Title IX is a famous, yet misunderstood policy on our campus. Everyone knows about it; we joke about it in the hallway and we half read then delete the emails about it. However, our last email about Title IX was a notification from our Title IX Coordinator, JAshe, that NCSSM has updated their Title IX procedures in compliance with federal standards, but what changed and what does that change mean for students?
On June 23, 1972 the first ever Title IX policy was published with the main goal of of ending sex discrimination in federally funded eduaction progams and activities. However, the policy has come under attack, being criticized for extending beyond its original intentions and being unnecessary altogether; Title IX cannot be found on the Department of Education website as of April 15th, 2025. This has led to a variety of legal challenges to the policy and changes, but here’s what you need to know about our current changes.
NCSSM’s Title IX no longer provides protections for LGBTQ+ students. This change is in compliance with Trump’s Executive Order “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government” and recent rulings from the Federal Courts. Here is the direct statement from our Title IX Office in the email sent on March 27th:
“Incidents of gender based harassment and discrimination that impact LGBTQ+ students can be resolved through the Code of Conduct procedures separate from the Title IX process; this includes discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.”
Effectively, Title IX policies will no longer apply to students who are seeking protections for LGBTQ+ related discrimination. Instead, students in those situations can receive support from the Code of Conduct. However, discrimination is not a specific major or minor violation, so the discrimination would have to be in line with some other outlined violation such as physical/sexual violence although verbal abuse is unclear. While some informal resolutions may take place, this change will prevent students from many protections.
However, these guidelines are not clear. As of April 15th, 2025 our nondiscrimination policy still seems to define gender, gender identity, and gender expression and imply that they are still protected by Title IX, although this is not the case. Further, developments are being watched as our system is needlessly complex and know that if you or someone you know are experiencing discrimination or harassment you can still reach out to a trusted NCSSM employee for support.
As the academic year comes to a close, 322 seniors of NCSSM-Durham’s Class of 2025 have reported their college destinations. The seniors are set to attend a wide array of institutions, from Ivy League universities and top research institutions to liberal arts colleges and public universities across the country.
According to Program Assistant Pam Oxendine, NCSSM Counseling Services worked with seniors from May 1-5 to complete their final transcript requests. After May 1, seniors self-reported their decisions to the department, which has released data on the colleges the class of 2025 committed to for The Stentorian. As of May 14, 2024, college commitment data was available for 322 out of the total 342 graduating seniors (94 percent reporting), including early decision, early action, and regular decision commitments.
Unsurprisingly, the most popular destination is the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where 169 NCSSM-Durham students—more than half of those reporting, or roughly 52 percent of the senior body—will enroll this fall. NC State University follows with 68 students, continuing a long-standing pipeline between NCSSM and the state’s flagship STEM university.
Beyond North Carolina, students are spreading out across the nation. Four students will attend Yale University, another four will enroll at Columbia University, and four more are heading to Stanford University. Duke University, located just minutes from campus and a popular research partner for many NCSSM students, will welcome 13 undergraduates this fall.
The class also boasts acceptances to all eight Ivy League institutions, with students enrolling at Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, UPenn, and Yale. Other notable destinations include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2 students), the University of Pennsylvania (5), Carnegie Mellon University (3), Georgia Tech (5), and the University of Chicago (2).
Smaller liberal arts colleges are well represented too. Students will attend Barnard, Davidson, Haverford, Swarthmore, Spelman, and Williams. One student is heading to the United States Air Force Academy, and another to McGill University in Canada.
Two students have chosen to take a gap year before continuing their academic journeys.
Altogether, the Class of 2025 reported plans to attend 47 different colleges and universities, showcasing the diversity of interests and ambitions that define the NCSSM experience.
Here is a full breakdown of college destinations for the class of 2025:
In his order directing the Pentagon to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, Trump said the programs discourage merit and leadership, and discriminate on the basis of race and sex.(NPR)
By Viviana Gardner, Stentorian Staff Writer
On January 20th, 2025, the day of his inauguration, President Donald Trump enacted an executive order that sought to end “radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing.”
DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs and policies have existed in many different forms since the mid-1960s when an executive order outlined that government employees were to be hired without bias toward gender, race, or religion. Since then, there have been larger strides to counterbalance the systematic discrimination that exists within our society, such as Executive Order 13985 enacted by President Joe Biden where he claimed in Ex that, “the Federal Government should pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all, including people of color and others who have been historically underserved, marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and inequality.”
On the other hand, the January 20 Executive Order, criticizes DEI programs by claiming that the programs themselves are discriminatory, as the order operates off the idea that DEI’s goal of advancing racial and gender equity was only favoring certain groups of people – ignoring the centuries of oppression and biases that still remain within societal structures and government organizations.
