For decades, understanding which brain circuits govern learning and memory was constrained by the tools available to neuroscientists. Researchers could administer drugs to suppress neural activity or create lesions to disable certain brain regions. However, these methods still made it difficult to determine precisely when particular neurons were necessary for a behavior.

That limitation helped motivate the development of optogenetics, which encompasses techniques that use light-sensitive proteins to activate or inhibit targeted neurons with remarkable precision. The work happened in two stages: Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel discovered channelrhodopsin, a type of protein found in the single-celled alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, and Karl Deisseroth turned the protein into a light-controlled switch for nerve cells. Deisseroth demonstrated the technique in rat neurons in 2005; the method was born and adopted the name "optogenetics" in 2006. On Oct. 5, the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Hegemann, Nagel and Deisseroth.

The press release described the award as "for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics."

As a point of reference to better understand the significance of the prize and the works' implications for neuroscience, Kishore Kuchibhotla shared his insights. He serves as an associate professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences; his laboratory uses optogenetics to investigate learning and behavior.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Kuchibhotla began by explaining how the optogenetic technique differs from earlier approaches to studying the brain. In one experiment, his laboratory trained mice to respond to certain sounds for a water reward while withholding responses to others. By temporarily silencing the auditory cortex, researchers found that the region was essential during learning but no longer necessary for performing the task once the animals became proficient.

This distinction between learning and performance illustrates what optogenetics makes possible. Rather than simply observing neural activity alongside behavior, researchers can manipulate a circuit at a particular moment and test the circuit's contributions.

Despite research into this method being limited to only a couple of decades, optogenetics is now used in labs worldwide to probe how the brain works. The technique has also extended far beyond auditory neuroscience, with applications in vision, memory and disease research.

When asked about his initial reaction to the Nobel announcement, Kuchibhotla described the discovery awarded as one whose recognition was both exciting and long anticipated.

"Over the last 20 years, the techniques have matured so much and the impact they've had on basic neuroscience is so huge that it's by no means a surprise, right?" he said.

The three researchers are well-recognized for their work in the field; however, Kuchibhotla also emphasizes that the field's development involved far more than the collaboration of just the three. Ed Boyden, Gero Miesenböck and Ernst Bamberg have also contributed to the earlier discoveries involving microbial rhodopsins. Together, their work illustrates how fundamental research across science can eventually produce tools with applications far beyond their original purpose.

For Kuchibhotla, the prize also recognizes the importance of making scientific discoveries accessible. Deisseroth's laboratory helped transform optogenetics from a specialized experimental technique into one that researchers around the world could adopt and expand.

Similarly to Kuchibhotla's lab, the influence and adoption of optogenetics also manifests clearly in other labs at Hopkins, such as those led by Patricia Janak and Dr. Solange Brown. Undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers all receive necessary and fundamental training in using optogenetics to investigate neural circuits and their relationships to behavior or participate in experiments that activate or inhibit specific brain regions.

However, the accessibility of this technology also creates a responsibility to use it carefully. A common concern is that researchers must avoid manipulating neural activity simply because the technology allows them to do so, but rather design experiments around a specific hypothesis. This distinction matters since greater experimental control does not automatically produce a better understanding of the brain; the value of the technique depends on the questions researchers choose to ask.

In terms of the technique's potential commercial applications, there are still challenges of translating optogenetics from controlled laboratory experiments into treatments for human patients. One fundamental obstacle is delivering light to targeted neurons deep within the human brain. Although researchers can manipulate neural circuits in animal experiments, translating those methods into safe, practical treatments requires additional advances.

One promising application, however, has already emerged in vision restoration. A 2021 study published in Nature Medicine shows how researchers treated a patient with retinitis pigmentosa, a neurodegenerative eye disease, by introducing a light-sensitive protein into retinal cells and using specialized goggles to deliver visual information through pulses of light. With the goggles, the patient regained a limited ability to perceive, locate and count objects.

Though the findings mainly represented an early clinical proof of concept, Kuchibhotla argued that the technique's medical significance may extend beyond treatments directly involving light. Optogenetics may therefore help scientists identify which cells and pathways should be targeted by future therapies, even when those treatments ultimately rely on drugs or other interventions.

"[Optogenetics] gives you more precision. It gives you more [cell-type and] temporal specificity so that even if the eventual treatment does not use light or optogenetics, they may have identified the right pathways using optogenetics," Kuchibhotla said.

Also noteworthy is the incorporation of more advanced techniques in optogenetic experiments, particularly as researchers develop tools to analyze increasingly complex neural activity. A specific, emerging approach known as holographic optogenetics, combines advanced microscopy with highly targeted stimulation of individual neurons by monitoring activity across thousands of neurons, identifying smaller populations associated with a behavior or disease process and selectively manipulating those cells using patterned light. Kuchibotla even highlighted that artificial intelligence could eventually help interpret these complex recordings and identify relevant neurons.

"You can put [holographic optogenetics] potentially into an AI loop with analysis, and you can start [understanding neural circuits] in a more closed loop way," he said.

Circling back to Kuchibhotla's respect for this year's prize, he recalled being a graduate student when optogenetics entered its modern era and the excitement surrounding a technique that once seemed closer to science fiction than experimental neuroscience. He also reflected on early-career researchers who helped establish the field, including Boyden and Feng Zhang, whose contributions demonstrated that transformative scientific discoveries do not necessarily require decades of experience.

"Don't wait for someone to give you the go-ahead. Figure it out if you have a cool idea," he said.

That perspective takes the significance of this year's Nobel Prize beyond its immediate technological contributions. Optogenetics grew from fundamental questions about how microorganisms respond to light into a method that has reshaped the study of the biological brain and neurological disease. Its development depended not only on discoveries across scientific disciplines, but also on researchers willing to pursue ideas whose eventual applications were far from certain.

Because of the Pavillion's extensive lawn area in addition to reserved seating options, a general admission skylounge, and barrier-access frontstage pit, lawn tickets were able to remain affordable while still providing premium options for fans willing to spend more money.

Promptly at 8 p.m., Wisp emerged to widespread applause and the gentle hum of her characteristic dreamy, distorted guitar. Wisp opened her setlist by playing "Enough for you,"a fitting showcase of the specific type of nu-metal infused shoegaze that she is best known for making. With drudging drumlines, sludgy, distorted guitar riffs and her gentle vocals sitting on top of it all, "Enough for you" and the songs that followed were compellingly ethereal, especially for fans of Wisp's overdriven sound. However, her comfort in her sonic identity doesn't always act in her favor, often leaving songs feeling underdeveloped or unremarkable, especially when coupled with the run-of-the-mill writing that populates her songs.

Following a brief intermission, the stage lights came back up on a stage newly populated by a giant electrical transmission tower and grassy terrain reminiscent of the Midwestern lowlands as beabadoobee emerged behind her band.

The performance kicked off with a series of upbeat and iconic lead guitar parts in "Sun Has Set," "10:36"and "Apple Cider." The energy was so invigorating that even audience members in reserved seating areas couldn't help but get up and continue dancing long past the drop of "10:36."

From there, the band continued to electrify the crowd before temporarily taking a break and allowing beabadoobee to bring out her acoustic for a solo performance of "Coffee," an intimate fan-favorite and her first major hit.

