The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Board of Elections has recently disqualified Nyssa Tucker after a second lawsuit was filed. On Friday, Leah Frazier was named the 2025-2026 Graduate and Professional Student Government president. After receiving about 70 percent of the votes during the election, Tucker decided to file a second lawsuit against the Board of Elections. March 5th is the first time Tucker filed a complaint, saying they were unfairly denied access to petition signature updates and said the board had broken rules by allowing other candidates to collect signatures past deadlines. While the case was reviewed, the election was delayed indefinitely and the BOE was forced to disclose information pertaining to signature collections. The court denied Tucker’s claim about failure for real-time updates being unconstitutional, and the clause was an emergency failsafe. A recent meeting this past Friday led to a motion to disqualify Tucker and passed in a tie breaking vote by Elias North, acting BOE chair. This past Monday is when Tucker filed a second complaint against the BOE saying the board had knowledge of these election outcomes and knowingly disqualified them. They have since been disqualified, and Presidential-elect Leah Frazier has no comment.
A protest was held on Polk Place in unity with Leqaa Kordia and Mahmoud Khalil. Over 150 students, faculty and community members had gathered at Polk Place this past Wednesday. Two pro-Palestinian activists from Columbia University named Leqaa Kordia and Mahmoud Khalil were the center of the protest. The Pro-Palestinian demonstrators from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill campus expressed their deep opposition for the two Columbia University students. They were recently arrested by federal immigration authorities after the United States’ response to the Israel-Palestinian war. An Instagram post sharing a flyer for the protest has gone viral. The creators of the post include UNC Students for Justice in Palestine, UNC Mixed Asian/Pacific Islander Students’ Heritage Club, Duke Jewish Solidarity Movement, Young Democratic Socialists of America at N.C. State University, and Triangle N.C. Jewish Voice for Peace and TransparUNCy. Even as a green card holder, Khalil was still arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a legal resident of the United States. UNC students hope this protest will bring light to those wrongly arrested.
Penn Faculty Criticize Trump’s Attacks on Higher Education
In a recent piece, Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives at Penn, criticized President Trump’s (1968 Wharton graduate) administration’s actions against higher education.
Penn professors David Asch and Jonathan Zimmerman, Penn Associate Vice Provost for Global Initiatives Amy Gadsden, and Dean Katharine Strunk of the Penn Graduate School of Education were among the nearly two dozen faculty members who co-signed the March 27 guest essay that was published in The New Republic. The essay was written in partnership with Princeton professor Julian Zelizer.
The piece said that Trump’s “myriad” attacks will “undercut their funding and trample their independence” and referred to the Trump administration’s efforts as “a war on all higher education.” Emanuel and Zelizer said that for higher education to continue to make “important, ongoing contributions to the economy, science, knowledge, and citizenship,” its institutions must “collaborate” with the government.
“America’s colleges and universities make America great. They drive innovation, prosperity, national security, and social mobility,” the article read.
The op-ed also called on university instructors to do a “better job” of expressing that higher education is a public good, as the public “often forgets” the benefits of college outside of raising individuals’ incomes, Strunk said in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
“If I could ask my colleagues in higher education across the country to do one thing, it would be to spend more time explaining why colleges and universities are important for our society, our democracy, and for the world,” Strunk wrote.
Emanuel and the other Penn faculty members co-signed the piece were contacted for comment.
The piece outlined a series of arguments asserting that Trump’s “war” on colleges and universities would affect “every sector of our economy in every state, every American regardless of their politics or whether they work for a university, and the very fabric of our society.”
According to Emanuel and Zelizer, there would be “vast” repercussions if higher education “falters” because researchers, investors, and businesses will relocate their capital and expertise. The two also contended that higher education is the “eighth-largest” export from the United States and that American colleges “attract” brilliant students from around the globe.
“Through operations, employee payroll, capital improvements, student, alumni, and visitor spending, the University of Pennsylvania contributes over $37 billion to the southeastern Pennsylvania economy, including $547 million in tax revenue to Philadelphia,” the article read.