In implementing this order, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Attorney General, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have been tasked with ensuring the end of DEI programs within federal agencies while also reviewing their financial impact. This has affected countless programs and people across the nation—even in our own school, where our DEI-ties program ended and our Student Climate Opportunities, Outreach, and Programming (SCOOP) program began.
Recently, there has been an uptake in content condemning DEI and celebrating what seems to be the “end” of these programs, with many claiming them to be part of the same “woke liberal agenda” of other policies concerning ethical issues, such as those created by the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG).
Overall, the January 20 Executive Order has sparked debate around the existence of the policies and programs that served to make federal agencies more inclusive. In dismantling DEI programs that have allowed for a more equitable environment and that have addressed the deeply ingrained systemic inequalities, this executive order poses the risk of undoing decades of progress. As the federal government moves forward with these changes, the harm that these changes will and have caused will become a prominent topic and issue within minoritized and disadvantaged communities across the country.
This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Stentorian Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Stentorian editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.
Note to readers from the Editorial Board: If there are any discrepancies we missed in this story or additions you would like to make, please email us at stentoriansocials@gmail.com
Corrections on 10/27: Greg Powell informed us that he was not forced to resign by administration. Arts instructor Carrie Alter told us that our previous mention of “band-aid solutions” was done by administration in good faith, there is no other plan to move art classes to modular units, and the temperatures are inaccurate. Those descriptions have been removed from this editorial.
Prospective students and their families walk into Bryan lobby and read about some events in the history of the school since its transformation from the Watts Hospital: from the black-and-white photo of our three founders and the expansion of residential and online cohorts to Guinness World Records and opening Morganton.
Warmed up to the quiet vibe of Bryan lobby at noon, their top picks from the marketplace of Wikipedia-able information, and a deluge of selective marketing from the administration, they start their tours smiling–pleased to have arrived at such a pristine and well-established school. In other words, they had finally attained thinking in the way of the institution.
It helped that NCSSM’s public persona didn’t really open up their minds in the first place.
What the public don’t know are the health hazards arising from the aging and neglected campus infrastructure, which have been growing from years of deferred maintenance–a challenge made greater each day that NCSSM pushes back against calls to double down on maintenance, management, and budget needs from the students and employees who actually live here 24/7.
In a school where, according to ncssm.edu, “Igniting innovation, cultivating community” is the tongue-twisting slogan deserving the most attention and thought, it is no wonder that people dismiss superficial meanings as anything but professional institutional values–a way to dodge questions and concerns in acts of hypocrisy, censorship, and an obsession with temporary solutions.
To get a scope of the damage, we have constructed this narrative of words, emails, photos, videos, PDFs, and quotes to this article in hopes of readers grasping the severity and urgency of this issue.
Soft & Hard Censorship
On September 18, Carter Smith ‘25 published a post in the Parents of NCSSM Students (Past, Present, & Future) Facebook group, beginning with “Dear NCSSM Parents, Resident of Hunt have potentially been exposed to carbon monoxide, mold, fungi, and other toxic if not deadly chemicals,” followed by a redirecting to a YouTube channel (“Mech Anek”) containing video evidence of the stated health hazards.
When Stentorian staff spoke to Smith in a private conversation, Smith revealed he was originally going to wait to publish the post until after his meeting with the Associate Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Students Jennifer Ashe the next day. The belief that “people deserve to look at how messed up the data is for themselves” first outweighed that prerequisite.
“It is obviously not the parents’ responsibility to provide solutions to this issue; it is the administration’s job to ensure the safety of the students while they are at the school,” Smith said.
He told us he had been interested in getting to the bottom of the issue–literally, as Mech Anek’s videos show rusted-through flues leaking chemicals in Hunt’s underground and in-wall HVAC systems–since former 3rd East CC Greg Powell told Smith about concerning information on residential health and safety.
Since Powell joined NCSSM in March 2023, he had been increasingly voicing his concerns to the administration to fix Hunt’s frequent flooding issues, damp walls, and more. The Stentorian Editorial Board initiated multiple attempts to contact Powell for a private interview but we were unable to continue communicating after he resigned and moved off campus on September 22.
Former electrical worker by the alias of “Mech Anek” uploaded the videos he took of various electrical and moldy places above Watts, in Hunt, outdoors, etc. to his YouTube channel. Here are three descriptions of his videos. (YouTube)
Mech Anek had a similar story: behind the moniker was an unnamed mechanical worker contracted with the school through a third party maintenance company. He was fired in May 2024 by NCSSM for uploading the videos, the screenshots of three of his six YouTube videos provided in this article. One description reveals administration’s (“he,” referring to Vice Chancellor for Student Life and Chief Campus Officer of NCSSM-Durham, Terry Lynch) shocking response to the worker’s safety concerns of the live feed.
