection and be-longing
for all students.” This includes
designating more safe spaces on cam-pus
for students that hold marginal-ized
identities. With SLU being a pre-dominantly
white university, there are
only a few spaces specifically designat-ed
for students that are in the minority.
The third priority also discusses
the creation of a wellness ambassador
program. While there is not a specific
vision for this program in the draft, it
takes inspiration from similar wellness
ambassador programs at other univer-sities.
At the University of Wyoming,
wellness ambassadors organize and
plan events and programs focused on
the well-being of students. However, in
SLU’s draft, there is mention of using
the ambassadors to also facilitate open
dialogue about students’ mental health
challenges.
Finally, the fourth strategic pri-ority
focuses on the Jesuit ideal of
cura personalis or “care for the whole
person.” The draft mentions allowing
students to advocate for their wellbe-ing
through “wellness plans” and the
creation of a “Big Ideas” program for
well-being initiatives. Additionally, the
final priority calls upon SLU to create an
environment in which faculty, staff, and
administrators can model self-care. This
objective cites changing expectations
around email responding on time off as
well as adopting a policy of flexibility
during times of crisis.
There is little doubt that the Student
Well-Being Task Force has proposed
multiple pivotal changes, but there is
nevertheless a long road ahead for both
the Task Force and the SLU community.
The draft is still in its infancy. When the
Task Force released its draft it encour-aged
everyone to respond to the prior-ities
and objectives through a survey.
Closing about ten days after the recom-mendations
were made public, the Task
Force must use this information to re-vise
and solidify their proposal.
“We wanted to provide folks with oppor-tunities
to give different levels of feed-back
because we do know that [reading
the draft] is a time commitment
Quotidiana Christiani militis tessera : qua homo fugiens mala, è servitute manu-mittitur: faciens bona, ad libertatem manu-ducitur / auctore R.P. Guilielmo Stanihursto è Societate Iesu
No full textSunrise
No full textScannedII072SabaH is a Bosnian-language weekly newspaper that was published in the United States between December 1997 and October 2014. It was founded in Astoria, NY. In 2006, publishing was relocated to St. Louis, MO, but the newspaper continued its national distribution. A typical issue contains about 50 pages and features bold headlines and many photos, with articles from both Bosnia- and US-based contributors. SabaH was established to help Bosnian immigrants deal with life in their new home and keep them informed of events in their war-torn country. Its name translates to 'sunrise', symbolizing the arrival of a new generation of Bosnian immigrants in the US.Click on the blue Maximize button in the top right corner of each image to browse the pages of an issue. This project was made possible by a generous donation from Susan Powers of St. Louis, MO. Digitization is ongoing
Sunrise
No full textScannedIII111SabaH is a Bosnian-language weekly newspaper that was published in the United States between December 1997 and October 2014. It was founded in Astoria, NY. In 2006, publishing was relocated to St. Louis, MO, but the newspaper continued its national distribution. A typical issue contains about 50 pages and features bold headlines and many photos, with articles from both Bosnia- and US-based contributors. SabaH was established to help Bosnian immigrants deal with life in their new home and keep them informed of events in their war-torn country. Its name translates to 'sunrise', symbolizing the arrival of a new generation of Bosnian immigrants in the US.Click on the blue Maximize button in the top right corner of each image to browse the pages of an issue. This project was made possible by a generous donation from Susan Powers of St. Louis, MO. Digitization is ongoing
Sunrise
No full textScannedIII132SabaH is a Bosnian-language weekly newspaper that was published in the United States between December 1997 and October 2014. It was founded in Astoria, NY. In 2006, publishing was relocated to St. Louis, MO, but the newspaper continued its national distribution. A typical issue contains about 50 pages and features bold headlines and many photos, with articles from both Bosnia- and US-based contributors. SabaH was established to help Bosnian immigrants deal with life in their new home and keep them informed of events in their war-torn country. Its name translates to 'sunrise', symbolizing the arrival of a new generation of Bosnian immigrants in the US.Click on the blue Maximize button in the top right corner of each image to browse the pages of an issue. This project was made possible by a generous donation from Susan Powers of St. Louis, MO. Digitization is ongoing
Sunrise
No full textScannedIII107SabaH is a Bosnian-language weekly newspaper that was published in the United States between December 1997 and October 2014. It was founded in Astoria, NY. In 2006, publishing was relocated to St. Louis, MO, but the newspaper continued its national distribution. A typical issue contains about 50 pages and features bold headlines and many photos, with articles from both Bosnia- and US-based contributors. SabaH was established to help Bosnian immigrants deal with life in their new home and keep them informed of events in their war-torn country. Its name translates to 'sunrise', symbolizing the arrival of a new generation of Bosnian immigrants in the US.Click on the blue Maximize button in the top right corner of each image to browse the pages of an issue. This project was made possible by a generous donation from Susan Powers of St. Louis, MO. Digitization is ongoing
University News - Volume 100[a], Issue 007 (March 31, 2022)
No full text24 pages.VOL. C No. 7 / March 31st, 2022
Photo By Paige Fann COver design by Grace Dunlavy
baby goat yoga
on the quad
FEATURED ON PAGE 12 & 13
n Sat., March 26,
two SLU teams
competed at the
I n t e r n a t i o n a l
Championship of
Collegiate A Cap-pella
Midwest
Semifinals (ICCA) at Washington
University.