After commenting on the difficulties of tour and the joy of performing, beabadoobee unveiled her unreleased song, "The Road." With a distinctly Americana-inspired instrumentation and simple yet moving verses about traveling away from home, "The Road" is a pleasant Wilco-esque single distinct from Pylon's grittier feel.

The energy continued to pick up as the concert eventually came to a climax with the epic, expansive atmosphere of "In Motion" as beabadoobee repeatedly cried her plea of "gotta get away from here."

Throughout the show, there were persistent remarks from nearby audience members that "hope she plays 'Beaches,'" a small child even joining in on the calls. Never one to leave fans disappointed, beabadoobee started her last song with its instantly recognizable four chords to the crowd's absolute elation. After a thrilling guitar solo and a heartfelt crowd-led chorus, beabadoobee thanked the audience and left the stage with the sound of "There She Goes"by the La's marking the end of a brilliant journey.

It was on this journey that beabadoobee, her band and the crew transformed the stage from just a series of props to equally part of the performance as the music. From light-up electrical wires to sparking transformers, the stage seemed to come alive in new and creative ways. In fact, beabadoobee centered her interactions with the "decorations" in riveting ways, singing "Powerlines" while standing atop the pylon and delivering the first verse of "Satellite" into the ringing payphone stage left.

One might believe that such minute on-stage details would be indistinguishable to audiences in the distant lawn, but fortunately for the masses, the live video of the band displayed on large screens hanging from the pavilion's roof was treated as its own world of artistic expression rather than an afterthought. The stream routinely took the liberty of applying psychedelic effects during slow breakdowns or rapidly switching camera views at the climax of a song, making for a visual treat in and of itself.

It is all too easy to think of the concert as a solved event: you get on stage, play music, maybe say the name of the city you're in, and then quietly leave. We in the audience have also grown complacent, coming to expect nothing more - maybe a couple pyrotechnics if we're really lucky.

But beabadoobee and the crew at Merriweather Post Pavilion consistently showed that that was not the case. The music can be great, but the visuals can have just as much love and passion poured into their production as anything else. Just know that as beabadoobee is getting bigger and playing increasingly populated venues, she and her creative team are not taking her relevance for granted.

Usually, the dream comes and goes but stays long enough. It's me and my mom walking from my grandma's house under a colorful night sky. I can see the stars in the dream. I just need to look up and they are the only thing illuminating the night street. When I wake up, a sudden heavy wave of nostalgia washes over me. This is a memory my mind loves to replay when I am sleeping or daydreaming. Interesting enough, it is the first memory of my childhood, as far back my mind can take me. The beautiful part is, it was my birthday. Of all the memories to engrave into my consciousness, my mind chose that one. Lately, this memory has become a part of me, comforting me as it drifts in and out of thoughts.

Time has flown. I am a month away from reaching a milestone someone might say. Turning 21 soon, do I feel any different? Yes, I do. As the date approaches, I decided to walk a memory lane and reminisce about the experiences that have shaped the person I am today.

Timeline 1: Bravery of a five-year-old

The first day of preschool. I definitely cried. I didn't want my mom to leave me there, and looking back, it was the first time I had ever been separated from her. But I decided to be brave. I dried my tears and continued my day. I met incredible tiny little humans who were my first friends. After that I decided I have a passion for learning and made a promise to myself to continue to learn and educate myself. Proud of my five-year-old self. You did exceptional!

Timeline 2: Embracing the unfamiliar

Moving to America. Suddenly, the words "new" and "unfamiliar" became the foundation of my vocabulary and my everyday life. This move meant seeing my dad for the first time in person. When I hugged my dad, I felt a tidal wave of emotions hit me. Uniting with someone I had only ever known through phone calls and FaceTime, having him physically in front of me was a new start for my family.

When I started school, some kids were incredibly kind, and others were not the best. I cried again, of course. I wanted to leave. But just like in preschool, my determination won, and I stayed. Eventually, I made friends, learned a new language, and got used to my new life. However, puberty happens (which definitely wasn't fun), I moved to New Jersey (which was super fun) and finally, I landed in Maryland.

Timeline 3: Heartbreak, euphoria and all the in-between

Maryland has been my home for five years now. It's where I met my best friend. We were both new to the state and met in Biology class. Thank you Dr. I, to whom I am still grateful for bringing us together. I grew to truly love this place. Maryland has witnessed my heartbreaks, happiness, grief and now adulthood. It has seen me through many chapters, yet something still feels the same.

I could never forget the people and experiences that defined this era. It impacted who I am, but most importantly, it showed me who decided to stay in my life. I have felt raw and vulnerable, grieving people I have lost, meeting new people, starting college. And through it all, I lived to tell the tale.

The milestone doesn't stop

Time doesn't stop even if there have been days where I wished it would. Some of us lose ourselves as we transition through the stages of life. We become different people. We drift apart, and in a blink of an eye, the people who once knew the sound of our laughter became familiar strangers. It is a mystery of existence how lives can intertwine deeply, only to quietly slip away into the background of our past.

To 21: I wish for you to surprise me in this new chapter. And to you dear reader: I wish for you to reach a milestone as well. I want everything life has to give even the hard days because without them, I wouldn't know how to appreciate what I have. Let's all remember, growing is not bound to numbers. Everyday is a fresh milestone in the making. Here's to the next one!

Alexandra Garcia Herrera is a sophomore from Laurel, Md. majoring in Chemistry. Her column, "Letter from a Freshman," explores her reflections on what happens outside the syllabus: friendships, identity, grief and growth.

I have a love-hate relationship with deadlines. Like many of us, I have long dreamed of the day when the endless stream of homework assignments would finally cease, and I would be freed from the tyranny of Friday 11:59 p.m. Canvas submissions forever. Yet as I sit here typing out this article at 11 p.m. the day it is due, I also recognize that there are times I simply wouldn't get things done without them.

All of my life I have been a perpetual procrastinator. However, while I was in school, last-minute panic made sure that I always turned in my assignments on time, even if sometimes I cut it a little close. Heavens forbid I miss a deadline and immediately feel my stomach drop as I see "MISSING" in big red letters alongside a drop in my course grade.

I am currently in the second year of my master's here at Hopkins. Having finished all of my coursework in my first year left with just independent research and thesis-writing, I have finally reached the promised land and not had to open Canvas a single time this semester. While I still have proposal submission dates and project timelines - and will for the rest of my working career once I graduate and get a job - traditional deadlines in the way I have known for the last 17 years are finally behind me. But now that the day has dawned, this end of deadlines doesn't feel like the triumphant happy ending I always imagined.

For one thing, while the incessant bombarding of small deadlines fades away, the few deadlines that remain are more important and less forgiving. It is no longer a few percentages off of your course grades that just means you need to study harder for the next exam. It is missing a grant application that sets you back a year, or a job application posting when you don't know when the next one will come.

Yet even more dangerous are the aspects for which there is no explicit deadline at all: exercising regularly, spending time with your loved ones and pursuing your personal goals. Without the structure of deadlines to help me navigate my life, I all too often find myself paralyzed by the expansive fields of endless possibility and overwhelming choices. Deadlines are annoying, but annoyance is the point of an alarm. In their absence, I feel lost, directionless.