“…he harassed me over pathetic hearsay. He acted as if he didn’t understand what I was telling him about the potential of the students or employees getting hurt,” Mech Anek wrote under a video published on August 22 about NCSSM’s chiller.
Nine screenshots from Mech Anek’s YouTube channel, which includes six videos and five shorts – all of various places around NCSSM-Durham’s campus that are electrical and health hazards. (Mech Anek)
As another current maintenance employee (unnamed for safety reasons) described, Mech Anek was “telling too many truths and bruising too many egos.”
“We just want to know that the students are living in a safe environment,” Smith said. “When we see these videos online and take a look at the filtres, walls, mold, and environment that students are living in, it is not unreasonable for us to have some serious concerns.”
Hypocrisy & Denial
Four hours after Smith’s meeting with Ashe, all residential students, faculty, and parents received an email written by Lynch, sent by Associate Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs and Chief Communications Officer Bryan Gilmer.
As we take a look at the email’s attached report from Terracon (above), there are several issues. Two of the biggest things to consider lie within the specificity and selectiveness of sampling. Firstly, in the Limitations section: “The scope of services was limited to mold sampling as directed by the client.” Who was the client? If the school wants to not be shut down because of mold issues, then it would make sense to direct the sampling elsewhere, in a blatant act of denial of the risk already growing. And where was the danger growing?
Secondly, in the Mold Result Summary Tables, Terracon (as directed by the “client”) tested the exterior of the art building. They did not test inside any rooms or bathrooms that may potentially have mold under tiles damaged by water or behind bubbling, peeling paint. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), mold may begin growing indoors when mold spored land on wet surfaces, and no mold grows without water or moisture. So why test for mold in the hallways and outside the buildings, when mold is prevalent where water is coming inside? Had Terracon and the client considered conducting visual assessments inside the buildings?
Students from the Research in Biology programs have conducted this black mold testing themselves, through a more traditional but all the while more visual means: swabbing surfaces throughout campus and growing colonies in agar petri dishes. Covering both female and male residence halls, air vents, and even bathroom faucets, they note notably high quantities of black mold in Hunt and Greynolds.
Mold growing in a petri dish with a sample taken from the opening of a Beall air vent. (Anna Tringale & Aretha Datta)(Skyler Qu)
“Essentially, from the petri dishes I’ve collected school-wide, I can confidently say that there is not a single residence hall on this campus that does not show notable quantities of mold,” said Anna Tringale ‘25. They are also one of seven Sustainability Project Leaders (SPLs) at NCSSM-Durham. “Still, it’s absolutely essential to remember that just because there is mold in a room, that doesn’t necessarily mean students are at severe risk of health impacts or sickness.”
Some mold seemed to grow inside the agar, which is something unheard of before to Aretha Datta ‘25. “Generally, when something grows on one of our agar plates, it grows on top of the agar. But this mold had somehow gotten inside the agar,” she said. “Up close, there were small vein-like structures as well. I’m honestly not really sure what this means, but I can tell that there is clearly mold in our room, and we should be concerned.”
The Stentorian also has firsthand experience and evidence of denial, or put differently, the lack of acceptance. On Friday, October 18, editor-in-chief Teresa Fang visited Lynch’s office and successfully scheduled an interview with him for the coming Monday, followed by an email confirmation that night. On Monday, no response from Lynch prompted her to send an email at noon with a list of six questions for him to answer via email. However, he responded as he was leaving the building that day, saying he would answer those by “tomorrow afternoon” as he didn’t have time to reply on Monday.
The response received from Lynch was not unexpected, but instead dismissive yet equally revealing. For starters, he did not attempt to answer any of the questions provided, but provided the same information he stated earlier in Gilmer’s September 18 email. The lack of a directional response compels the Editorial Board to conclude there is also a lack of direction in demonstrating improvement for students’ success and wellbeing, two important words in the NCSSM Strategic Plan 2024-2030.
The Stentorian also requested an interview with Ashe, but she declined to comment.
“Students still have every right to be concerned. It’s their life, it’s their room, and even small one-time exposures can get certain individuals sick,” Tringale added.
Obsessed With Temporary Solutions
By now, it is clear there are many open faucets and loose ends to this narrative. One way to enter this story is through the art studio’s wall collapsing into the interior over the Summer Research and Innovation Program (SRIP) in June, due to a rainstorm’s effects on the never-renovated-before Watts Hospital walls.