The two groups, Astha and the
Bare Naked Statues, perform in the
same debut but have different ele-ments
incorporated into their shows.
Astha is a co-ed fusion group and
their music features mashups from
South Asian artists and English mu-sic,
while Bare Naked Statues is an
all-male group.
The teams perform mashups of
songs written by their music direc-tors.
Combining two different cultur-al
elements in one set, Astha’s music
director and Saint Louis Universi-ty
junior, Aakash Nagarapu, faces a
unique assignment.
“It’s my job [as a music director]
to facilitate teaching aspects so new-comers
can be at the same level while
also writing music so that what we
compete with is original and so we’re
fusing songs,” Nagarapu said.
Merging songs is difficult but
when it comes to different cultures,
Astha faces a particular hurdle.
“For me, it wasn’t so hard
combin-ing the two cultures because
I have a South Asian music
background. What was hard though,
was realizing the impact that
culture has on rhythm. It’s so deep
and not something I rec-ognized
until I went in and started trying
to compose.”
According to Joseph Case, Bare
Naked Statues’ music director and
SLU junior, his job focuses heavily on
the leadership aspect as well as mu-sic.
“Knowing when to push the guys
to do our best and grow is a big thing.
Whether that’s with a challenging
piece of music or just in general, it’s
part of being a music director,” Case
said.
Both teams began this journey in
early November when they submitted
three-minute audition tapes to Varsi-ty
Vocals, the tournament coordina-tor
for ICCA, and only a select number
of teams were allowed to compete in
the quarterfinals. The top two teams
at each quarterfinal competition then
advance to the semifinals.
Quarterfinals occurred on Feb.
19 at Washington University and
both Bare Naked Statues and Astha
advanced, with Astha winning first
02 NEWS
place and Bare Naked Statues winning
second. Coming into the semi-finals on
Saturday, both teams were brimming
with excitement and anticipation.
“Honestly, I’m just excited to
per-form. I don’t really care if we
win or lose. I just love performing
with this group of people so much,”
said Kate Embry, a freshman member
of Astha.
The order is determined randomly
prior to the competition with represen-tatives
from each team pulling from a
hat. Competing against a total of nine
other teams, the Bare Naked Statues
performed second and Astha fifth.
Bare Naked Statues performed
three mashups including songs like
“Neu Roses,” “G-Train” and “The
Over-pass.” Their high-energy
performance along with two
soloists, Noah Scott and Gerard
Peña, kept the audience engaged.
This group of guys combined intensity
and passion to create a show worth
watching.
Astha’s setlist included a variety of
songs in South Asian languages and En-glish
such as “Bleeding Out,”
“Shubu-haaram” and “You Move I
Move.” Their vibrant traditional
South Asian dress and entrancing
choreography set them apart from
other groups and thrilled the audience.
Showcasing their vocal talents with
six different soloists, Madhura
Puntambekar, Laasya Sarva,
Rithika Somasundaram, Shweta
Subrama-nian, Vrisha Jagdish and
Karun Puri, Astha won third place,
and the Outstanding Choreography
award.
While neither group advanced
to the next round of competition,
the two teams made it clear they’ve
won when it comes to companion-ship
and community.
President of the Bare Naked
Statues, junior Blake Peftoulidis,
explained that this group is more
to him than just a team. “Being able
to sing with a group of people that
you genuinely enjoy is great. We
hang out all the time,” Peftoulidis
said. They also have an annual
retreat where members discuss
topics they normally wouldn’t
during their scheduled rehearsals.
“We go to the lake center and
have deep conversations that we
don’t really feel like we can have
with other people,” Case explained.