The harder truth is, even for these aspects of life, deadlines don't disappear, they simply become invisible. For most people, there is a double-digit number of summers that you will experience in your lifetime. And while it is never too late to chase your dreams, waiting around forever to start may mean you never get the chance to achieve them. From calling your mom to spending time with that friend you don't know will move away in two years, there still exists a "deadline." The difference is that there is no demarcated date you are made aware of until it is too late and you realize the real deadline passed months ago.

So while my break from deadlines has been nice, I no longer think I want it to last forever. In place of an end to deadlines, perhaps I simply need to re-wire my relationship with deadlines. Instead of thinking of them as stressful evaluations, I should think of them as checkpoints of progress to help me on my way to what I want. A gentle reminder that time moves onwards, and of a promise I made to a future self. And once there's no more professor to set deadlines for me, I will have to find other ways to create them, like asking my friends to help keep me accountable.

As I move more fully into post-grad life and adulthood - a world where reminders aren't automatic and the path forward is less conspicuous than ever - I will need to learn new strategies to self-motivate and spur myself to action in lieu of the adrenaline of last-minute panic. My hope is that one day I can live life to the fullest and chase my dreams relentlessly without the need for a Canvas notification pinging me a reminder to seize the day. But until then, deadlines can help keep me on track and remind me of the things I decide matter most.

Jason Chang is a graduate student from Woodbury, Minn. studying Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His column is a celebration of the quiet moments that linger amid the jumble of our busy lives: moments of stillness, reflection and a space to just exist.

In an email to The News-Letter, the History Department explained its decision to invite Lew-Williams to speak about this topic.

"[Immigration] is a hot button political topic, and it has shaped American history in profound and abiding ways. It is a subject of interest to all kinds of students and scholars as well. We also have a new undergraduate track in Law and History. The History Department wanted to use the Stulman Lecture to shine a light on this vital topic and the importance of law in shaping immigration regimes," the department wrote.

The event began with Lew-Williams contextualizing the word "Chinaman." She explained that it was used to denote inferiority rather than overt racism.

"It was not sort of an aggressive racial slur [in the 19th century]... It had a weight to it. It conveyed a sense of inferiority, and it's really only over time that it became this more aggressive racial slur," Lew-Williams said.

Lew-Williams also explained that the word "Chinaman" aligns with the anonymity of Chinese individuals in immigration records.

"[Americans] recorded 2,581 Chinese people, but only about two dozen of them had names. But everyone else is listed in this way, as a Chinaman," Lew-Williams explained.

To research her book, Lew-Williams visited archives across California to investigate what Chinese people were permitted to do in U.S. society, how laws and government policies shaped their behavior and how they endured, negotiated or resisted these restrictions.

Lew-Williams mainly searched for trial transcripts from local court cases, which proved difficult because of how anonymous and rare the cases were. During her search, she stumbled upon many photographs, offering another way to examine how Chinese individuals were monitored.

One individual was photographed in different mug shots for separate instances. Initially, he wore his hair in a traditional queue, a hairstyle that symbolized loyalty to the Qing government, but he later shaved it off. She explained that this could serve as a way to make it harder for him to return to China.

"To cut Chinese hair of Chinese men at this time was to make them an outcast, make it difficult for him to return to China," Lew-Williams said.

Sheriffs maintained mug books of Chinese individuals, including those who had not committed crimes, as a way to monitor the Chinese population. Lew-Williams explained that this was a part of federal immigration policy through the Geary Act of 1892.

"One of the Chinese Exclusion Acts, the Geary Act, required that all Chinese immigrants be photographed and registered at a time before passports, before sort of this, you know, carrier documents… This is really one of the early examples of having to carry papers in order to live within the United States," Lew-Williams said.

Also, Lew-Williams worked with Hannah Postel, an assistant professor of Public Policy at Duke University, and they found over 1,000 anti-Chinese discrimination laws. She classifies these laws into three groups: identity-based, behavior-based and general outcast groups that regulate the economic, political, social and spatial behavior of the Chinese.

Lew-Williams then discussed Chinese racial segregation. She read an excerpt from Chinese man Pany Lowe's testimony that recounted his experience with finding housing outside Chinatown.

"I want to live in residential district, but they make lots of trouble if you try to live outside Chinatown. One friend, he born in this country, he buy $6000 house in the Rose City District. White people make hell lot of trouble for him. They take it to court. He fight it. Just the same, they kick him out. He can own house, but no live there. I think that very unjust. Those people very uncivilized have no regard for humanity," the excerpt read.

In another example, the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company mapped which homes Chinese people lived in to insure them against fire, a stereotype that the Chinese associate with a risk of fire. Also, cities created a dissimilarity index that forced lots of Chinese residents to move out of cities to create "perfect integration."

Lew-Williams attributes the causes of Chinese segregation to racial zoning laws, alien laws, violence, racial restrictive covenants and real estate practices.

Regarding violence, the Chinese were burned out of Truckee, California in 1878 and forced to relocate to the other side of the river in the town. A similar event happened in San Jose, California where the Chinese were burned out of the heart of the city and forced to resettle in reservations on the outskirts.

Also, racial restrictive covenants complicated the Chinese's lives. A lease from 1886 in Ventura County prohibited the selling and leasing of property to Chinese individuals.

"It was fought out in a case called Gandolfo v. Hartman, and it was found actually by the California courts to be unconstitutional to have these racial restrictive covenants," Lew-Williams shared.

Unfortunately, lawyers and judges used this case as another means of enforcing racial segregation. Lew-Williams highlights the parallels between Chinese and Black racial zoning.

"It's an example of a technology that sort of first experimented on the West Coast, and then becomes, you know, so elemental to Black segregation later," she said.

At the end, the program transitioned to its Q&A section. An audience member asked Lew-Williams whether she finds hope and inspiration within Chinese resistance. 90,000 Chinese people disobeyed the Geary Act.

"The U.S. government didn't have at the time the money or the manpower or perhaps the will to actually deport them all, and so… it showed how, you know, mass resistance actually did curtail the government for a short period," Lew-Williams said.

Another attendee asked about the experience of second- and third-generation Chinese immigrants in terms of legal and cultural discrimination.

"Since Chinese were so associated with exclusion and foreign medicine as immigrants… we see that [the second and third generations are] not treated as full U.S. citizens," Lew-Williams remarked.

In an interview with The News-Letter, second-year History and Latin Studies student Jasmin Mendoza-Aragon shared the importance of learning about the history of anti-Chinese discrimination in the U.S. because of how racial exclusion has shaped U.S. immigration policy.

"There is a pattern in U.S. history when it comes to immigration, of where they have excluded a lot of people, beginning with the Chinese, and then the Japanese, and then the Indians, and then it goes towards, like, people trying to escape third countries that have had, like, extreme violence, such as the Cubans and the Haitians," Mendoza-Aragon commented.

The protest began at 5 p.m. Demonstrators held signs reading "We are Jane Doe" and "I am Jane Doe" as they followed one of the co-organizers, Ally Donovan, in chanting, "We love you. We believe you. We will fight for you." Throughout the rally, survivors of sexual violence and their supporters delivered speeches addressing the impact of sexual assault, calling for greater support and solidarity with survivors.