The article also claimed that civic engagement and higher education are directly related, pointing out that college graduates are more likely than their non-college-educated peers to vote, be involved in volunteer and community organizations, and donate “three times more to charity.”
Emanuel and Zelizer claim that students can gain far more from a college education than financial success.
“College fosters a transition to adulthood. By exposing students to new ideas and information, colleges challenge them to deeply self-reflect on their identities and inherited values and expand their sense of the world and its possibilities. Sharing this process with their peers fosters lifelong friendships, essential to a healthy and fulfilling life,” they wrote.
The authors acknowledged that colleges and universities are “far from perfect. ” They stated that universities needed to “dismantle restrictions” on free speech and consider ways to “adapt education to twenty-first-century technologies.”
However, they insisted that the “denigration and destruction” of American colleges is not the path to success.
“It’s vital that the public does not lose sight of our important, ongoing contributions to the economy, science, knowledge, and citizenship. This is no time to sit silently as these cherished institutions, the envy of the world, are under dire threat,” Strunk wrote.
**************
Penn Dems Host Scanlon to Discuss Key Political Issues
The purpose of the group’s promoting speakers like Scanlon, according to Penn Dems Vice President and first-year college student Tejas Bhatia, told The Daily Pennsylvanian, is to help people better understand the changes coming from Washington.
“I think the mission was successful because she really touched on a lot of things that students care about from issues like immigration to funding cuts,” Bhatia said. “There are things that are important, and students need to be aware of them, and we’re glad this is a space where students can learn.”
Scanlon started by summarizing the events of the previous week in Pennsylvania and Congress. She then discussed the Republican-led SAVE Act, which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship at the time of registration.
Scanlon also discussed the recent state Senate election in Pennsylvania, where Democrats captured a traditionally Republican seat in an area that U.S. President Donald Trump, a 1968 Wharton alumnus, won by 15 points last autumn.
“There’s a very narrow margin in the state Senate that Republicans control,” Scanlon said. “But we got one vote closer last night, so getting that little ray of sunshine had people pretty excited.”
When asked about changes to education spending, Scanlon highlighted the negative impact these cuts would have on Philadelphia’s already underfunded schools. She emphasized how crucial Title I funding is for public schools, pointing out that Philadelphia would lose about 5,000 teachers if reduced.
In response to these threats to education, Scanlon urged students and community members to speak out.
“We’re trying to help people understand it’s not about faceless bureaucrats in D.C.,” she said. “We’re seeing when people do speak up forcefully and contact their representatives, we’re getting some pushback and some retreat from these positions.”
For example, as part of a Penn Dems effort to encourage relationships between club members and the local government, the club set up a phone bank following Scanlon’s speech. During this time, members called representatives of the local government to urge them against cuts to education funding.
Scanlon discussed immigration as she concluded her comments, emphasizing her work to protect the large Venezuelan community in her district.
“The rest of the world has figured out that we need immigrants,” Scanlon said. “I’d like to see comprehensive immigration reforms because I believe we can have safe borders and humane policy.”
In an effort to clarify any misunderstandings and concerns about political changes, the Penn Democrats informed the DP that they want to keep inviting elected officials to speak at their meetings.
“I think a lot of people don’t have a lot of hope in the government right now,” Bhatia said. “So the opportunity to ask candid, open-ended questions to elected officials lets you get out all your fears and anxieties about political and social issues.”
Scanlon made her most recent visit to Penn in October 2024, when she attended a tabling event organized by the Penn Democrats. There, she urged young people on campus to support former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Food insecurity is an uncomfortable reality to live in, and unfortunatley its the reality for over a quarter of ASU students (26%). This is especially challenging for college students as they attempt to navigate their course loads as well as possible athletic obligations. Luckily, the student run organization “Pitchfork Pantry” aims to fight food insecurity of ASU students. Abby Noel is the co- director of the Pitchfork Pantry, and she provides insight on just how damaging food insecurity is “Food insecurity is directly linked to your mental health, your capacity for stability, not only on a personal, individual level, but also on an academic level”. The pantry faces challanges of its own however, as it struggles to gain support from the University itself. “A lot of our conversations have identified that ASU does not like the idea of using a food pantry to counter food insecurity,” Noel said. “They would prefer to go through quote unquote ‘more innovative’ means.” This is discouraing for all involved, and in need of the pantry. However they wont stop their fight to end food insecurity at ASU. Noel states; “Food is used as a measure of protest, food is used as a measure of war — from food shortages to food aid — and a smaller organization like ours, we use food as a measure of community engagement and community support. It’s a way for us to support the people around us, and not only better an individual’s life, but to improve the overall health of our community.”