“I feel so comfortable around these
guys. It’s the same way I feel about
my family.”
Nagarapu recalls the day he
was recruited for Astha. He had no
idea about the community he was
about to join and help create. “I was
actually thinking of joining a frat,”
he laughed. Contemplating his time
with Astha since then he said, “We
really are a family and we love each
other no matter what.”
Both teams extend invitations to
audition for those interested in be-coming
a part of their musical fam-ilies.
“This is the nicest group of peo-ple
I’ve ever met and one of the most
talented as well. I don’t see any rea-son
why you wouldn’t want to join,”
Embry said.
Peftoulidis echoed this sen-timent
for his team. “Just take that
chance. Just audition and if you don’t
like then you don’t have to go any
further, but taking that first step and
auditioning will really change your
college experience. I’ve met so many
great guys through this group.”
While the team’s competitive
seasons have come to a close they
will continue to host events through-out
the rest of the year. Both teams
give live performances on special
occasions. Astha is holding a concert
at the end of April and Bare Naked
Statues continues to practice for
future events.
By GABBY CHIODO
News Editor
TWO SLU ACAPELLA GROUPS COMPETE AT
ICCA MIDWEST SEMI-FINALS
O
Bare Naked Statues with soloist Noah Scott
Astha with soloist Laasya Sarva
News
By ULAA KUZIEZ
Associate News Editor
harles Parker,
Ph.D., had been
vaguely aware of
bills circulating in
the Missouri leg-islature
that aim
to increase paren-tal
involvement in
curriculum setting in public schools.
But in early February, his col-league
Stephen Casmier, Ph.D, posed
a question to him: “Why are people
in the history department not show-ing
a stronger interest in this?”
That was when Parker was moved
to take a stand. He drafted a letter
and sent it his friend, a former pub-lic
school teacher and a current ad-junct
professor at the University of
Missouri - St. Louis for edits.
He then emailed it to his fellow
history department colleagues ask-ing
them to sign on. The letter was
forwarded to professors from differ-ent
disciplines including theology,
science and philosophy and ended
up with nearly 70 signatories.
The letter, which was sent to the
Missouri Legislature, reads, “We are
writing to express our opposition to
the bills currently moving through
the Missouri House of Represen-tatives
(for example, HB 1474, HB
1995), which seek to limit the teach-ing
of history around issues of racial
(also gender, class, and sexual) op-pression.”
House Bill 1474 would allow par-ents
“to know what their minor child
is being taught in school” and “to
make copies of curriculum docu-ments.”
This bill would also prohib-it
school districts from “Teach[ing],
use[ing], or provid[ing] for use by any
pupil any curriculum implementing
critical race theory,” namely infor-mation
from the 1619 Project, We
Stories or Teaching Tolerance.
HB 1995, known as The Parents’
Bill of Rights for Student Well-Being,
also outlines other oversight pow-ers
for parents and requires schools
to develop procedures to disclose
teaching material and allow for pa-rental
objections.
School districts may be fined or le-gally
challenged for violations. Park-er
explains that the bills are prob-lematic
on multiple levels.
The lack of academic freedom and
fear of retaliation would make re-cruiting
teachers significantly more
difficult The bill’s numerous provi-sions
would also create practical im-plementation
issues for districts.
Most importantly, as noted in the
letter, the restrictions would make
“reflective practices” in classrooms
impossible.
“It is problematic to say that just
because something in our nation’s his-tory
is not positive or glorious it doesn’t
mean we shouldn’t examine it. In fact, I
think that looking at the horrid things—
racial oppression, gender oppression,
oppression of religious minorities— is
something that can make our society
stronger as we educate our children and
ourselves,” Parker said.
Women’s and Gender Studies profes-sor
Amanda Izzo, Ph.D., says that she
signed on because “[these bills] incite—
and are the product of-—a dangerous
ignorance of the lessons that should be
imparted by this country’s history of vi-olence
and exclusion.”
She adds that such rhetoric “make[s]
a caricature of the work being done in
my fields [as they] suppress the skills
that teachers across the disciplines
ought to be instilling in their students:
critical appraisal of knowledge claims,
evaluation of cause-and-effect rela-tionships,
the creation of civil commu-nities
that can address difference,”
Cathleen Fleck, Ph.D., Chair of the
Department of Fine & Performing Arts,
also signed, citing the importance of
learning from varying narratives with-in
both a higher education setting and
discipline like art, as well as public
school classrooms.