Donovan is a graduate student at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. In an interview with The News-Letter, she said that the protest aimed to provide a space for Baltimore residents to express solidarity with survivors amid recent national attention to campus sexual violence.

"Our intention was to bring the community in general together to support sexual violence survivors… and to ensure that we hold a space here in Baltimore where survivors can gather with the difficult times that we're experiencing right now with everything in the news cycle," she said.

Donovan further explained that the demonstration was intended to show solidarity with Jane Doe, the former Cornell student whose lawsuit has drawn national attention, and Kendall Francis, a Louisiana State University student who has publicly challenged her university's handling of a sexual assault complaint.

The protest was titled "From the Frat House to the White House: Stop Sexual Violence," and it was part of a national day of action organized by Women's March, me too. International, Feminist Generation and FEMINIST.

The national demonstrations followed a civil lawsuit filed on Sept. 16 by a former Cornell student identified under the pseudonym Jane Doe. The lawsuit alleges that seven members of Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity sexually assaulted her in October 2024 after she consumed alcohol and was pressured into taking ketamine.

Cornell's internal disciplinary proceedings resulted in the expulsion of two students and the suspension of two others. No criminal charges have been filed against the accused in connection with the allegations. After local prosecutors reopened the investigation on Sept. 28, New York Governor Kathy Hochul appointed Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor to investigate this incident.

So far, all of the seven men denied wrongdoing, and none have faced criminal charges. Moonies Bar & Nightclub denied serving Jane Doe alcohol when she was underage.

Beyond the Cornell case, the national campaign called for stronger Title IX enforcement, expanded campus support services for survivors of sexual violence and the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At Patterson Park, participants also emphasized the importance of community support and institutional responsibility.

For Edith, a student at Baltimore School for the Arts, the protest offered an opportunity to connect with others who shared her concerns.

"I've heard a lot about everything that's going on right now, and I just have a lot of feelings about it," she said to The News-Letter. "And I wanted to be surrounded by people who also have the same feelings."

Teresa Lancaster, an attorney, advocate and survivor who attended the protest, emphasized the need for strong protections against sexual violence in institutions such as churches and universities in an interview with The News-Letter.

"These universities need to take a stronger look into what goes on and stop brushing it over just because a lot of the students have money," Lancaster said.

Despite her concerns about institutional accountability, Lancaster expressed optimism about the demonstration's potential impact.

"I'm very delighted to see many people turn out and recognize that this was wrong, that [it] needs to be right," she said. "[I've] been fighting for it all my life, and we're seeing it."

The meeting then moved into reports from the executive branch of SGA, as well as a report from the SGA Advisor about a planned social event for SGA senators. Then the meeting allowed for individual reports from senators, during which Senator Paul Woo gave a report on potentially replacing two-factor authentication with passkeys on University Wi-Fi, as well as the possibility of establishing a community garden on the Homewood campus.

President of the Senate Jazzlyn Fernandez then announced that SGA members in attendance would be nominating a Senator of the Month for September. Student Athlete Caucus Chair Sophia Baleeiro was chosen for the title.

Senator Peter Tarpley then gave a presentation about the state of SGA's budget, in which he shared that SGA is slightly overspending and advised a weekly spending budget of $4,500.

The meeting then entered legislative procedures. Vice President of the Senate Shreeman Patel introduced a bill for first reading about the establishment of a caucus for transfer students, which was referred to the Internal Affairs Committee. Senator Paul Woo then introduced a bill aiming to amend the bylaws to explicitly appoint a member of SGA to the University's Cross-Institutional Student Advisory Committee (CSAC,) an advisory board made of students from all of the University's campuses. The bill was also referred to the Internal Affairs Committee after a moderated caucus, in which SGA members mentioned that Sophomore Class President Veda Kommineni already serves as SGA's appointee to the CSAC. Senator Sophia Baleeiro also introduced a bill to fund T-shirts for the Student Athlete Advisory Council, which was referred to the Finance Committee.

Sophomore Class President Veda Kommineni then discussed her bill, which was in its second reading. The bill focused on a tabling event for SGA, in which students will be able to give feedback to SGA. The committee then motioned for a moderated caucus to discuss whether an online survey or index cards were the best method to gather feedback. After Kommineni's bill was passed, the meeting moved into cohort time and then adjourned.

This October, dash into the fields of Autumn, petticoat swishing, with Georgia Oakley's new adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. The film will follow the love stories of the Dashwood sisters, with Elinor Dashwood played by Normal People star Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Marianne Dashwood played by Esmé Creed-Miles. The cast will also feature Caitríona Balfe, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Frank Dillane and George Mackay. Oakley's adaptation faces high expectations, as Emma Thompson and Ang Lee's 1995 adaptation was incredibly celebrated and successful during the time of its release and is still held close to many Austen-fan's hearts. This 2026 adaptation had an early release in the United Kingdom on Sept. 25, but United States audiences will gain access starting Oct. 16.

In Mother Tongue: Immersions and Other True Stories, Faro Morábito travels across the world through the one thing that connects us most to each of our homes: language. The book alternates between and blends fiction and essay, exploring the concepts of translation, language and their influences on the minutiae of our lives. The multilingual Morábito was born in Egypt to Italian parents, was raised in Milan and has lived and published in Mexico City since the age of 14. He has published numerous poetry books in Spanish, but not without maintaining connection to his roots, publishing also a great amount of Spanish translations of great Italian poets. A linguistic cosmopolitan, Morábito tackles cross-linguistic relationships, literary aspirations, genres and conventions in Mother Tongue, releasing Oct. 13.

Carrying on with linguistic cosmopolitanism, expand your musical horizons with Belgian pop singer Angèle. Daughter of the singer Marka and comedian Laurence Bibot, Angèle grew up with a multitude of artistic influences. She is most known in the anglophone world for her feature on Dua Lipa's "Fever" remixed on the Future Nostalgia Digital Reissue. Angèle's newest album, Instinct, fits into a modern pop genre of electronic synth dance music with singles like "Dis-le," "Une seule vie." The single "Love Triangle" features art-pop singer Caroline Polachek and electronic musician SebestiAn; the song contains both Belgian-French and English lyrics. Interested in a European Fall? Check out Angèle's Instinct when it releases on Oct. 16.

Stay in the francophone world with the Walter Art Museum's free Sunday Screening event showing avant-garde artist Jean Cocteau's Orpheus. The film stars Jean Marais, Cocteau's lover, as the titular poet Orpheus, who betrays his wife Eurydice (Marie Déa) as he slowly falls in love with Death (María Casares) herself. A spectacle from the 1950's, Orpheus features beautiful and breathtaking early special effects and uses the Orphic gaze to analyze sight and the visual. By the "happy" end of the film, it is not the power of love over death which wins out, but the power of death's love. Watch this beautiful classic black-and-white film from 1-3 p.m. on Oct. 18 at the Walters Art Museum for free entry with prior registration.

