Kelly Anderson

Mizanur Rahman, 47, has been going to East Potomac Park three times a week since losing his job in March due to the pandemic. There, instead of watching planes land at Reagan National Airport, as many visitors do, he angles for catfish in the Washington Channel with three different rods. “If I get a big enough fish, I take [it] home and then we cook,” says Rahman, who emigrated to D.C from Bangladesh. He says he turned to fishing over the spring to help feed his three children and spend time outdoors. “We have a lot of fish in my country, so I enjoy the fish — all of them,” Rahman says. Rahman is among various area residents who’ve taken up fishing during the pandemic, whether as first-timers or return fishers. It’s let them get out of the house while complying with social-distancing guidelines and, at least for now, seems to be growing in popularity, according to local fishing businesses and environmental experts. Sometimes, as Rahman well knows, it even results in dinner. Upper North...

 The community dining room shut down. The café closed its doors. During the COVID-19 quarantine, residents at a Pennsylvania retirement community got all their meals delivered to their doorsteps, where they ate at home on their own to prevent a virus outbreak. The coronavirus put a stop to socializing around meals at The Hill at Whitemarsh in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania. But executive chef Adam Ochs dreamed up the idea for a meal-kit service that could help residents prepare restaurant-quality food in their home kitchens and continue to feel engaged with their community. Calling it “Green Apron” as a play on the popular Blue Apron meal-kit delivery service, Ochs put together boxes of premeasured ingredients and instructional videos to help residents navigate broiling, dicing and sautéing. The July offering featured broiled halibut with green tomato salsa, mango-stuffed crepes and homemade granola. The goal was to provide residents with an activity to do at home, while still having...

Georgetown University students launched a petition demanding the university divest its endowment from companies associated with the prison industrial complex Aug. 3. The petition, which has gathered 638 signatures as of Aug. 6, was drafted by leaders of the Georgetown University Prison Divestment Campaign, a student-led group advocating for greater transparency from university endowment managers to promote ethical investments. The campaign builds off of a student-led initiative in 2017 that resulted in the university’s board of directors agreeing not to invest in private prison companies.  The petition asks the university to compile a report on the progress of the 2017 divestment pledge. It also calls on the university to divest from companies that use exploitative prison labor in their supply chains, as well as from corporations with business contracts that control prison necessities.  The petition presents concrete demands that will help further the university’s commitment t...

After her husband and daughter both contracted the coronavirus in March, Lynda Better, 66, knew she could no longer risk grocery shopping. "I'm a senior and I have asthma, so I really can't go out to the stores,” Better says. “My husband's already had [COVID-19], so I'm just kind of scared." Fortunately for Better, who lives in San Diego, a volunteer delivery service called Teens Helping Seniors is making sure at-risk populations can stay at home while obtaining food and other critical resources. The organization, started by high school classmates Dhruv Pai, 16, and Matt Casertano, 15, in Montgomery County, Maryland, connects volunteers with nearby seniors to deliver groceries and medication free of charge. "I didn't really want my grandparents to have to go out and go to grocery stores and be in contact with a lot of people,” Pai says. “I thought, What if I can kind of be the intermediary so they don't have to put themselves at risk?" Grocer...

The Georgetown University Student Association Senate passed a resolution urging Georgetown University to increase the number of employment opportunities available to students with Federal Work-Study awards during the upcoming fall semester. The senate resolution aims to help low-income and first-generation students receiving financial aid through the Federal Work-Study Program find jobs despite the reduction in employment opportunities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Common Georgetown work-study employers, such as the Student Guard Office and Residence Hall Offices, have substantially reduced hiring for the summer sessions, according to the resolution.  Work-study positions are critical for students on financial aid, according to GUSA Senator Rowlie John Flores (COL ’22). “These Federal Work-Study positions are not only a source of income but also a source of relevant work experience for a lot of low-income people, especially those who can’t really afford to have an unpaid interns...

Georgetown University student activists have renewed their effort to implement a reconciliation fee for descendants of the GU272 as the university commemorated its first official Juneteenth observance. University President John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95) officially designated June 19 a university holiday amid ongoing protests against racial injustice and a national reckoning about racism. Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day, commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers informed more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in Texas of their emancipation. The date marks the official end of enslavement in the United States more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The holiday was originally created by freed people in Texas in 1866 and is now officially recognized by 47 states, though it has yet to be established as a national holiday.  Georgetown played an active role in the enslavement and exploitation of Black people. On June 19, 1838 — exactly 1...

Hundreds of Georgetown University students signed a petition calling on the university to use its campus spaces as a sanctuary for protesters amid ongoing nationwide demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice. Washington, D.C., has become a focal point of national unrest provoked by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer. Protests in the District entered their third week on Saturday as protesters sustain their push for drastic policing reforms and a broader reckoning about racial inequity in the United States. Black Lives Matter protesters have gathered in the Georgetown neighborhood over the past two weeks, but there have been no reports of protests on campus. The Metropolitan Police Department and other law enforcement agencies operating in the District have used tear gas, batons and rubber bullets to disperse peacefully gathered crowds. In some cases, local residents have housed protesters being pursued by police officers....

The Georgetown University Student Association Senate passed a resolution calling for Georgetown University to reduce its contracts with the Metropolitan Police Department. The June 7 vote follows more than a week of demonstrations across the country in response to the murder of George Floyd on May 25. Floyd’s death, a recent incident in a long history of police abuse against the Black community, has reinvigorated calls for policing reforms.  The resolution, approved by a 14-5 vote count with one abstention, was introduced by GUSA Senator Leo Teixeira (COL ’21). Teixeira told the senate he hopes the proposal will encourage university administrators to prioritize the safety and well-being of Black students and other at-risk groups in the wake of murders committed by police officers against Black people. “There are likely individuals in every single one of our constituencies to whom having MPD on campus patrolling our university and space is a danger, and it makes them feel unsa...

Georgetown University students in professor Marc Howard’s “Prison Reform Project” class have released documentaries detailing the cases of incarcerated men who the students argue were wrongfully convicted. Howard co-teaches “Prison Reform Project” with adjunct professor Martin Tankleff, a childhood friend who was exonerated after serving almost 18 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction. For the past three years, the class has taken on several cases of wrongful convictions and created documentaries to prove innocence and aid in exoneration as a part of the “Making an Exoneree” project. Two of the five documentaries that have been released as of June 1 analyze the cases of Jermane Scott, who is serving a life sentence without parole in the Mansfield Correctional Institution in Ohio, and Edward Martinez, who is serving a 55-year sentence at the United States Penitentiary, Beaumont in Texas. The students claim both men were wrongfully convicted. Students Darcy Palder (COL ’...

The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of the challenges posed by globalization, waning U.S. leadership and the ineptitude of the Trump administration, Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said in a virtual event April 28. The conversation, titled “American Leadership During Times of Crisis: A Conversation with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah),” was hosted over Zoom by the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service and co-sponsored by Georgetown University College Republicans and the Georgetown Bipartisan Coalition. GU Politics Executive Director Mo Elleithee (SFS ’94) moderated the event, which centered on the challenges facing policymakers in a global health crisis. While the Trump administration should be criticized for the United States’ lack of personal protective equipment and testing for COVID-19, the country’s unpreparedness also stems from the long-term diminishing influence of U.S. foreign policy, according to Romney. “That first phase was not one that will stand out as be...