“I teach about medieval art and Is-lamic
art, and even within my own dis-cipline,
there have been great changes
where people are saying we need to
hear more voices in scholarship. I feel
very strongly about it in my own teach-ing
and research,” Fleck said,
Outside of her professional role,
Fleck has taken a deep interest in advo-cating
against such bills. As a parent of
two young adults in a St. Louis county
public school, she has been involved in
various anti-racist initiatives.
When she found out that the two
bills were on the docket in January, she
and others from her coalition met to
strategize. On Jan. 11, approximate-ly
50 people including Fleck attended
the Missouri House Elementary and
Secondary Education Committee’s first
hearing on the bills where they testified
in opposition.
“We definitely made an impact in
showing that there were a lot of peo-ple
from various backgrounds who were
against this for very legitimate rea-sons,”
Fleck said.
The bills have since been combined
but remain in committee with no new
activity or nearby vote in sight. Regard-less,
similar efforts are being pushed,
or have already been made law, across
many other states. As this continues to
unfload Fleck hopes more students will
get involved.
C he world has been on
high alert since Rus-sian
President Vladi-mir
Putin announced
a “military operation”
in Ukraine on Feb. 24.
The University News
talked to three experts on Russia and
Ukraine to get their insight on the war.
Monica Eppinger, Ph.D., J.D., is a
professor at the Saint Louis Univer-sity
School of Law, where she teaches
courses on international law and na-tional
security. From 1995 to 1997, she
served in the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine
under Ambassador William Green
Miller. She is currently still in contact
with many people in Ukraine today.
“This far exceeds my worst-case sce-nario,”
Eppinger said. “And my only
comfort is that every other expert that
I’ve heard from had the same expecta-tions
that we did, whether Russians or
Ukrainians or Western Europeans or
Americans. I only know one Ukrainian
who openly expected there to be an
invasion.”
Ellen Carnaghan, Ph.D., is a profes-sor
of political science at SLU and a
scholar of post-Soviet conflicts She
said that she finds Putin’s actions dif-ficult
to understand
“I was surprised by the full-scale
invasion, insofar that I find it hard to
make sense of,” Carnaghan said. “I
find it hard to see what this invasion
actually can accomplish.” Though
the war may seem far away to some,
Eppinger said it will affect the U.S. in
a way that will be “impossible to ig-nore.”
“Your gas prices are going to go up,”
Eppinger said. “Ukrainians grow a lot
of sunflowers Sunflower seed oil is
already up. Ukrainians grow a lot of
wheat; they’re always in the top 10
of world wheat producers. Chances
are your bread prices are going to go
up. So, until the war is settled, we’re
going to miss the things that Ukraine
produces.”
Daniel L. Schlafl , Ph.D., is an expert
in Russian history. He served as a pro-fessor
at SLU from 1998 until his re-tirement
last spring. Schlafl , who has
analyzed the region since the height
of the Cold War, said the “unprovoked
aggression by an autocrat” caught him
off-guard.
“I’m very surprised,” Schlafly said,
though he noted that Putin “has been
poking around on the eastern territo-ries
for a long time.”
Much of Putin’s defense of the war
has hinged on denying that Ukraine is,
or should be, separate from Russia. As a
historical argument, Putin’s claims fall
short, Schlafly said. “[Putin] basically is
weaving together a tissue of historical
lies to justify his crap,” Schlafly said
While the modern state of Ukraine,
was only formed after the fall of the So-viet
Union, the idea of an independent
Ukraine is far from new, Schlafly said.
The two countries share a lot of history,
but have fundamental differences with
regard to language, culture and reli-gion,
Carnaghan said.
“There’s a historical basis for that ar-gument.
Both Russia and Ukraine claim
their history from the same civilization
from around 1000 AD,” Carnaghan said.
“But since that time, there’s been a fair
amount of consistent distinguishing
between the Ukrainians and the Rus-sians.”
Another claim Putin made which
raised eyebrows was his stated goal to
“demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine.
Eppinger, who hosted a “teach-in”
event on Ukraine at the law school on
March 2, said she was worried by the
statement’s implications.
T
SLU EXPERTS DISCUSS RUSSIA’S
INVASION OF UKRAINE
03
By ALEX ROZAR
Staff Writer
SLU PROFESSORS OPPOSE ANTI-CRITICAL
RACE THEORY BILL
To read more of
this article, please
scan the QR code
below:
rofessor Sarah Adam,
O.T.D. hopes on taking a
trip to Paris in summer
2024, but she’s not plan-ning
a vacation. She’s
competing for a spot with
Team USA’s wheelchair rugby team.