To watch…

• Sense and Sensibility, directed by Georgia Oakley - Oct. 16
• You Can See Everything, directed by Lance Oppenheim, Nathan Fielder - Oct. 16
• Crawlers, directed by Ángel Gómez Hernández - Oct. 16
• You Can't Leave, directed by Scott Windhauser - Oct. 16
• Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub, directed by Kook-Hee Choi - Oct. 16

To read…

• Mother Tongue: Immersion and Other True Stories, written by Faro Morábito - Oct. 13
• The Third Love, written by Hiromi Kawakami - Oct. 13
• On Un/Certainty: The Uses of Doubt in Dangerous Times, written by Natasha Lennard - Oct. 13
• Luna, Phoenix, Queen, written by Julie Orringer - Oct. 13
• We Survived the Night, written by Julian Brave Noisecat - Oct. 13

To listen…

• Instinct, by Angèle - Oct. 16
• Dopamine Chamber, by Fontaines D.C. - Oct. 16
• Confessions of a Lonely Heart, by Eric Nam - Oct. 16
• ALOUD!, by Lucky Daye - Oct. 16
• "Housewife", by Tate Mcrae - Oct. 15

Live events…

• Sunday Screening: Jean Cocteau's Orpheus - Oct. 18, 1-3 p.m. at the Walters Art Museum
  • This event is free with registration.
• 8th Annual Indigenous Powwow - Oct. 12, 12-2 p.m. at Decker Quad
  • This event is free with registration.
• Lunch with the Libraries & Museums: Artists' Books from A to B and Back Again - Oct. 16, 12-1 p.m. online
  • This event is free with registration.
• 2026 Latin American Film Festival: "A Poet" - Oct. 14, 5-7 p.m. at Mergenthaler Hall 266
  • This event is free.
• Jessica M. Floyd with Steven Dashiell: THE SONS OF NEPTUNE - Oct. 15, 6 p.m at Bird in Hand
  • This event is free with registration.

Sands opened his lecture with an overview of the diplomatic relationship between the United States and Canada. He highlighted the upcoming 100 year anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations following the Balfour Declaration of 1926, which increased Canada's sovereignty as a British dominion.

"Prior to that, we just dealt with the British, and so in a way, that anniversary is significant coming up next year because it's really the beginning of Canada having its own personality and the back and forth relationship," said Sands. "From the very beginning, the Canadians were friendly with us."

Sands detailed the complex cultural ties that have resulted from the nations' historically close relationship. He described how American automobile manufacturers invested heavily in Canada in the early 20th century, which resulted in the beginning of integrated trade between the U.S. and Canada.

Sands shared how as communication technology developed Canadians became increasingly anxious about defining their cultural identity.

"Canadians became worried about their own culture. And if you think about Canadian geography, you kind of see why. Although the country is 10% larger than the U.S. it's only got about 10% of our population and most of that population, about 90%, lives within 150 miles of the border with the United States. But it's actually because much of their economy is connected to the United States," Sands said.

As the 20th century progressed, the economic relationship between the U.S. and Canada was formalized with the U.S.-Canada Free Trade agreement in 1989 under President Ronald Regan. Sands explained how this agreement turned into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Mexico, Canada and the U.S.

"The U.S. had gone through a long period through free trade [with NAFTA] where we made it easier to sell into the U.S. market than it was to sell out of the U.S. market. So we were encouraging countries to export to us where we had the consumer base in order to get richer and felt that that would eventually be better than just offering development assistance," said Sands. "It sort of hollowed out a lot of Midwestern industrial areas because we're also buying a lot of resources from abroad. It really weakened the American economy."

Sands argued that the impacts of NAFTA on the American economy created resentment toward the idea of free trade with allies like Canada. Sands further emphasized how politically unpopular NAFTA was in the United States, even across party lines.

"From 1992, when we hadn't finalized the agreement, but we were pretty close, all the way until 2016, every presidential election we had an anti-NAFTA candidate," Sands shared. "In 2016, we finally got a case where we have both candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, who don't like NAFTA. But Donald Trump turned out to be a bit of a surprise because he didn't like NAFTA, but he actually wanted to do something about that."

During his first administration Donald Trump replaced NAFTA with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2020. This agreement got bipartisan support in the U.S. and it included things like a fixed sixteen-year duration after which it has to be renewed and periodic six year reviews of the terms from all three nations.

In his second term President Donald Trump has taken a more aggressive approach to reworking the United States' international trade and economic relations. Trump levied tariffs against more than 80 countries, Canada included. However, Sands points out that only China and Canada have retaliated.

"70% of [Canada's] exports come to the United States, and that's less than it was a few years ago, but it's still a substantial portion. So they're super vulnerable to American retaliation. However, they decided to retaliate in the interest of dignity," Sands said.

With the idea of a trade war between the two nations throughout his talk, Sands stressed how the deteriorating relations may not only have economic consequences.

"This isn't so much a trade war as a trade civil war. Because like a civil war, when you fight with other parts of your same country, everything you destroy, you will have to rebuild or need later. If you lay waste to huge parts of the economy, that's going to be your economy later, and you're going to have all this disaster. If you create bitterness because of the casualties, you have to live next door to the people who are bitter, who lost people in the war," said Sands.

Sands emphasized the importance of the U.S. and Canada coming to an agreement before Jan. 1, 2027, Trump's deadline for further escalation. Despite this overt warning over what tariff escalation could lead to, Sands made sure to contextualize the current impacts of tariffs on U.S.-Canada trade.

"Canada-U.S. Trade is $2.8 billion every day. So the trade war right now covers about $21 billion Canadian, so a little bit less than that in American [dollars]. So it's about 20, I don't know, about 10 days worth of trade. That's why we're not panicking," said Sands.

The event was well-attended by students and local community members. Connor Hartigan, a graduate student at SAIS and a research assistant of Dr. Sands shared his take-aways from the talk.

"I'm optimistic that in the longer term, a younger generation of Americans who have studied Canada and are interested in Canada can forge personal connections with Canadians and rebuild over the coming decades," Hartigan said.

"The Student Government Association (SGA) at Johns Hopkins University is the primary representative body of undergraduate students. It is a student-run organization that is responsible for representing the interests of the student body to the University's administration," the homepage of the SGA website reads.

The SGA is a Registered Student Organization (RSO), like many official clubs or organizations on campus. The Office of Leadership Engagement & Experiential Development (LEED) oversees RSOs in matters of registration, event planning and general oversight. As an RSO, the SGA is expected to follow the expectations for organizations that LEED puts out. One of such requirements is that all RSOs must have an advisor who is a faculty or staff member of the University.

"Registered Student Organizations are required to have a faculty/staff advisor at the school where the organization is affiliated that is in good standing with the university," LEED's website states.

LEED additionally states that faculty advisors must abide by University policies, and make sure that the organizations they oversee do so as well.

"The prospective advisor must acknowledge and commit to upholding university policies. The university or school reserves the right to approve, remove, or reassign an advisor to a student organization at its discretion, including but not limited to circumstances in which the faculty member is no longer in good standing or is otherwise unable to fulfill the advisor requirements," LEED outlines in its advisor requirements.

As an RSO, SGA has multiple assigned faculty advisors. LEED, however, does not state how involved advisors have to be in their organizations, nor what their required responsibilities are besides upholding University rules.

