On Friday Oct. 14, around 11 p.m., Josh Fader, a Drexel University sophomore architecture major, was held on 33rd and Market St. by a masked man attempting to rob him. Walking to his apartment in Chestnut Square from the architecture studio in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, Fader reported a man of his equal height walking up to him and being in his face, asking for a dollar. 

Fader replied, “‘No, I don’t have anything… I’m just trying to go home.’” 

The man replied, “‘If you don’t give me a dollar right now, I’m going to smoke you.’” 

With other pedestrians walking on the street and buying food at the halal carts, Fader was surprised by this man’s claim to shoot him. 

“It didn’t make any sense… it seemed like such a public place… it’s not like he cornered me in an alley,” Fader said. 

The man kept reiterating his threat, saying “‘Give me your wallet now’” and “‘I’m gonna pop you.’” Soon, he started counting down from ten, “slowly reaching his hand down his pants like he’s going to pull out a weapon,” Fader recalled. 

“And eventually he just said, ‘Just forget it, just go home,’ and then he walked away from me… he walked back toward the halal carts and looked like he was going to ask them for stuff,” Fader said. 

Leaving the area, Fader immediately informed his peers that frequently worked all hours of the night in the architecture studio of the incident. 

“That was my thought, like I was fine but… maybe somebody else would react differently,” Fader explained.

Fader’s experience is just one of several instances of robberies occurring on campus in recent days. There has been an uptick of Drexel Alerts this last week, raising concerns of campus safety for students, faculty and administration. 

According to Drexel’s Daily Crime Log and Fire Report, there have been eight reported cases of robbery and seven reported cases of theft within the past week–since Friday, Oct. 14, the same day of Fader’s incident. These included several cases of theft from Wawa located on the corner of Market St. and 34th St. and incidents of stolen bicycles and scooters. The reported robberies, in which a threat or force was used, range from victims walking outside on Market St. to the Plaza Artist Materials & Picture Framing shop on Chestnut St. 

On Monday, Oct. 17, Drexel President John Fry released a statement regarding public safety, specifically addressing students’ concerns with gun violence. In his statement, Fry wrote that more dispatchers and officers have been hired and sworn in to increase patrol. The following day, another statement was issued in response to communications with Drexel parents. In the statement, President Fry reiterated the content of his previous message in more detail. Later that evening, a “timely warning” was issued to the Drexel community regarding the recent robberies. The statement provided a description of the offender and a range of when and where the robberies took place. Since then, there has been no update if the offender has been caught.

While students are encouraged to call the Public Safety walking escorts, Fader felt the safety measure was ineffective. 

“I think escorts are a good thing but they need to be more efficient about that,” Fader proposed. 

After the incident, Fader feels differently walking around on campus.

“I don’t walk… the same route I used to because I don’t want to go past the DAC because that’s where the crime has been happening…” Fader said. “Now I’m feeling more on edge.” 

While President Fry said the investments into Drexel’s Police “are part of a long-term plan for restoring a sense of safety throughout our campus and neighborhoods,” it is unclear at this point what those measures will look like and how they will help reduce crime on campus. 

In the case of an emergency, students can reach Drexel’s Public Safety and Drexel Police by calling 215.895.2222. For more information on how to stay safe on campus, read our latest article, “Ten public safety tips and resources for Drexel students.” 

On Monday, Oct. 10 at 12 p.m., Drexel University’s Indigenous Students of the Americas (DISA) organized the first Indigenous Peoples Day celebration at the university. Held at Skyview Lounge in Macalister Hall, the event featured guest speakers, food, music, performances and more. 

Indigenous Peoples Day has a short history at Drexel, only becoming an official university holiday in 2020 along with Juneteenth. Drexel Indigenous Students of the Americas is also a relatively new organization on campus, founded in March 2020 by co-founders Sky Harper and Raquel Ramos.  