Boom! Crash! ASU club strikes down concerns about the future of comic books
Despite the increasingly consumable digital world of stories and writing, groups of comic book buffs refuse to let the very popular form of stories die. The Comic Book Club at ASU is certainly one of these groups. The Club meets every Tuesday at 4:30 Pm to discuss characters, the universes they inhabit, and new stories. Passion for these books runs deep for President of the Club Jaden Boughton; “For me personally, comics have always been kind of an escape, I just wanted to see people have fun, make friends, to kind of take a break from school because sometimes things can get very demanding.” The Club also dives into other art forms within comic books, one of which being Manga. Co- President Kevin Cruz finds Manga to be his forte “I feel like I’m contributing to someone’s artwork, to someone’s livelihood”, “That’s what makes it special”. One of the broad topics the Club discusses is comic books place in modern media. As they reflect on the changing industry and audience of comic books. Boughton reflects on these changes “The way that comics are written now is different than the way they used to be written,” Boughton said. “They used to be more compressed and now more people appreciate cinematic touches to (the books)”.
11 thoughts on “BLOG-PROJ WEEK 8”
https://jstevens20.uneportfolio.org/blog-proj/
https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2025/03/sp-grad-student-elections
The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Board of Elections has recently disqualified Nyssa Tucker after a second lawsuit was filed. On Friday, Leah Frazier was named the 2025-2026 Graduate and Professional Student Government president. After receiving about 70 percent of the votes during the election, Tucker decided to file a second lawsuit against the Board of Elections. March 5th is the first time Tucker filed a complaint, saying they were unfairly denied access to petition signature updates and said the board had broken rules by allowing other candidates to collect signatures past deadlines. While the case was reviewed, the election was delayed indefinitely and the BOE was forced to disclose information pertaining to signature collections. The court denied Tucker’s claim about failure for real-time updates being unconstitutional, and the clause was an emergency failsafe. A recent meeting this past Friday led to a motion to disqualify Tucker and passed in a tie breaking vote by Elias North, acting BOE chair. This past Monday is when Tucker filed a second complaint against the BOE saying the board had knowledge of these election outcomes and knowingly disqualified them. They have since been disqualified, and Presidential-elect Leah Frazier has no comment.
https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2025/03/unc-mahmoud-khalil-protest-brief
A protest was held on Polk Place in unity with Leqaa Kordia and Mahmoud Khalil. Over 150 students, faculty and community members had gathered at Polk Place this past Wednesday. Two pro-Palestinian activists from Columbia University named Leqaa Kordia and Mahmoud Khalil were the center of the protest. The Pro-Palestinian demonstrators from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill campus expressed their deep opposition for the two Columbia University students. They were recently arrested by federal immigration authorities after the United States’ response to the Israel-Palestinian war. An Instagram post sharing a flyer for the protest has gone viral. The creators of the post include UNC Students for Justice in Palestine, UNC Mixed Asian/Pacific Islander Students’ Heritage Club, Duke Jewish Solidarity Movement, Young Democratic Socialists of America at N.C. State University, and Triangle N.C. Jewish Voice for Peace and TransparUNCy. Even as a green card holder, Khalil was still arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a legal resident of the United States. UNC students hope this protest will bring light to those wrongly arrested.
Link to my page: https://ehuggins.uneportfolio.org/blog-proj-week-8/
https://sbishop9.uneportfolio.org/week-8/
https://qraducha.uneportfolio.org/blog-proj-8/
https://ndegreenia.uneportfolio.org/blog-proj/
https://wchandler.uneportfolio.org/2025/03/31/blog-pros-8/
Penn Faculty Criticize Trump’s Attacks on Higher Education
In a recent piece, Ezekiel Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives at Penn, criticized President Trump’s (1968 Wharton graduate) administration’s actions against higher education.