“It’s certainly an honor. It’s a fun
reason to travel around the world,”
she said.
This season, she’s been named to
the 16-person training squad; of those
on the squad, Adam and teammate Liz
Dunn are the only women. The two
could be the first women to represent
Team USA in the unisex sport as 12
individuals are selected to compete at
the Paralympic Games.
Adam said SLU has been “hugely
supportive” of her Paralympic jour-ney,
which includes taking time off for
training camps in Birmingham, Ala.,
and competitions, sometimes interna-tionally.
Before her tryouts, members
of the Occupational Therapy program
decorated her office and gave her a
banner signed by all students, and
upon her return, the staff greeted her
by chanting “U-S-A”.
“I lucked out. SLU has been abso-lutely
phenomenal,” Adam said. “And
it’s great to have that support, because
I’m not sure that I necessarily would
get that from many other jobs.”
She trains at SLU’s Simon Recre-ation
Center, and said that it has a lot
of wheelchair-accessible equipment,
which ensures she can comfortably ex-ercise
for competition at a high level.
“They met with me early on to see
if there’s anything that they could do
to help facilitate my workouts, or any
other pieces of equipment, not just for
me, but for if there’s other people on
campus that have a disability that want
to access those machines,” Adam said.
Her schedule is “pretty darn busy,”
she said, as Adam’s days consist of her
arriving to campus in the morning to
teach until 5 or 6 p.m., going to the rec
center and exercising for about two
hours (one spent on the track or bas-ketball
court, another in the weight
room), and getting home by 9 p.m. to
make dinner and go to sleep. Some-times,
she’ll work out twice in one day.
“And then, I live alone, so you still
have to add in having to do all the
household chores and grocery shop-ping
and cooking and laundry and all
that,” Adam said. “It keeps me pretty
busy, but I don’t mind.”
The wheelchair rugby team
most recently won the 2022 Americas
Championship in Medellín, Colombia,
held from March 9-12. Adam said the
team’s biggest tournament will be the
World Championships, held in Vejle,
Denmark from Oct. 10-16 and which
will count as a Paralympic qualifying
match.
On campus, Adam has been invited
to talk with classes about her “lived ex-perience
as a person with a disability,”
which she appreciates doing in order
to dispel “inaccurate stereotypes and
misconceptions and whatnot.”
“I think [a misconception is] that
we’re fragile. And that’s part of why
I like murderball or wheelchair rug-by,
because it shows we’re not fragile.
We’re going in and we’re hitting each
other as hard as we possibly can and
trying to flip them over, and working
our butts off day in and day out to get
better,” she said.
Adam mentioned that students
have recognized her at the gym, high-lighting
that she tries to use such ex-periences
as a teachable moment.
P
NEWS
“I’m certainly not a celebrity or any-thing
like that, but it is a fun way to en-gage
students and teach them about ar-eas
that they maybe had never thought
about with adaptive sports and spread-ing
our message around on the cam-pus,”
Adam said. “I see people that are
watching me working out. Their eyes get
really big to see how fast we can go in
those chairs and training hard just like
any other able-bodied athletes, which is
really what I’m hoping to show.”
While she was a graduate student
at Washington University in St. Louis,
Adam, then able-bodied, volunteered
as a coach for wheelchair rugby players.
Soon afterward, she was diagnosed with
multiple sclerosis, and over the next few
years lost most function in her legs.
Already acquainted with members of
what she called a tight community,
Adam re-entered the world of wheel-chair
rugby as a competitor. The sport,
and the friendships she has made
through it, have helped her immensely,
she emphasized.
“My wheelchair is my freedom. It
helps me get around easily. It’s not a
constraint for me,” Adam said. “Same
thing for adaptive sports: that’s been my
freedom. It’s helped me now to go travel
the world, and stay healthy and helps my
MS.”
Adam hopes that by being visible on
campus, she raises awareness of adap-tive
sports and tolerance of disabled
athletes.
“I’m hoping to show people the pow-er
of adaptive sports, whether physi-cal
health, the camaraderie or the peer
support, but also that we’re not really all
that different from any of the able-bod-ied
athletes. We play sports in a different
way—that’s it,” she said.
SLU’S SARAH ADAM:
THE NEXT PARALYMPIC ATHLETE?
By ALEX ROZAR
Staff Writer
PROFESSOR VIES FOR PARIS 2024
Photo courtesy of Sarah Adam
04
“My wheelchair
is my freedom.