“We just knew that with the nation and Drexel switching over from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day, it’s really important for this organization to have an event, to start something at Drexel that will be done annually,” said Ramos, a senior health sciences major, “Drexel doesn’t have an Indigenous Peoples Day event and we want a day with people of all indigenous cultures or allies to come and really feel the safe space, really be true to themselves and their culture and kind of just share [the space] with everyone.” 

Though DISA organized the event itself, it was sponsored by the Student Center for Diversity and Inclusion (SCDI), the Lindy Center and the Westphal BRIDGE Scholars Program. 

“It’s a big event, so that means a lot of funding. We really wanted to find guest speakers, more than just who’s on the board for the org, so we have a couple of professors here who are gonna talk, a couple of tribal guest speakers, as well as org members to share their culture,” said Ramos. “The hiccups were really just finding a space and funding, but that’s with most events. But of course, it all worked out.” 

In the opening remarks for the event, club president Sky Harper stated, “We carry the hopes and the prayers, as well as the stories of our families with us everyday. It is time that we acknowledge and use these stories to find strength and build community with one another. Only together can we work towards change and recognition.” 

In addition to remarks from DISA members, guest speakers included adjunct faculty member from the Dornsife School of Public Health, Dr. Erica Blue Roberts, and Toyce Holmes, Program Coordinator for the First-Generation, Low-Income Center at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as an adviser for Natives at Penn.

Aside from this event, DISA has a few other projects in mind for the academic year. One is promoting their land acknowledgement, which they hope can be read before every event at Drexel. 

“This land acknowledgement, recognizing our privilege of attending the institution, encourages the readers of this to reflect on their relationship with Lenape Land and how you can be a supporter of Indigenous fights today,” the document reads. 

Additionally, DISA is planning an anti-Thanksgiving event to share the actual history behind the holiday and break down common stereotypes surrounding the nationally recognized holiday.  

“Really, the goal of these types of events is to expand education on indigenous culture, on Native Americans as a whole, just to show that we are here,” said Ramos. “The culture’s alive, [indigenous] people are very much here and present in Drexel’s population.” 

To learn more about Drexel Indigenous Students of the Americas and keep up with their events, follow them on instagram at drexel.indig. 

Located at 20 South 33rd St, the CO-OP Restaurant & Bar has brought varied mid-Atlantic cultures to the table, and wants to welcome everyone with a new season inspired by the fishing and farming communities who immigrated to the East coast. 

The Executive Chef of Study Hotel at University City, Kyle Berman, has been working at the CO-OP for 4 months and has brought a new team together for the start of this new fresh season. 

Having worked as executive sous chef at The Wayne Hotel and executive chef of Philadelphia Distilling, Chef Kyle brings his “technique-driven cuisine” to highlight the cooperative concept that’s already the framework of the restaurant.

The CO-OP offers a different concept and atmosphere to other restaurants in University City by being an elevated yet affordable place, making sure both the food and environment are right for hosting everyone, from students to businessmen. 

Serving everyone means adapting to food restrictions and requests. “I don’t ever want people with dietary restrictions to worry about coming to the CO-OP and having a poor dining experience,” says Chef Kyle, ensuring everyone feels welcome. Just make sure to call ahead of time to get these accommodations.

“The most important thing about a restaurant is consistency,” stated Chef Berman. “The kitchen is training hard to meet customers’ expectations and we have implemented a few systems to ensure the consistency of the dishes on every visit.”

Still in progress, the CO-OP’s kitchen went from having five cooks to having 25 cooks. Some of these chefs are still in training and have been for the past four months; they are hoping to open with full service the week of Oct. 10. The star dish, based on the sample sizes so far, is expected to be the linguine with clams.

General Manager, Nicole Bell, ensures hospitality by “having warm and thoughtful service and keeping up with certain standards.”

As a new initiative, the CO-OP is implementing a “to-go” system and to celebrate the recent success of our Philadelphia Eagles, CO-OP Restaurant & Bar is launching a Game Day Happy Hour. Every time a Philly sports team is playing, customers can enjoy a special game day happy hour menu while watching the game.

Be sure to stop by the new and improved CO-OP restaurant!

