One of the most jarring parts about being a first-year was the feeling I was being thrown into campus discourse. After being filled in on what happened at WashU the years before I got here, I wished that there was some sort of guide or list to fill me in. This article is my way of paying things forward.

This list is in no way comprehensive. In the past few years, so many notable events have happened at WashU. I am focusing solely on the instances that have shaped my experience at WashU, and they are mostly topics of political and social conversation on campus. It’s important to know of the conversations that have happened and are continuing to happen as you enter WashU’s community. 

Greek life

Greek organizations are a big part of American university life, and WashU is no exception. Many people find community and opportunity in Greek life, but WashU’s fraternities and sororities have found themselves in numerous campus controversies over the years. Sigma Alpha Mu was investigated and later suspended for drug abuse and hazing in 2012 and had similar offenses years prior; Sigma Alpha Epsilon used the N-word in a pledging activity in 2013, which led to their suspension; WashU Police Department (WUPD) discovered firearms — an AR-15 and a handgun — in the Phi Delta Theta house in 2018; two Kappa Sigma pledges were suspended for sexual assault in 2020; and Kappa Sigma and Alpha Phi were temporarily suspended for egging the inside of Bear’s Den and allegedly calling workers the N-word in 2024. StudLife headlines about the scandals of WashU fraternities date all the way back to the first papers available in the digital archive, from 1993. 

In 2020, an organization called Abolish Greek Life (AGL) worked to educate the student body about the harms of Greek life — an education that would, in their hopes, eventually lead to its abolition at WashU. The movement inspired over 50% of Greek organization members to deactivate from their fraternity or sorority in the summer of 2020. That same summer, 65% of students voted to abolish Greek life. Nonetheless, the AGL movement at WashU appeared to quickly lose steam, and campus opinion toward Greek life has shifted back toward the positive. Sigma Chi fraternity has even returned to WashU after being suspended in 2021 for violating University COVID-19 regulations. 

About University financial decisions

At the start of the 2023-24 school year, WashU switched to a catering company called Sodexo. While Sodexo is a more frugal option for the University, they have gotten a number of complaints about the quality of their food and hours of operation from students and about employees’ overall work experience. In previous conversations with Sodexo workers, I learned that some employees had up to a two-hour uncompensated commute and sometimes had to take on the work of three people because the company was severely understaffed. Despite pushes for change, the provider has remained the same. 

Along with changing dining partners, in 2025, WashU transitioned from WebSTAC, a registrar interface designed by a WashU student specifically for WashU students, to Workday. WebSTAC was trusted by students and faculty alike, so the change to Workday came as an unwelcome surprise. Workday’s unintuitive design led to questions regarding its functionality. The biggest note was that Workday’s positive qualities simply don’t match its $265 million price point, which some have regarded as an example of financial mismanagement considering recent national funding cuts. 

In October of 2025, WashU laid off over 300 faculty members and cut 200 vacancies, citing budget concerns. The WashU Faculty Senate Council (WFSC) called for a meeting on Oct. 23, 2025, with David Gray, executive vice chancellor for finance and chief financial officer of WashU, to ask for details about University finances. Undergraduate and graduate students held a protest in support of faculty outside of the building during the meeting. 

About the attack on higher education and DEI

President Trump’s attack on higher education didn’t pass over WashU. In the spring of 2025, Chancellor Andrew D. Martin sent out emails of encouragement to students and insisted that he was in Washington, D.C. talking with the federal administration about, as he wrote in an email, “the future of higher education.” Around the same time, the University rolled back DEI-related content on its website, such as statistics about WashU’s students of color and links to DEI-related efforts, and the Women & Engineering (W&E) Center in the McKelvey School of Engineering was closed without warning or explanation. 

Last September, the University appointed a faculty-based task force to oversee the consolidation of six departments and programs: African and African American Studies (AFAS); Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS); Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies (JIMES); Global Studies; American Culture Studies (AMCS); and Education (our education department no longer gives out teacher accreditation, by the way). When asked about this combination, University administrators directed questions to the task force, most of whom were professors who did not have the same administrative power as higher-ups. The task force insisted that this combination was not an attempt to fall in line with Trump’s anti-DEI policies. During all of this, Martin said that the potential merger was “not on his radar.”

That being said, there is still a Center for Diversity & Inclusion, which you can visit on the first floor of the DUC. Student affinity groups have still been able to run with, to my knowledge, little administrative pushback.

About protesting 

The conflict between Israel and Palestine divided our campus. In April of 2024, WashU students and members of the St. Louis community attempted to start an encampment in solidarity with Palestine and in protest of WashU’s alleged affiliation with the Boeing Company, but their attempts were shut down twice. The second encampment resulted in over 100 arrests. Martin sent out an email conflating a pro-Palestine protest that disrupted a Bear Day event and the “BD egging incident,” chalking them both up as examples of baseless agitation. In a separate email to students, he ended his message with an assertion: “You will not do this here.”

Arrested student protestors were forced to leave campus soon after receiving court sanctions. They were temporarily suspended and banned from coming back onto campus or University-owned property, which included housing. Students said that administrators did not meet with them to discuss plans about housing and food, which Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students Rob Wild claims is standard for suspensions.

Several other demonstrations followed after the student arrests, with one even taking place outside of Martin’s house. More recent examples of campus protesting, aside from that held during WFSC’s meeting with David Gray, would include English literature professor William Maxwell’s one-man demonstration against the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran and a May Day protest held by the Washington University Graduate Workers Union, or WUGWU. 

No matter what opinions you form from this article, I am writing to prepare you for the heated discussions you might find yourself in. Do with this information as you will; but no matter what you do, I hope you at least do something.