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In Loving Memory of Mathilde Roth

It is with deep sorrow that we at Wesleying must share that Mathilde Roth, Michael Roth’s dog, passed away recently. Roth posted a tribute to her on his Twitter on April 10th, saying that it’s “So sad to say goodbye to our beloved Mathilde.” As college students, our interactions with pets are far and few between, and I know that for many of us, seeing Mathilde out for a walk around campus was an uplifting sight. Even if we didn’t really get to interact with her, her presence was still felt, and it was obvious that she was a very good girl. She will be missed by all of us. Continue below the cut to see a selection of heartwarming Mathilde photos, and to remember her fondly.

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ThEsiS CRaZy 2020!!!

Calling ALL thesisers!! It’s that time! Every year in the beginning of April, Wesleying publishes a series of interviews with senior thesis makers to showcase their masterpieces and talk all about the blood, sweat, tears, and blood that go into their year-long passion projects.

If you have a thesis you’re scrambling to submit later this month (and even if you’re on top of your work and ready to submit (liar)), click on this link to sign up for a quick Zoom interview with one of our writers! We’re so excited to see & share what you’ve been working towards.

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#DONATEYOURRCF Campaign Begins for FGLI GoFundMe!

Dear Wesleyan Alumni, Community Members, and Everybody Else!

Today, I am reaching out on behalf of the GoFundMe that launched on March 15th to support first-generation, low-income, and/or housing insecure students in light of Wesleyan University’s closure. The purpose of this article is threefold: 

  • To clarify the goals of our student-led grassroots campaign
  • To distinguish our effort from the official Wesleyan emergency fund
  • To encourage students to donate their RCF refund to the GoFundMe campaign.

 

  1. Our Campaign in a Paragraph  

The goal of the GoFundMe is to place resources directly into the hands of high-need, at-risk students. Since Wesleyan’s closure, low-income students have either returned home, straining the budget of their already hardpressed households, or petitioned to remain on campus. As a first-generation, low-income student whose mother works as a janitor, each day is filled with the constant worry that we will lose our income. I have had an unprecedented amount of stress worrying about my financial stability. Social distancing and large-scale efforts to quarantine, though necessary for the safety of the public, have only exacerbated the everyday conditions of poverty. Rapidly, parents are losing their jobs, and our fellow FGLI students do not know how they will afford rent, utilities, groceries, routine medical expenses, and other recurring costs that do not stop for national emergencies. Moreover, the recent U.S. stimulus bill does not contain any financial relief for adult dependents, meaning that students do not qualify for monthly relief checks. The needs of Wesleyan’s at-risk student body cannot be reduced to a single narrative, but each and every story shares a sense of urgency. Therefore, our campaign, which is titled FGLI Wesleyan Student Donations, operates under the belief that direct financial donations best meet the fluctuating, varied needs of low-income students as they face the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Figure 1. To help students self-assess their level of need, we provided example statements. The graphic above includes descriptions for level 1 (approximately 10%), level 3 (approximately 55%), and level 5 (approximately 2%) students.

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How ya doin?

a brief check in + WSA FAQ!

Hey fam,

As we come to the end of our first week of #distance #learning post spring break, I wanted to check in. How are you? How’s your love life? How’re your friends? Classes? Parties? Anything exciting going on? No? Ok that’s fine, I’m mostly just making sure your life is as boring as mine is right now.

There were a couple things I wanted to fill you in on. First, if you’ve turned your keys in, you should be automatically getting your RCF refund anytime now. But, if you want to transfer it to your checking account, here’s the form for the transfer. I’m sure you have lots and lots of other questions, which can be answered in this amazing, comprehensive FAQ made by the wonderful members of the WSA. Literally everything you could possibly be wondering can be found here.

If you have not yet donated to the FGLI GoFundMe, that can be found here. They’re past $200K now, but every dollar counts. Most importantly, the money from the GoFundMe will not be means tested when distributed. For more information, please check out the updates on the page. Jessi Russell ’20 and Mya Valentin ’19 have been incredibly transparent about where the money is going and how distribution will work, with a timeline and everything.

If you’re looking for a way to get shit off your mind, submit to our series on relationships in the time of corona! This has been a wild time, and whether you were in a romantic/platonic/life changing/very casual relationship or you wanna talk about your friends. Almost every relationship in our lives has been affected by corona, and we want to hear about it. Also don’t even TRY to tell us you’re not all over wescam, we know you are. You can submit through the form, or you can email us a voice memo! We’ll take whatever form you give us :) (staff@wesleying.org).

Wherever you are, I hope you’re with people you love and I hope you’re not letting corona bring you down. We don’t know how long this will last, and it’s painful to wonder when you’ll next see your friends [and friends+ ;) ] again, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. The best thing to do is to take this day by day and to reach out to those around you. Don’t isolate yourself. Facetime your friends, go for a walk, or do both at the same time. Rely on others, let others rely on you. I don’t know a single person that doesn’t want to be randomly texted by someone they talk to every day or someone they haven’t spoken to in a year. Zoom happy hour with your friends, and reach out to that senior you hooked up with once freshman year. I know life feels stagnant, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it interesting. Fuck shit up and keep moving forward. It’s the only way.