On Wednesday, Aug. 24, President Joe Biden announced a long awaited plan to cancel up to $20,000 of student loan debt for millions of Americans. 

The plan includes canceling $10,000 of student loan debt for borrowers with an annual income less than $125,000. Pell grant recipients who meet the annual income requirements will also be eligible for an additional $10,000 in student loan forgiveness.

Additionally, borrowers now only have to pay five percent of their discretionary income in order to repay their loan as opposed to ten percent, the intent being to make monthly payments more manageable.

“All of this means people can start to finally crawl out from under that mountain of debt to get on top of their rent and their utilities, to finally think about buying a home or starting a family or starting a business,” said Biden when announcing the relief plan. “And, by the way, when this happens, the whole economy is better off.”

This plan comes at a time when the average undergraduate student with loans graduates with about $25,000 in debt according to a Department of Education analysis. The federal student loan debt total is currently about $1.6 trillion with more than 45 million borrowers. 

According to President Biden, nearly 45 percent of borrowers in the country–20 million people– can have their student debt fully canceled with this plan with about 90 percent of the eligible beneficiaries for the relief plan making under $75,000 a family.

While the Biden administration’s plan is a first step of acknowledging just how bad the student loan debt crisis has gotten, many feel that the plan does not go far enough to address the extent of the crisis.   

At Drexel, where the average tuition is nearly $57,000 a year, some students feel that the plan is unsatisfactory.

Morgan Thomas, a senior double majoring in legal studies and finance, views the plan as unable to address the systemic causes of the loan crisis. 

“At surface level it’s a good sentiment, but it really doesn’t make up for how loan institutions have taken advantage of those seeking education for decades—especially poor people that really lack the means. In addition, it isn’t nearly enough,” said Thomas. “If Biden wanted to start with a real difference, he could consider canceling the interest itself on student loans as opposed to one small sum that doesn’t sneeze at most people’s debt.”

Other Drexel students believe the plan is a nice gesture, but that it does not come close to providing meaningful relief for their student loan debt, particularly debt from private lenders. 

“Drexel is super expensive and while it’s nice it’s barely doing much,” commented senior computer science major Josh Lusen. “It doesn’t even cover just the federal loans I’ve had to take out over 4 years.”

Across the country, Americans have had similar reactions to Biden’s decision, with some urging the president to cap interest rates instead or even to cancel more debt. Activist organizations such as the “Debt Collective” as well as progressive politicians like Senator Bernie Sanders are pushing Biden to go further with the student debt cancellation, urging the president to cancel all student loan debt in order to truly address the crisis for millions of Americans.

While not much is known about the process going forward, President Biden said that the Department of Education has been working on an application form for those who seek loan forgiveness and that the application process will become more clear in the coming weeks.

On June 30, Eileen Behr retired from her position as Vice President of Public Safety and Chief of Police at Drexel University. Behr has over 40 years of experience in law enforcement, having joined Drexel as Police Chief eight years ago. In recent years, Chief Behr, along with Drexel Police and Public Safety, have worked to reform public safety at Drexel, most recently following up with the recommendations made by the 21CP report. 

*This interview with Chief Behr has been edited for clarity.   

KR: I first wanted to start off by talking a little bit about your background and, specifically, can you tell me a little bit about your background before joining Drexel’s Public Safety and police department and how you got here? 

EB: So, I actually was a police officer in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, which is in the western suburbs of Philadelphia. We border Philadelphia. I was with Whitemarsh Township Police for 32 years, started as a dispatcher and retired from that department as the Chief of the Police Department. From Whitemarsh, I went to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department. The sheriff from Montgomery County had died suddenly, and I was appointed to fill the role and term of sheriff in Montgomery County, so I was there for five years. The opening for Chief of Police at Drexel came up, and I had a friend who was aware of the opening and I applied for the position. I thought it would be extremely rewarding and a really interesting challenge to work with young adults again on the college campus setting, so I applied for the job and our president, John Fry, hired me eight and a half years ago to fill the position of police chief at Drexel. 

KR: You mentioned this a little, but can you talk about what made Drexel stand out to you when you were first applying and [also] when you first began the job? 

