WashU Chancellor Andrew D. Martin defended the decision to meet with the Trump administration in the fall, discussed the impact of AI on higher education, and talked about emergency preparedness in a Q&A with Student Life on Wednesday, April 1. Martin also shared updates on WashU’s financial situation, including the reasons behind the transition to Workday, the University’s construction planning, and the decision to purchase the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy (UHSP). 

On Tuesday, Feb. 24, WashU’s Danforth Campus went into shelter-in-place protocol following false reports of an armed person on campus, according to the Washington University Police Department (WUPD). WashU Emergency Management first notified campus of the potential armed individual at 9:19 a.m. after WUPD “received multiple calls reporting an individual with a weapon on the Danforth Campus.”

WashU Police Department Chief Angela Coonce wrote in an 11:30 a.m. email that there is no active threat to campus, and that no armed individual was located during a thorough search. She said that though WUPD received multiple reports of an individual with a weapon, WUPD believes “the reports were not a credible threat.”

Approximately 20 members of the Washington University Graduate Workers Union (WUGWU) delivered 150 handmade Valentine’s Day cards to the chancellor’s suite in Brookings Hall on Friday, Feb. 13.

As college students, the mundane life of classes may make our daily actions feel meaningless against the backdrop of national unrest. Yet, we each have the ability and obligation to stay informed about ICE’s impact on our community and oppose their presence and actions.

If people don’t wear WashU merch, then fewer people see said merch and thus don’t know about the school. All it takes is a couple of daring individuals to break this norm, and eventually, it will snowball to more and more people.

The “Bear Bodega” — and especially its new checkout system — is not as glamorous as it seems. A closer, contextual look at the University’s plans for the 24/7 convenience store indicates how WashU fails to prioritize its relationship with the St. Louis community. 

The fall semester goes to show that while students, faculty, and staff are not the arbiters of WashU actions or policy, our opinions on them carry weight.

The idea of consolidating humanities departments should never have occurred at a university of WashU’s stature. Yet sadly, the university experience has become more of a business instead of a site of meaningful self-exploration that the humanities encourages.

In an email sent to faculty midday Wednesday, Martin wrote that WashU will not sign the compact “or any document that undermines our mission or our core values, perhaps highest among these our commitment to academic freedom, access, free expression, and research integrity.”