Penn professors David Asch and Jonathan Zimmerman, Penn Associate Vice Provost for Global Initiatives Amy Gadsden, and Dean Katharine Strunk of the Penn Graduate School of Education were among the nearly two dozen faculty members who co-signed the March 27 guest essay that was published in The New Republic. The essay was written in partnership with Princeton professor Julian Zelizer.
The piece said that Trump’s “myriad” attacks will “undercut their funding and trample their independence” and referred to the Trump administration’s efforts as “a war on all higher education.” Emanuel and Zelizer said that for higher education to continue to make “important, ongoing contributions to the economy, science, knowledge, and citizenship,” its institutions must “collaborate” with the government.
“America’s colleges and universities make America great. They drive innovation, prosperity, national security, and social mobility,” the article read.
The op-ed also called on university instructors to do a “better job” of expressing that higher education is a public good, as the public “often forgets” the benefits of college outside of raising individuals’ incomes, Strunk said in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian.
“If I could ask my colleagues in higher education across the country to do one thing, it would be to spend more time explaining why colleges and universities are important for our society, our democracy, and for the world,” Strunk wrote.
Emanuel and the other Penn faculty members co-signed the piece were contacted for comment.
The piece outlined a series of arguments asserting that Trump’s “war” on colleges and universities would affect “every sector of our economy in every state, every American regardless of their politics or whether they work for a university, and the very fabric of our society.”
According to Emanuel and Zelizer, there would be “vast” repercussions if higher education “falters” because researchers, investors, and businesses will relocate their capital and expertise. The two also contended that higher education is the “eighth-largest” export from the United States and that American colleges “attract” brilliant students from around the globe.
“Through operations, employee payroll, capital improvements, student, alumni, and visitor spending, the University of Pennsylvania contributes over $37 billion to the southeastern Pennsylvania economy, including $547 million in tax revenue to Philadelphia,” the article read.
The article also claimed that civic engagement and higher education are directly related, pointing out that college graduates are more likely than their non-college-educated peers to vote, be involved in volunteer and community organizations, and donate “three times more to charity.”
Emanuel and Zelizer claim that students can gain far more from a college education than financial success.
“College fosters a transition to adulthood. By exposing students to new ideas and information, colleges challenge them to deeply self-reflect on their identities and inherited values and expand their sense of the world and its possibilities. Sharing this process with their peers fosters lifelong friendships, essential to a healthy and fulfilling life,” they wrote.
The authors acknowledged that colleges and universities are “far from perfect. ” They stated that universities needed to “dismantle restrictions” on free speech and consider ways to “adapt education to twenty-first-century technologies.”
However, they insisted that the “denigration and destruction” of American colleges is not the path to success.
“It’s vital that the public does not lose sight of our important, ongoing contributions to the economy, science, knowledge, and citizenship. This is no time to sit silently as these cherished institutions, the envy of the world, are under dire threat,” Strunk wrote.
**************
Penn Dems Host Scanlon to Discuss Key Political Issues
The purpose of the group’s promoting speakers like Scanlon, according to Penn Dems Vice President and first-year college student Tejas Bhatia, told The Daily Pennsylvanian, is to help people better understand the changes coming from Washington.
“I think the mission was successful because she really touched on a lot of things that students care about from issues like immigration to funding cuts,” Bhatia said. “There are things that are important, and students need to be aware of them, and we’re glad this is a space where students can learn.”
Scanlon started by summarizing the events of the previous week in Pennsylvania and Congress. She then discussed the Republican-led SAVE Act, which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship at the time of registration.
Scanlon also discussed the recent state Senate election in Pennsylvania, where Democrats captured a traditionally Republican seat in an area that U.S. President Donald Trump, a 1968 Wharton alumnus, won by 15 points last autumn.
“There’s a very narrow margin in the state Senate that Republicans control,” Scanlon said. “But we got one vote closer last night, so getting that little ray of sunshine had people pretty excited.”