EB: When I was at the sheriff’s department, it was more county wide and I had been with a smaller department. Part of my job with the smaller department at one time was [doing] a lot of work with juveniles, and of course, that’s under 18, but a lot of work with juveniles and young adults in my career as a police officer and I really found that very rewarding and very worthwhile. So, the opportunity to come to a college campus where there’s literally tens of thousands of young adults, I came hoping I could make a difference, help people, maybe work with young people to create awareness, safety, education, but just that was very rewarding to me. I find teenagers and young adults challenging but great to work with when you start communicating with them; you always learn from them. They always open your eyes to something new and different, so I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity. 

KR: When you were settling into your role, what were your goals? Did those goals change over time?

EB: I would say my goals when I first came was just the goal of learning the campus culture and the community culture because the Drexel Police Department controls not just the campus, but part of the surrounding neighborhoods, so it was going to be learning two slightly different cultures. The goal was: ‘How do we bring them together?’ And one of the things John Fry finds very important to him is community, the students working with the community, relationships with the community. For the students, how do we become good neighbors? Right away, that was a challenge to me, something that I had to understand. And as I was there, times have changed and things changed very rapidly over the last three to four years with the police, but it’s learning new ways of safety education, how to target a different group of young people that want to learn. 

My big challenge was, ‘How do I communicate with them to keep their interest?’ And working with, early on, editors from The Triangle and working with student government, I found out that I had a lot to learn, if I wanted to reach out and make young people aware of public safety, personal awareness, so those were some immediate challenges. What I did find was the students, when we reached out and asked for help, I found students very willing to engage with the police department and the public safety department. If there was a message, how do we get that message out? How do we get the message to the neighbors from the students about safety and neighborhood courtesy? Those were rather challenging, but I like a challenge, and again I found the students, the faculty, the staff, really willing to help and guide and give information.

KR: Since summer of 2020, there’s been a nationwide reckoning about policing and public safety and reimagining what that could look like. For Drexel, I know the 21CP Report has served as a review of Drexel’s police department and offers different areas for improvement towards enhancing things like transparency or improving training and community oversight. What was it like, having the responsibility of taking those recommendations and implementing them? 

EB: Trying, challenging at times. Trying to work through it, it was difficult for 21CP, too. They were doing a study and a survey of a public safety department during a time of COVID and they weren’t here. They never came to campus because of COVID and nobody was on campus, so a lot of it had to be done virtually, through virtual meetings, even with members of public safety and the survey team and Drexel had a steering committee working with the 21CP. Everything was being done virtually and it was also the onset of COVID when we were all really learning to communicate virtually. So that was a trying time. I’m trying to connect people—small groups, large groups, one-on-one I’m trying to get messages out. During that same time period, as 21CP was doing the report, there was reform going on for law enforcement and public safety, not just in Pennsylvania, but nationwide and within the city of Philadelphia.

We in public safety are trying to keep up with and follow trends and trying to correct misinformation, at times, trying to get good information, and also trying to rebuild a rapport with the community that wasn’t even physically there during those time periods. That was challenging. I will tell you that I felt the staff and public safety, the police officers, the dispatch, and the security officers worked very hard, because we were on campus. We were the only people on campus. We were trying to reach out even through video calls and our Community Relations team trying to work with student government, even during COVID times virtually to try to understand what the community wanted or needed, so we worked through it. 

With 21CP, when the report came out a lot of the recommendations they had, we had already done, because as soon as the George Floyd incident occurred, the tragedy there, as a police department, we started looking at our policies. Immediately, we started looking at our policies. What do our policies have? Are we already training our police officers to do this or should we not be training? A good example is the policy about choking. We had changed several years before after an incident in New York City where police officers had accidentally caused a death through a choking hold. So we had already done that, but it was re-looking at it again. So with 21CP, even though we had changes, that takes us back to pause, to look. With the university, there is now a Police Oversight Board that just started in the end of April, beginning of May, that everyone is working with to work with the police department and public. 