The SGA's Constitution, which was recently amended on Sept. 18, does not explicitly define a role for its advisor. In fact, the word "advisor" is not used in the Constitution. The Bylaws of the SGA, which were also amended on the same date as the Constitution, establish the existence of an advisor in the document's seventh article, but do not necessarily indicate specific functions of the role.

"There shall exist SGA advisors who shall be resources when called upon by the SGA," one section of the bylaws states.

In addition to establishing the role's existence, the bylaws also specify how many advisors the organization needs.

"The SGA, in conjunction with the Office of the Dean of Student Life may appoint one (1) SGA Advisor for the SGA at large, one (1) Class Council Advisor for each council, one (1) Finance advisor for the Committee on Finance, and one (1) Student Organizations Advisor for the Committee on Student Organizations," the bylaws includes.

The seventh article in a previous edition of the bylaws, written in April 2026, features identical text, indicating that the section had been left unchanged when the SGA was drafting new bylaws. The Committee on Student Elections is the student-run organization closely linked with the SGA that oversees elections. Their constitution, like the SGA's, also does not make any mention of advisors.

While the existence and amount of advisors for the organization are made explicit, the bylaws do not define a specific function for the advisors to perform, other than acting as a resource, a term which is not defined in the bylaws.

In regards to SGA members communicating with University administrators or faculty, a Senate bill passed in April discussed guidelines for how to go about initiating communication.

"When requesting meetings or initiating conversations with university administrators via email, the email must have Charles O Norman III … and Tekeya Peterson … CC'ed on it for transparency. This is for transparency alone, and neither Charles nor Tekeya may reprimand or bar a Senator for or from initiating conversations. Additionally, this requirement is waived for any conversations with administrators which are initiated regarding the conduct of LEED."

According to the University, in an email to The News-Letter, the advisor's role is to make sure University policies are being enforced, while at the same time supporting the SGA members in their policy making and outreach work.

"The SGA advisor is a university staff member whose responsibilities include supporting and advising the SGA. The advisor serves in that capacity as part of their university role and provides guidance on university policies, procedures, and resources while supporting the work of SGA's elected student leaders," the University spokesperson wrote.

In addition, multiple members of SGA have discussed their experiences with the role of the SGA advisor in interviews with The News-Letter. One current senator, who wished to remain anonymous under the pseudonym Aiden, expressed their frustration with SGA advisor role.

"When I reach out to departments for meetings or with questions, instead of being able to talk to someone and express student concerns, someone in the department will loop in an advisor and drag out the process for several weeks or even months to schedule a meeting with all parties," Aiden wrote in an email interview with The News-Letter.

Specifically, Aiden shared that they believe the advisor role can make communication between members of the SGA and administration more difficult, and that this function of the advisor role may be intentional.

"I see the advisor role as a way for administration and departments to avoid transparency and open dialogue with actual students. This is by no means a critique of individual advisors, but rather the role as a whole and the way it is used as a buffer between students and the people they need answers from," Aiden wrote.

Another member of SGA, choosing to comment anonymously under the pseudonym Robin, shared generally positive experiences working with SGA advisors, in which they said that advisors would make efforts to connect with senators and support them with any questions they had.

"They get to know each [SGA member] very well and will make personal connections with each one and offer answers to any questions," Robin shared.

Robin also referenced an informal policy where SGA representatives are reminded to cc SGA advisors into emails sent from the members to University administration to ensure visibility, emphasizing that it was not for authorization nor were any member prevented from contacting anyone. The News-Letter was unable to find any information on this in their guiding documents.

Robin clarified that advisors cannot enforce rules on communication for SGA. One SGA member from the 2020-21 Executive Board, choosing to comment under the pseudonym Parker, shared their experience working with the advisors, noting that there were no communication enforcements under their term as well in an email to The News-Letter.

"When I was involved in SGA, advisors offeredto assist in facilitating discussion with University administration if we requested. If we liked, they could make the initial outreach for us when reaching out to a specific member of the University administration and cc us on the email chain. They requested that we cc them on all email communications with members of the University Administration, which we usually complied with to help facilitate a good working relationship but were not required to do," Parker wrote.

During the 2020-2021 term, Parker recalled how the advisors held regular meetings with the Executive Board, which at the time were required by the SGA Constitution, and spoke at GBMs.

Another current SGA representative, choosing to comment under the pseudonym Blake, commented that SGA advisors tend to communicate with administration about SGA-related matters without keeping members informed, which limits avenues for accountability.

"SGA advisors claim they act for the benefit of students and fight on SGA's behalf when they communicate with University Administration. In reality, SGA advisors generally take SGA's communications up the chain and will avoid copying or including SGA members in further communications, so there is no way SGA can evaluate if this is the case," Blake said.

Since the SGA has been an official organization ever since it was established in its current form in 2008, after its renaming from Student Council, the SGA has had an advisor since its founding.

Evan Lazerowitz, who graduated from the University in 2010, provided comment about his experience with his SGA advisor, which he described as somewhat less involved than the experiences of contemporary SGA members.

"In my tenure on student government, our advisor, was very hands off and advised us from behind the scenes, letting students make informed decisions that were free from interference from the SGA advisor," Lazerowitz wrote in an email interview to The News-Letter.

Jazzlyn Fernandez, a senior who currently serves as President of the Senate in SGA, also gave comment on her relationship with advisors, which she framed as helpful, especially in the advisors' ability to connect students with administration and other departments within the University.

"As President of the Senate now, I have found the role of the SGA advisor to take on a new form. We ('we' being the advisor and I) meet weekly to talk about different goals that I have for the Senate, as well as how to best serve the Senators so that they can work on their own initiatives. This meeting is a space where we feel free to have different opinions, and come to understand the different views that we have to best serve the Senate, as well as the Johns Hopkins undergraduate student body. The SGA advisor gives guidance to any Senator or Executive member who requests it, including myself, and provides connections to different administrative bodies so that we may be able to collaborate for the benefit of all students," Fernandez wrote.

Honora Muratori is a News & Features Editor for The News-Letter and Executive Secretary for SGA. She was not involved in the reporting or writing of this article.

Katherine Zhu is a News & Features Editor for The News-Letter and a Student Justice in the Judiciary Board for SGA. She was not involved in the reporting or writing of this article.

UPET, a student-led protein engineering group at Hopkins, has been selected as one of 30 teams worldwide for the top track of an international protein design competition supported by Anthropic and Adaptyv Bio. The so-called "Track 1" is meant "for labs and companies with significant protein design expertise and experts in at least one competition problem area." As a result, UPET received $50,000 in Claude credits, $10,000 in GPU computing resources from Modal and guaranteed experimental testing for dozens of its protein designs.

The group is mentored by Jeffrey Gray, a professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering and principal investigator of the Gray Lab, which researches computational and structural prediction and design involving glycans, membrane proteins and protein crystals.

The protein engineering UPET works on spans a wide range of complex problems. At its most basic level, however, protein engineering involves designing or modifying proteins to perform a desired function.

This could mean altering an existing enzyme so it breaks down materials - such as plastic - more efficiently, developing a protein drug that binds to a viral target or creating an entirely new protein with properties that have not previously existed in nature. In the Anthropic competition, UPET is tasked with designing, among others, intelligent therapeutics for next-generation medicine, including a pH-sensing tumor-specific EGFR binder for the first week.