It helps me get
around easily. It’s
not a constraint
for me”
n March 4th, the presti-gious
London-based policy
institute Chatham House
held a virtual conference
attended by many leading
academic and diplomat-ic
figures The goal of the
conference was to explore the cre-ation
of a special tribunal to prosecute
war crimes committed by the Russian
Federation in Ukraine. SLU Law pro-fessor
Afonso Seixas-Nunes, S.J. was
a part of the international initiative,
along with the Ukrainian Minister of
Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba and
the former Prime Minister of the U.K.
Gordon Brown.
“The former Prime Minister of
the U.K. and two very famous profes-sors
of international law, professor
Philippe Sands and professor Dapo
Akande, had this idea of creating a
special tribunal as we did for the for-mer
Yugoslavia and for Rwanda,” said
Seixas-Nunes. “It was in that context
that we spoke with Foreign Minister of
Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba.”
Seixas-Nunes said parts of the
conference felt like a “James Bond
film ” due to the security measures
taken by Foriegn Minister Kuleba.
“The foreign minister was in a car,
and he would talk for 10 minutes and
then change his location to avoid any
possibility of being located by Russian
forces.
“The impression I got is that I was in
[a Bond] film watching this going on.
And the quality of the call sometimes
of the video conference wasn’t great
with him because he was using his mo-bile
and he had to hang up like two or
three times.”
Seixas-Nunes said he began the
conference “very much in favor” of
the creation of a special tribunal, but
as the talk progressed, numerous legal
and structural difficulties became ap-parent.
“At the beginning, I was very en-thusiastic
and excited, and now I have
more doubts and questions than cer-tainties,”
said Seixas-Nunes.
Most war crimes tribunals are con-ducted
by the International Criminal
Court (ICC). In order to prosecute Pu-tin
and the Russian government, Rus-sia
has to be a state party to the ICC.
“Even if everybody is keen to prose-cute
Mr. Putin and his establishment,
you couldn’t because the Russian Fed-eration
is not a state party of the ICC
standard,” said Seixas-Nunes.
The second possibility would be for
the United Nations Security Council to
refer the situation to the ICC. The ICC
could then prosecute Putin. However,
the Russian Federation is part of the
U.N. Security Council and is one of five
permanent members, and permanent
members have the power to veto any
resolutions.
Seixas-Nunes said a special tribu-nal
could be created by states interest-ed
in prosecuting Mr. Putin outside of
the ICC and United Nations in order to
bypass these difficulties and prosecute
Russian war crimes. However, Seix-as-
Nunes said that moving outside es-tablished
international organizations
presents a different set of challenges.
“To gather a group of enough states
able to create the special tribunal is a
big question mark,” said Seixas-Nunes.
“Secondly, the money that this Court
would require would run into the mil-lions,
and we don’t know how far the
states would like to go to join this en-terprise
because the ICC already strug-gles
with financial problems. Then, the
third problem is evidence. How will
this Court gather evidence when most
of the evidence that
Sunrise
No full textScannedIII136SabaH is a Bosnian-language weekly newspaper that was published in the United States between December 1997 and October 2014. It was founded in Astoria, NY. In 2006, publishing was relocated to St. Louis, MO, but the newspaper continued its national distribution. A typical issue contains about 50 pages and features bold headlines and many photos, with articles from both Bosnia- and US-based contributors. SabaH was established to help Bosnian immigrants deal with life in their new home and keep them informed of events in their war-torn country. Its name translates to 'sunrise', symbolizing the arrival of a new generation of Bosnian immigrants in the US.Click on the blue Maximize button in the top right corner of each image to browse the pages of an issue. This project was made possible by a generous donation from Susan Powers of St. Louis, MO. Digitization is ongoing
Sunrise
No full textScannedIII123SabaH is a Bosnian-language weekly newspaper that was published in the United States between December 1997 and October 2014. It was founded in Astoria, NY. In 2006, publishing was relocated to St. Louis, MO, but the newspaper continued its national distribution. A typical issue contains about 50 pages and features bold headlines and many photos, with articles from both Bosnia- and US-based contributors. SabaH was established to help Bosnian immigrants deal with life in their new home and keep them informed of events in their war-torn country. Its name translates to 'sunrise', symbolizing the arrival of a new generation of Bosnian immigrants in the US.Click on the blue Maximize button in the top right corner of each image to browse the pages of an issue. This project was made possible by a generous donation from Susan Powers of St. Louis, MO. Digitization is ongoing