When you talk about public safety, it’s just not the police. We have a whole team of dispatchers that work 24/7, answering all the emergency calls. We have a team of 110 security officers. We have a technology support team. So everybody had to kind of stop and look inside our training, a retraining of police officers, new ways of training police officers. We are doing changes in the law, but also changes that we researched ourselves to make training better for officers. We started a year ago, training our officers in a very intense deescalation community intervention training. It’s five days of intense training with behavioral health experts on how to deal with the public, and particularly with people in distress or mental health, so I would say that as a department we took the report seriously, but I’m also happy to say that we already started making changes, reforms, and looking internally, while they were doing the study.              

KR: Something that I was wondering is aside from some of the recommendations you had already started working on, what were the biggest challenges in following up with and implementing those recommendations?

EB: We had a team, our security technology team started working with our database, our software company where we record every time police officers have an interaction. There’s a report, there’s an entry into a database of some type of report, so I have to credit our security technology team with reaching out to the software companies saying, ‘Hey, we need better ways and more efficient ways to record what the officers are doing to better respond and monitor what officers are doing with their community interactions.’ And that’s pretty much complete, but that was an intense project that was not easy. Also identifying good training, getting officers trained to train us and a lot of this was difficult because this was all conducted during COVID times when access to things was limited, but I would have to say I’m very proud of the whole public safety department that people embraced. We know if we want to be accepted into the community, if we want the community to trust us, that we are going to have to work hard on changes, above and beyond what we’re [doing]. 

KR: On a slightly different note, what were the most rewarding aspects of your job? 

EB: I have to tell you just working in that campus environment with the students, getting to meet a lot of students, getting to interact with students was really rewarding. The things that I learned a lot from students—I learned how to better communicate through students, watching students wanting to learn, working with staff and faculty to try to make the community better through students. It was rewarding. Interacting with students opened your eyes. We’ve got to work on different projects with the student government. We worked on a project about lighting up the neighborhood and supplying light bulbs to residents in cooperation with them. We created information cards and stickers to put into bathrooms about how to reach public safety when you’re in distress. We worked with the sociology and criminology department and actually developed an accredited course, which is a mini police academy that we put students through, including doing active threat training right along with the police officers in the car. They get to sit and dispatch, so those types of interactions were extremely rewarding and they were fun. It was just amazing to do all that and I know that everyone hears all the bad things, but there was a lot of really positive good interaction.    

KR: And what are the challenging aspects to that role at the same time? 

EB: Always with police, there’s always speculation and mistrust of police. There are bad police, I mean, I’ve been doing this for 45 years—I’ve just retired after 45 plus years in law enforcement—and there are bad officers. I can say that I have terminated bad officers who are not good. But the challenge over the past couple of years, where there was just continual negativity about the police, was distressing at times. Probably, and within the Drexel community, on a day-in and day-out basis, our officers do more public service calls than they do crime calls assisting the homeless, assisting students in distress. We do medical calls at Drexel. The police officers have first aid kits and AED defibrillators. They carry Narcan. They continually are out there, handling first aid, CPR. They give Narcan to people overdosing. They assist them when they need mental health. We work very closely with the counseling department on when a student is in distress, to get them help where they need or just getting to the counseling department. I guess the challenge of getting the positive that we do as a service organization is upsetting to me at times when it’s always just focused on some of the bad things. I cannot deny that there are bad things, but I think the overwhelming number of service calls and aid that we give to people is just dwarfed by one and two bad actions from the police. 

KR: Would you say that Drexel Police and Public Safety are doing things, or planning events, to sort of bridge this gap with students to raise awareness about the kind of work they do aside from policing? 