With love and care and affection,

Saadia

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Love in the Time of Coronavirus: Submission Request

Coronavirus is rapidly changing society as we know it, and we at Wesleying want to know how it’s specifically impacting your relationships with those you love. Fill out this form and tell us about any and all of the changes that are happening between you and your significant other, parents, friends, siblings, hookups, teachers, pets, beloved inanimate objects, and everything in between. Your story will be part of an upcoming article!

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URGENT Fundraiser: Wesleyan University FGLI Student Donations

the donations as of 20:37 EST on March 15th, one day into the fundraiser

A few days ago, we published an article outlining some FGLI student concerns regarding a campus closure due to COVID-19. As of now, the University has offered assistance through the emergency fund for immediate travel needs, but have not addressed issues of income loss as of yet. In response, this morning, Jessi Russel ’20 and Mya Valentin ’19 created a fundraising campaign for FGLI students who are affected by Wesleyan’s closure for the semester. Below is the email. You can donate to students who have self-identified as high need here. 

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COVID-19: Resources for Students (Updates to come)

On Wednesday afternoon, the University sent out an all-campus email declaring that students would be required to leave campus by March 23rd, and that all classes would be shifted to a remote learning model. This decision was made with little student and faculty input despite a strong student response that simply asked the Administration to be more cognizant of the needs of its most vulnerable populations before making such a life-changing decision for so many. As expected, the decision induced great panic and uncertainty amongst the student population.

While the immediate aftermath of the University’s decision was just sheer panic, students have done an incredible job of advocating for each other. The WSA went off and has been negotiating with the University on everything from our room and board refunds to storage space to the mandate that students come back to campus. Their hard work is seeing immediate returns, and many of the things they’ve accomplished are having an immediate impact on students’ lives.

This post is just to somewhat consolidate updates from the WSA about what resources are available to students and any other updates on the current situation.

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Addendum to Yesterday’s Article Regarding COVID-19

While our previous post listed plenty of concerns that many shares, we felt it was incomplete and wanted to add our thoughts specifically regarding (1) FGLI and (2) immunocompromised members of our community. This article addresses those concerns. 

Two nights ago, I saw a tweet that Amherst was shutting down campus to decrease the risk of spreading COVID-19 to other students, faculty, and staff. They made the calculation that since students would be traveling off-campus during spring break –– despite being encouraged not to –– it would be incredibly difficult to contain the virus on campus. The following morning, Harvard followed suit due to the same concerns. 

When I saw these announcements over Twitter, the first thing I thought was, Fuck, how am I going to finish my work-study? I calculated how much I would have earned for the rest of the semester and felt my heart drop. As a second-semester senior, I took on extra hours this semester, working 4 jobs to earn extra money to pay off my loans post-grad. But, the next thought I had was, Fuck, senior year might end early. I texted my friends, upset about the possibility of missing out on my last quarter at Wesleyan. I thought of the things I still have to do on campus: popping champagne on the steps of Olin, enjoying the sunset on Foss, giving my last tour, stressing about finals in SciLi, commencement. The list goes on.  

While I do acknowledge that some of the responses to COVID-19 are unnecessary, there are some real, valid concerns that need to be addressed regarding keeping campus open. Yesterday, Wesleying published an article in haste that only spoke to one side of campus––the ones who are afraid of what the rest of the semester might hold. The thing is, this is an extremely complex issue. You, I, the Wes community, can be sad about the possibility of campus closing while also acknowledging the gravity of the situation. We do not have to operate in a binary that either: (1) Wesleyan will shut its doors to all students and not provide resources to those who rely on campus for income, housing, and food or (2) Open campus and pretend that everything is normal. 

There have been countless articles that have attempted to explain possible solutions for colleges to mitigate the risk of COVID-19. Some of them call for a complete shut-down of schools to avoid a cruise-ship-like spread of the virus. There are some that say the opposite, arguing that college students are a low-risk population. While I would love to be an idealist and argue that the latter is true, we have forgotten that Wesleyan is not just college-aged students. There are elderly, immunocompromised faculty who will be at-risk if students return to campus. There are staff members who are concerned about the health of their families. There are Middletown community members who will be at risk if the entire student body returns to campus. Not to mention, parts of a student body who, despite Dean Whaley’s continued discouragement, traveled abroad to at-risk counties. The point of (partially) closing campus is to “flatten the curve” and ensure that hospitals have enough resources to treat those in need. This is the reality that we need to face, and instead of arguing in binaries, we should, instead, ally around the students who will be most affected by a potential closure.

Here are some potential solutions that live in the intermediary space between those two binaries:

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