In an interview with The News-Letter, Jonathan Ouyang, founder and president of UPET, explained the versality of protein engineering, both as a field that allows researchers to both modify existing proteins and design entirely new ones.

"You can either take existing proteins and adapt them, or, increasingly, you can generate proteins de novo, or from scratch," Ouyang explained.

Ouyang had been drawn to protein engineering even before coming to Hopkins because of its potential to improve human health and quality of life.

"When I was going to college, I just wanted to do protein engineering," Ouyang said.

That drive eventually became UPET: a space for undergraduates to simply do protein engineering.UPET is unique in its structure. It differs from a traditional research lab in one important way: students do not need years of prior experience before they can begin contributing.

The structure also creates a fast-paced learning environment that differs from traditional academic work.

Yash Bhargava, UPET's simulation expert, described the pace of the competition in an email interview with The News-Letter.

"One thing I enjoy about UPET is how fast-paced it is. Right now, we're participating in a competition where a new challenge is released every week, requiring a very different approach from traditional academic work. We're pushed to understand a new biological problem, come up with design approaches, test different methods and iterate almost immediately," Bhargava said.

More than half of the organization's members have no previous background in protein design and come from a variety of disciplines, ranging from Cognitive Science to Biophysics. Rather than treating that as a barrier, UPET has made education one of its central priorities.

With an emphasis on democratizing access to protein engineering, Ouyang believes the field is far more accessible than many students assume.

"These are things that are much more accessible than the average person thinks they are," Ouyang said.

Ouyang compared scientific research with activities such as writing or playing music. Students often feel comfortable practicing those activities without asking for permission, he explained, while research can feel as though it requires passing through several institutional gates first.

"You can do real, good work," Ouyang said, "and you don't have to be screened by a lab or be mentored for years."

But Ouyang's ambitions for UPET extend beyond making protein engineering more accessible. He also sees AI fundamentally changing what undergraduate researchers can design.

With support from Anthropic, Ouyang hopes to expand the role of AI in protein design beyond prediction models and models trained on raw data. He envisions using agentic AI systems to oversee multiple aspects of the design process, including reasoning over biological data, interpreting experimental results and proposing how a molecule should be changed next.

Traditionally, scientists examine a structure and decide whether to alter a charged region, introduce a new interaction or mutate particular amino acids. AI systems may increasingly be able to participate in that reasoning process, making protein engineering more efficient.

For Ouyang, the competition is only the beginning. He envisions UPET growing into a hub for original research, patented protein designs and collaborations with Hopkins laboratories to design proteins, and, eventually, into a group capable of hosting a protein design competition of its own.

Before I came to Hopkins, my world was one of gilded excess. Flaky silver high school signs, faded yellow restaurants always boasting about having the "most," old cars with big logos and peeling paint. Coming from a low-income, majority immigrant area meant I was always surrounded by excess. There was an obsession with collection and preservation - take, for example, how I've never seen the back wall of my grandma's garage, despite working away at the pile for 10 summers.

I worry that new Hopkins students overfill their garages, too, overly preoccupied with the idea of "never enough."

I would never blame the freshmen (a year of experience does not amount to much in wisdom). They are promised fanciful positions and opportunities. And for how hard they work, rightfully so! But being overwhelmed with jobs, extracurriculars, internships, research, any pursuit they could dream of, anything new they could try - I think that is a great advantage for those who had more growing up, compared to those who have less. It is advantageous to grow up having more options, to be able to choose.

I say this specifically for people who come from environments like mine: the definition of success was joining everything that my under-resourced high school allowed me to do. We did not ask each other about what organizations we thought were important, only the number. We grew up hoarding belongings; it only made sense to hoard our opportunities, too. I've seen too many students step into the waters of Hopkins and immediately start to drown. Not because they're overwhelmed, but because they choose to be overwhelmed. Perhaps they do not know how to choose, how to commit or how to quit the haphazard things they somewhat love. And in exchange, they lose the depth in what they love the most, what is actually most important to them.

This is not meant to discourage anyone, at any point, from trying new things. I've grown the most through my discovered love for a cappella, something that I would've never dreamt of joining during high school. But there is a difference between having a taste and deciding to swallow the plate. Something that surprised me about Hopkins was the depth of the organizations and commitments that someone could join. It was quite easy to "accidentally" fall into an officer position for the year, into multiple six to eight hour commitments during the first month of school. For those who grew up with choice, it might be easier to distinguish one's wants and needs, what someone could realistically commit to and accomplish. But I argue that for those who see every opportunity at Hopkins as a diamond of equal size, the choice is either too paralyzing or too heavy to cash into the bank. There is no doubt that every student at Hopkins could do absolutely amazing, incredible things. I think the problem will always be the time. Not that we don't have enough, but many of us would choose to fill every overlapping gap in that schedule - the time during which we are meant to live.

Between all of the responsibilities and the preparations for jobs and graduate school, there has to be time to start anew. To be true to ourselves. It took me the entirety of freshman year to realize that I don't have to have it all. I don't have to do it all. Sticking with a few clubs, with a few meaningful things, might just be enough. And it helps the gold shine - the one under the leaf and the plaster, the stickers and the scraps. I remember the last conversation I had before I flew to Hopkins this year was in Joshua Tree, sending off one of my friends to their first year in college. And the greatest message was this: "The hardest, most impressive thing someone can do isn't necessarily what's meant for them."

So slow down. Decide what you want to do, explore different options, create a path of your own. You don't have to see it all now. Take it easy, Blue Jays. You'll accomplish everything you want to and more, I promise.

Andrew Huynh is a sophomore from Garden Grove, Calif. majoring in Neuroscience. His column, "Ad Astra," captures his reflections on modern life and Hopkins as he navigates his transition into adulthood.

SGA invited The News-Letter to call for SGA columnists at their first public GBM on Sept. 1, 2026. During the meeting, The News-Letter emphasized that all articles written by SGA members would feature a disclaimer stating that the opinion expressed solely belongs to the writer, not the entirety of SGA. Following The News-Letter's departure, an SGA staff advisor urged members to consult the Executive Board and an SGA advisor prior to writing for The News-Letter. Multiple SGA members alerted The News-Letter regarding this announcement, citing how the advisor cautioned them about criticizing SGA and University administration.

This alarmed us. The News-Letter is founded upon a commitment to student's free speech, and the possibility for conflicting dialogue to be filtered may prevent the dialogue from occurring altogether. Is the role of administration in SGA to advise the personal expression of every student who also serves as an SGA representative?

On Sept. 10, an SGA member emailed Vice Provost for Student Affairs Rachelle Hernandez, asking for clarification on the administration's stance on SGA expression, especially for public criticism. The next day, The News-Letter requested a formal directive from the SGA Executive Board, which would explicate its policy regarding SGA members' participation with The News-Letter. We did not suggest anything specific to be included in that directive -we simply asked for it to be delivered.

Shortly after these requests, the advisor's initial statement was later redacted by another SGA advisor at the Sept. 15 GBM. The advisor stated that SGA members do not require approval from administration to write for The News-Letter. We noted that "consultation," as stated by the other SGA advisor, and approval are not synonymous. The advisor also encouraged SGA to construct their own policies regarding contributing. We worried how the two contradictory announcements would affect SGA member enthusiasm for contributing to The News-Letter.

