By Hannah Lee    For the first time since the spring of 2020, the University of Puget Sound is having a mask-optional semester. According to the CDC, 616,172,308 doses of vaccines have been administered, and the number of cases is down from 1,272,899 new cases per day at its peak this January to now 12,852 new cases per day as of Sept. 26. Many people believe that we can finally put the past behind us, and finally get on with our lives, while others still live in fear.   But...

 By Julian Finholm   Anxiety is ubiquitous on campus. Ever-concerned students are everywhere, from Diversions Café customers to the campus library goers. Nowhere on campus is completely safe from stress, and our many mental health resources are a testament to how prevalent anxiety is on campus. However, anxiety isn’t the only hurdle students deal with. For me, one of those hurdles is autism. According to the American Psychiatric Association, autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, is characterized by “persistent deficits on social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts,” including repetitive...

By Nikki Hindmam   From early morning breakfast to late night snacks, the Diner is open for our students to feast at. Although we are slowly starting to see a return to normalcy from COVID-19, the Diner still struggles with a pandemic-related staff shortage. Unlike other locations on campus such as Diversions or Oppenheimer Café, the Diner hires full-time non-student workers. I sat down with Rutie MacKenzie-Margulies, a full-time staff worker at the Diner, to ask about her experiences. When she was a student, she worked in the Cellar until she...