EB: I think we do. We always have, I believe. We had community relations officers. We asked them to get out in the community. They attend different events whenever they can. This past year Sergeant Santiago, a new member and head of the community relations team, started at least once a month doing ‘Cocoa with Cops’ or ‘Lemonade with Cops.’ They would just go out to a corner and invite people to come over and talk, just hands on. And we had a bike patrol reinstituted. The bike patrol is on the Chestnut Street and Market Street corners, where officers were out of their cars to actually be there to walk around and talk to people. Trying to bridge with people when there is a lot of constant negative attention in the media is the ongoing and constant challenge, but I would tell you I really do believe the officers and public safety are up for that challenge. Since I came to Drexel and before, it’s always been about trying to do community outreach and before George Floyd, we were really trying to reach out and do more… So, our officers are out there, more and more trying to get out of their cars and connecting [with] people. I think that it’s going to be slow, but I think it’s probably the right way to be visible and be out there, rather than on a screen. 

KR: Well to shift gears, how do you feel about leaving Drexel after eight years and what’s coming up next for you?

EB: I’m bittersweet. I have to tell you that the men and women of the public safety department—and they are just a very diverse crowd in every sense of the word—they are everything. They have been amazing to work with, and it’s bittersweet. The past few years through the challenges that police and public safety faced, they have been stellar. Through all of the negativity, we only had one person retire during all that. The dispatchers, the officers, the support staff, the technology people really came together, but we’re going to continue to serve and fight hard to figure out how we continue to serve and be positive for the community, so that’s hard to leave. I became very close to everyone, so I am going to miss them. For me, my life, my family and everything, it was probably a right opportunity. I actually am not totally retiring. I am taking a job in public safety and with a private company in the Philadelphia area where I hope I can still make contact in the community and support everyone at Drexel as long as I can. 

KR: Do you have a final farewell message for the Drexel community? 

EB: For the Drexel community, thank you for giving me the honor and pleasure to serve this community from the President and his cabinet, through all the students, through the staff, faculty, and particularly all my colleagues and peers in public safety and the neighbors in the neighborhood. We may have had our differences, but I will tell you I think we always came together and found a way to work through things and I am very, very thankful for the opportunity. I appreciate everything everyone did to support me while I was there.

Roe v. Wade is a 1973 case that made abortion legal on a federal level. On May 3, 2022, a Supreme Court ruling to overturn the case was leaked. That same night, millions of people around the country started protesting the decision in their communities hoping for a change of mind.

At 6:30 p.m., Philadelphians gathered in front of City Hall to let their voices be heard. The protest organizers spoke about topics such as universal healthcare, abortion resources, affordable housing and the future effects of the decision on pregnant lower income people, especially on people of color. Protestors had multiple signs that showed their disappointment towards the Supreme Court’s leak.

On June 24, the decision to overturn Roe was made official. Philadelphians yet again gathered in much larger numbers in front of City Hall. The crowd was mostly people who were there in support of the pro-choice movement with the appearance of a few counterprotesters. The words “Safe Abortion” were grafittied in pink on the building with multiple activists speaking right next to it.

While Gov. Tom Wolf assured Pennsylvanians that “women and pregnant people in surrounding states and across the country are safe here in the commonwealth,” states like Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas had trigger laws that banned abortion immediately after the decision was made.

Here at Drexel, students hailing from states across the country worry about the implications of the Supreme Court decisions.

McKenna Cole, a third year Global Studies major, is from Kansas, a state surrounded by multiple others that already banned abortion.

“The march was a great reminder that there is a greater community fighting the fight, but the people in legislative power haven’t given me much to hold onto,” said Cole. “One speaker said ‘It’s funny how Republicans always seem to keep their promise and complete their mission, but Democrats can’t do the same.’ I think the glorious facade of the US government has been chipping away the last couple years, but this eventually solidified the lack of trust in any government.”

Kate Flaherty, third year Health Sciences major at Drexel, commented about her fear on what this decision means for the future of reproductive rights.

“It’s been devastating to see the reversal of the progress people before us had fought so so hard to create. It’s uncomfortable and terrifying to think about a situation where I cannot make decisions around the future of my body in a physical sense, and my life in every way. It’s disgusting,” said Flaherty.

Amy Carson, a recent Drexel graduate, is from Ohio, where a 10-year-old pregnant girl sought abortion in Indiana becase of the state’s abortion laws.