On Sept. 29, SGA passed the "JHU SGA Freedom Of Expression Directive," which reiterates and defends the public speech of SGA members. Notable sections regarding administrative input include establishing the lack of a mandatory review by administrative members, encouraging "agreement, disagreement, critique, and commentary on SGA actions, administrative actions, and campus issues." The Directive also offers SGA members the choice of optional feedback from administration.

After the first GBM and prior to the passing of the Directive, we examined SGA's guiding documents, such as the Constitution and Bylaws of the Senate, to analyze the authority and responsibilities SGA advisors and administration hold. On the one hand, the Constitution does not mention the scope of the SGA advisor. On the other hand, the Bylaws of the Senate defined the advisors as "resources when called upon by the SGA." Scattered responsibilities included meeting with SGA members to "develop a strategy for increasing student interest and engagement," dealing with accommodation requests for SGA events and other tasks. There was no mention of overseeing SGA member speech.

While reflecting on the role of the University administration in monitoring student organizations, we realized that the reverse also merited contemplation. To borrow the syntax shared by the University President Ronald J. Daniels in the title of his co-authored book What Universities Owe Democracy, what do student organizations, particularly ones central to student expression such as SGA, owe to the University administration?

In the first pages of his book, Daniels affirms all institutions' aversion to change, especially in moments of uncertainty. "This is especially the case for colleges and universities," Daniels writes. However, Daniels also notes that "within such institutions, meaningful transformation becomes truly possible only during periods of change and profound uncertainty. Economists call these 'critical junctures.'"

It seems the University itself would appear to be at such a "critical juncture." We recognize that higher education is currently facing scrutiny from the federal government, particularly in securing federal funding and navigating new higher education frameworks. Regarding the mention of "meaningful transformation," we believe that student organizations, especially SGA, have the potential to advocate for institutional changes to administration.

We are strongly aware of SGA's importance on campus; they are the only organization that can directly connect University administration with student concerns, compromise on fair, lasting changes through legislation and establish the groundwork for administration's external oversight. This is precisely what SGA owes to University administration. For SGA to continue bridging students to administration, it must still listen and communicate to students on its own accord, uninfluenced by any administrative pressure in the process. Moreover, if student representatives or entire organizations themselves become prone to routine self-censorship, who's to say that this habit, rooted in fear, will not spread to the greater student body and become engrained in student culture?

We support SGA's commitment to maintaining free speech internally, but we are aware that, even in this newly passed Directive, the role of administration in SGA expression is solely defined by what they cannot do, rather than what they can. The role of Hopkins administration in SGA should be clearly defined in its guiding documents and be adhered to so that student leaders, and the student body as a whole, can distinguish between fair administrative guidance and restriction on student voices.

Now, SGA must continue meticulously outlining and protecting their free expression, and University administration should uphold its expressed commitment to let SGA internally decide how to manage its oversight for external publication. To SGA members: The News-Letter will continue to report on and preserve your progress. Now, we hope you feel welcome to do the same.

The Editorial Board consists of the Editors-in-Chief, the Managing Editors, the Opinions Editor, and one Editor-at-Large from any section other than News & Features. The Editorial Board operates independently from the reporting conducted by the News & Features section.

Hopkins Symphony Orchestra is composed of the Symphonic Orchestra, which is led by Music Director Jed Gaylin, and the Concert Orchestra, led by Blair Skinner. The Symphonic Orchestra is the organization's big ensemble orchestra, with around 130 members. The Concert Orchestra, by contrast, is a string-only ensemble with only around 40 to 50 members.

In an interview with The News-Letter, HSO General Manager Marcie Kolacki explained that the Concert Orchestra allows musicians to develop their skills while still performing at a high level.

"Consider the concert orchestra… [it's] not quite a training level ensemble, but… it's a place [for musicians] to develop their skills," Kolacki said. "That's a really good place to do it, especially for string players because this is really like one of the only places for string ensembles to happen on campus."

HSO has been in operation since 1981, and some community members have been members since the very beginning. According to Jed Gaylin, who has served as the Music Director for HSO for the last 35 years, the combination of these more experienced community members with Hopkins students is very effective for HSO.

"The community members bring experience. The student musicians bring the zeal of playing this piece for the first time. They're up on their game, they've been practicing and winning competitions in high school," Gaylin said. "The combination is really very… generative. I mean, it sort of keeps that engine just perking along."

Over the last 35 years in his role, Gaylin has noticed a distinct shift in the makeup of the orchestra. When it was first founded, HSO was more geared towards the community aspect, with far more of the members being Baltimore City residents.

However, today, a higher portion of HSO is made up of Hopkins students.

"We have a real mix of experience, different levels, like a lot of different backgrounds, and it's just a really cool way to bring everyone together," Kolacki said. "It's a great community. I just feel like I was very embraced right from the beginning, and we have a lot of members that have been here since the orchestra was founded in 1981."

Regardless of their position in HSO, involvement with the organization has been cited as very rewarding and beneficial experience for participants. Even those not playing an instrument in HSO are able to benefit from what HSO brings, such as sophomore Cleo Wang, a stage manager with HSO since January. Wang and other stage managers are involved in ensuring that rehearsals and performance operate without error. They set up, take down the stage and deal with any unplanned problems.

"Just being able to be here for the concert and… make sure everything's…. running smoothly, it's super fun and… really rewarding," Wang said.

For others, HSO and playing music offers a release from the stresses of everyday life. First-year graduate student and HSO cellist Micheal Chung, a student in the University's CBID program in biomedical engineering, highlighted how music has become his escape from the stressors of his graduate program.

"It's very intense. So music is kind of my break from that," Chung said.

For student musicians, HSO also provides an opportunity to build connections and friendships with other musicians outside of their academic work.

Allison Lee, a sophomore violinist in HSO, agrees that HSO has helped decrease her stress.

"I get to de-stress and it's a fun way to connect with other people and to socialize through having a common goal, which is making good music," Lee said.

Chung also noted the importance of music as a universal connector.

"I feel like music's kind of a universal language," he said. "We all came here to play great music, and I think just having all the different instrument sounds, everyone kind of working together to make something…. really beautiful that's meant to be shared. There's just something about it that I really enjoy."

Every year, auditions for HSO are held in the fall. Candidates are expected to come prepared with two contrasting performance-ready pieces, and they are given ten minutes to present their pieces. Kolacki emphasized the importance of making this process as low-stakes as possible.

"It's really, really scary to walk into a room and play your instrument for strangers. One of the really scary things about being a classical musician is auditioning," she said. "We try to keep it as friendly of an environment as possible and make people feel welcome."

Kolacki also noted that HSO aims to keep the organization as open as possible. With HSO being a community orchestra, she believes it should accept as many people as possible taking capacity into consideration. The fact that HSO is split into two different ensembles makes this goal easier to implement. Additionally, once someone is accepted into HSO, they will not have to re-audition in future years.

HSO is having their first performance on Saturday, Oct. 10 at 7:30 PM in Shriver Hall. The performance, which is titled Northern Pastorals, centers around themes of change and adapting to a new environment. As with all HSO events, the performance will be free to all Hopkins students.