The hole in the wall of the green screen room in the art studio on June 27, 2024, revealing the original brick wall and the materials used to insulate the room of the century-old Watts Hospital. Formerly, the art studio was an operating room where doctors carried out surgeries. (Teresa Fang)
Likewise, the art studio’s predicament is also reflective of NCSSM’s current progress on campus “repairs”–if layers and layers of temporary solutions can be regarded as proper repair. Since last school year, the walls bleed water and white dust upon rain, human touch, or even small breezes, and one brick tile hangs precariously above the glass ceiling in the painting studio. When this school year started, rust was falling from an old gas hood and onto students’ workspaces in the advanced art studio. AR4110 Painting has already temporarily moved all their easels and paints to a meeting room in the library.
As we have learned in EN4610 Research in Humanities, displacement does not solve any deep-rooted problems. It can position vulnerable groups of people in even more vulnerable locations. We wonder, then, what kinds of discussions our peers, parents, and teachers would be willing to incorporate into our everyday lives, classes, and our ways of thinking. Until NCSSM can express views that genuinely respond to the concerns of those most impacted and invested in student success and wellbeing at NCSSM without the fear of negatively-impacting their public persona, we strongly disagree with the methods and language used by the administration to defer campus maintenance.
Today, students are acutely aware that whenever there is vapor arising from the metal manholes on the ground, it indicates that a major HVAC pipe is broken and leaking natural gas somewhere. (Teresa Fang)
If NCSSM is actually serious about addressing student success and wellbeing, it must demonstrate improvement in the largest concern of students, families, and faculty first: the school’s dilapidating campus. Until then, we worry that the future of our school will become nothing more than a moldy institution, more so than the 100-year-old Watts Hospital it used to be in the very beginning.
On October 30, the Chapel Hill Youth Council hosted a forum for the mayoral and town council candidates for the then-upcoming municipal elections. (Teresa Fang/Stentorian)
Many young people lament the polarized national politics we are set to inherit. But are we worthy of lamenting when we don’t even care about local politics first?
I am a product of what I know as journalism and Chapel Hill civics. I worry less about the health of US democracy than I do about the deteriorating health of interest in it. Too many times have I heard a fellow high schooler voice their opinion about a recent national policy, but when confronted, they stare and cite a TikTok influencer or a popular podcaster. This response is exaggeratedly worse for local politics; local political apathy tears young people from reality and sets a precedent for misinformation.
I single out social media as one of the largest facilitators of political apathy. A survey from Gallup reports that over half of US teens (ages 13-19) spend a minimum of four hours on social media every day. That’s four hours of being exposed to conformity influences, from beauty standards to cancel culture to the polarization of national politics. With social media becoming ever increasingly accessible, anyone can exercise their laws of free speech on social media while the consequences of spreading baseless claims become nigh invisible.
Anyone can complain about an issue, but can just anyone change anything about said issue? People may be knowledgeable on national politics, but if a citizen has concerns about a bus route or stormwater runoff, their representative in Congress can’t help them. But their local town council member can. If a student notices a decrease in the quality of their education at a public school, that’s just an observation supporting the recent national trend. If that student notices a difference in education at their school relative to other schools in the district, then that’s a different story.
Local politics impacts day-to-day lives. If young people can change our nation’s future, why don’t we try paying closer attention to our town first?
NCSSM’s Asian Student Association (ASA) is committed to celebrating and sharing the diverse Asian cultures within the NCSSM community as well as educating others about the current issues people within the AAPI community face.
Pictured are some of the events we have hosted this year!
ASA Block Party – November 10, 2023
ASA officers and advisors celebrate the first ASA Block Party on November 10, 2023. (Jessily Chen/ASA)Jerin Mathew ’24, Shirley Chen ’25, Jessica Yang ’25, and Ryoh Saotome ’24 attend an ASA meeting. (Jessily Chen/ASA)NCSSM students participate in student-organized festivities, food and game booths, and performances at the ASA Block Party on November 10, 2023. (Jessily Chen/ASA)
Asiafest 2023 – April 2023
NCSSM students display flags of countries across the globe during the March of the Flags performance at the ASA-organized Asiafest 2023. (Jessily Chen/ASA)NCSSM students perform at the annual March of the Flags performance at the ASA-organized Asiafest 2023. (Jessily Chen/ASA)
Our biggest annual event, Asiafest, is coming April 20th, so be on the lookout for that 😀
Additionally, ASA is looking for successors for next year that are passionate about advocating for positive change and creating opportunities for the AAPI at ‘SSM and across NC… Our application is open on our Facebook page!