“It’s obviously super upsetting. Knowing how extremely conservative the state legislature is and the moves they made pre-Roe repeal, the fact that they’re so hard line on the issue is not necessarily surprising, but seeing the direct effects of it is horrifying in such an imaginable way. It’s heartbreaking,” Carson stated.

President John Fry released a statement via email to Drexel students and colleagues on June 27. In the email, Fry stated that he was “processing” the ruling of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

“No matter where one stands on this issue, the Court’s ruling will have immediate and far-reaching impacts on women, on public health, and on communities across much of the country,” Fry’s email read.

Fry acknowledged that the issue especially affects low-income women and Black women.

Fry continued the email by stating Drexel has three “primary tasks” in mind. The first of these tasks is “supporting women’s reproductive autonomy and the physical and mental health needs of every member of our community – students, faculty, and professional staff.”

The email then listed resources such as the Student Health Center and Counseling Center.

Fry claimed that Drexel will be focusing on education surrounding legal issues that will arise from the new ruling, including more “high-level discussions and focused programming.”

Lastly, Fry administered a call to action, encouraging members of the Drexel community to vote and concluded the email with stating there should be “mutual respect for those holding opposing views.”

Drexel Now also provided updates from the university, including an hour and a half stream hosted by the Dornsife School of Public Health. The stream was co-hosted by the Kline School of Law and included “what legal or public health practitioners, educators, advocates, community members and students can do to protect reproductive rights and public health,” the description read.

While many have hope that protesting, community organizing and voting will be the answer to protecting reproductive rights, others feel defeated by the decision.

“It felt good to protest at City Hall with people who are on my side, but sometimes I wonder how much power we truly have against those trying to take away our rights, and that’s what makes me scared,” said Flaherty. “There will always be abortions, but whether they are safe and accessible is the only thing in question.”

Drexel mathematics major Alaina Zaki was the first place winner for her age group at the fifth annual Philadelphia Women’s Triathlon on Sunday, July 10. Zaki placed first out of 19 contestants for her age group of 20 to 24 and was 22nd overall out of 723 contestants. 

The triathlon featured a 300-meter swim in Kelly Pool, a nine-mile bike on closed roads and a 5 km run through West Fairmount Park. The Women’s Triathlon is the only all-women triathlon in Pennsylvania and includes over 1,300 athletes from across the state. 

This was Zaki’s first time competing in the Philadelphia Women’s Triathlon and her first time competing in any triathlon. 

“I chose this race because I really liked the idea of the race being all women and because it was right here in Philly. So it felt like it would be a welcoming and supportive environment for my first race,” said Zaki. 

Zaki’s finish time for the triathlon was 1:03:53. In preparation for the race, Zaki began training back in February and increased her training consistency as the triathlon grew closer. 

“Starting in April I would try to train around four times a week, working around my co-op and social schedule as much as I could,” said Zaki. 

Though Zaki is not a member of any sports teams at Drexel, she swam competitively in the past and has previously participated in a few 5 km races. 

“This was my first what I would consider a ‘serious’ race, and my first time competing in an event completely on my own without a team,” Zaki said. 

Placing first in her age group is motivating to Zaki, and she hopes to continue participating in similar events in the future and working on her abilities. 

“I had no intention of doing this at all so it was a really nice surprise and source of validation that hard work and consistent training pays off. I obviously set my goal paces for the race and felt confident that I could make and even exceed them, but I had no idea meeting these goals would lead me to win my age group,” said Zaki. “Winning my age group made me feel confident that getting into the sport of triathlons is a good choice for me right now and I’m excited to see where this sport takes me.”

This year, Zaki participated in the sprint distance run, which is the race usually recommended to beginners in the field. Next summer, Zaki hopes to participate in the next level above the spring, which is the olympic distance race and consists of an approximately 1.5 km swim, 40 km bike and a 10 km run.

“I’m also thinking of joining a local tri club to find a core group to train and compete with, so I’m really excited about that too,” added Zaki. “I might come back and sign up for the Philly Women’s Tri again next year just because the whole race environment was truly unbeatable.”