When asked about changes to education spending, Scanlon highlighted the negative impact these cuts would have on Philadelphia’s already underfunded schools. She emphasized how crucial Title I funding is for public schools, pointing out that Philadelphia would lose about 5,000 teachers if reduced.
In response to these threats to education, Scanlon urged students and community members to speak out.
“We’re trying to help people understand it’s not about faceless bureaucrats in D.C.,” she said. “We’re seeing when people do speak up forcefully and contact their representatives, we’re getting some pushback and some retreat from these positions.”
For example, as part of a Penn Dems effort to encourage relationships between club members and the local government, the club set up a phone bank following Scanlon’s speech. During this time, members called representatives of the local government to urge them against cuts to education funding.
Scanlon discussed immigration as she concluded her comments, emphasizing her work to protect the large Venezuelan community in her district.
“The rest of the world has figured out that we need immigrants,” Scanlon said. “I’d like to see comprehensive immigration reforms because I believe we can have safe borders and humane policy.”
In an effort to clarify any misunderstandings and concerns about political changes, the Penn Democrats informed the DP that they want to keep inviting elected officials to speak at their meetings.
“I think a lot of people don’t have a lot of hope in the government right now,” Bhatia said. “So the opportunity to ask candid, open-ended questions to elected officials lets you get out all your fears and anxieties about political and social issues.”
Scanlon made her most recent visit to Penn in October 2024, when she attended a tabling event organized by the Penn Democrats. There, she urged young people on campus to support former Vice President Kamala Harris.
BLOG PROJ 8
‘You can’t innovate on an empty stomach’
https://www.statepress.com/article/2025/03/magazine-cant-innovate-empty-stomach
Food insecurity is an uncomfortable reality to live in, and unfortunatley its the reality for over a quarter of ASU students (26%). This is especially challenging for college students as they attempt to navigate their course loads as well as possible athletic obligations. Luckily, the student run organization “Pitchfork Pantry” aims to fight food insecurity of ASU students. Abby Noel is the co- director of the Pitchfork Pantry, and she provides insight on just how damaging food insecurity is “Food insecurity is directly linked to your mental health, your capacity for stability, not only on a personal, individual level, but also on an academic level”. The pantry faces challanges of its own however, as it struggles to gain support from the University itself. “A lot of our conversations have identified that ASU does not like the idea of using a food pantry to counter food insecurity,” Noel said. “They would prefer to go through quote unquote ‘more innovative’ means.” This is discouraing for all involved, and in need of the pantry. However they wont stop their fight to end food insecurity at ASU. Noel states; “Food is used as a measure of protest, food is used as a measure of war — from food shortages to food aid — and a smaller organization like ours, we use food as a measure of community engagement and community support. It’s a way for us to support the people around us, and not only better an individual’s life, but to improve the overall health of our community.”
Boom! Crash! ASU club strikes down concerns about the future of comic books
https://www.statepress.com/article/2025/03/comic-book-club-profile
Despite the increasingly consumable digital world of stories and writing, groups of comic book buffs refuse to let the very popular form of stories die. The Comic Book Club at ASU is certainly one of these groups. The Club meets every Tuesday at 4:30 Pm to discuss characters, the universes they inhabit, and new stories. Passion for these books runs deep for President of the Club Jaden Boughton; “For me personally, comics have always been kind of an escape, I just wanted to see people have fun, make friends, to kind of take a break from school because sometimes things can get very demanding.” The Club also dives into other art forms within comic books, one of which being Manga. Co- President Kevin Cruz finds Manga to be his forte “I feel like I’m contributing to someone’s artwork, to someone’s livelihood”, “That’s what makes it special”. One of the broad topics the Club discusses is comic books place in modern media. As they reflect on the changing industry and audience of comic books. Boughton reflects on these changes “The way that comics are written now is different than the way they used to be written,” Boughton said. “They used to be more compressed and now more people appreciate cinematic touches to (the books)”.
https://mmcdermott7.uneportfolio.org/week-8/
https://akeizer.uneportfolio.org/2025/04/05/blog-proj-8/
https://cstickney.uneportfolio.org/blog-proj/