The Heights January 22, 2019

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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

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Shattered ‘Glass’

Encore Set

ARTS

SPORTS

Nineteen years after the first installment of M. Night Shyamalan’s superhero trilogy, the director has lost his knack for shocking plot twists.

After losing back-to-back games, the Eagles once again upset No. 11 Providence.

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Hate Crime Charge Sought Against Sorkin Sorkin also faces legal action for defacing Welch Hall.

By Jack Goldman News Editor Michael Sorkin, CSOM ’21, the student who allegedly defaced Welch Hall with racist epithets last December, will be arraigned in Middlesex County court on Feb. 13, according to Boston College Chief of Police Bill Evans. Sorkin was previously scheduled to be arraigned three times in Suffolk County–where Walsh Hall is located–for allegedly destroying property and falsely activating a fire alarm there.

Evans said in an email that BC does not

have control over court delays.

“We are not taking this lightly at all and are pushing ahead with the charges,” Evans said.

This is the first indication that a date has been set for an arraignment involving a hate crime in Middlesex County.

A BCPD report obtained as a part of court record in Brighton detailed that Sorkin is facing charges of property destruction in excess of $1,200 in Suffolk County, as well as false activation of a fire alarm. No official court date has been set yet in regards to the Suffolk County incident, but the two sides have committed to a hearing in February.

Sorkin could also face a charge of resisting arrest. In the BCPD report publicly

Perimeter Shooting Lifts Eagles to Upset of No. 11 FSU

See Sorkin, A3

BC hit 13 triples and snapped a four-game ACC losing streak.

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julia hopkins / heights senior staff

Hold Placed on Students Declaring CS Major

2023

15,862

applications

Increase in major enrollment overtakes faculty availability.

10,350

applications

31% accepted

33

1453

mean ACT score

mean SAT score

31%

mean AHANA students

34

28% accepted

By Jack Miller

mean ACT score

1477 mean SAT score

35%

mean AHANA students

ikram ali / graphics editor

New Policy Sparks Application Spike Changes to Early Action cause 50 percent increase.

By Jack Miller Assoc. News Editor A change in Boston College Early Admissions policy led to a significant increase in the number of applicants for the class of 2023. The Office of Undergraduate Admission received 15,862 Early Action applications, a surge of 50 percent from last year’s applicant pool of 10,350. The University admitted 4,488 students in December, an acceptance rate of about 28 percent. Including regular decision applicants, BC received over 35,000 applications for the incoming freshman class — a new record.

Represented among accepted students are all 50 states, three of five U.S. territories,

and 49 countries. AHANA+ applicants make up 35 percent of accepted students, a jump of four percent from last year’s early admission yield.

Admitted students averaged a 34 on the ACT and a 1477 on the SAT. Last year, Early Action admits averaged a 33 and 1453, respectively. In 2016—the first wave of applicants who took the new, 1600-point SAT—the average scores were 33 and 1425.

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions is aiming for a freshman class size of 2,300, with 40 percent—920 students—coming from Early Action offers.

The uptick in Early Admissions applications can in large part be attributed to the removal of a restriction that excluded students who were applying to other schools through a binding Early Decision process.

In entering an Early Decision pool, applicants agree to attend the college if

accepted, signaling that they consider the school their top choice. Early Action plans, on the other hand, are not a commitment to any particular school. Both paths allow applicants to receive admissions results in late fall or early winter.

“Over the past several years, BC’s Early Action program included a restriction that prevented applicants in binding early decision pools elsewhere from applying early action to Boston College,” Grant Gosselin, director of undergraduate admission, said in an email. “Recent changes to our national association’s guidelines forced us to reconsider our policy last spring, leading us to remove that restriction this year. While we anticipated that this would result in a larger application pool, we did not expect an increase of more than 50 percent.”

BC’s previous policy represented a

Assoc. News Editor and Rebecca Lee

For The Heights As of this semester, the 10 most popular majors at Boston College are economics, finance, biology, political science, communication, psychology, nursing, applied psychology and human development, computer science, and English, according to the Office of Student Services. Academic departments have made efforts to to maintain class sizes and offer sufficient sections of required courses as the largest departments continue to grow. This is especially pressing for the computer science department, which has temporarily paused entry of new majors due to the a

lack of staff.

Sixty-nine percent of undergraduate students are enrolled in one of these 10 majors. Nearly one in four undergraduate students are double majors.

Unlike other majors on the list, this year marks computer science’s first appearance in the top 10. The major has seen a 500-plus percent increase over the past 10 years, growing from just 53 students in 2008 to 420 today.

Sergio Alvarez, chair of the computer science department, cites a surge in interest for both introductory courses and the growing applicability of programming and computer-based skills.

“On one hand, I believe that there is a perception that a background in computer science can be helpful in landing a job,” Alvarez said in an email. “On the other hand, I believe that there is a growing recognition of the fundamental fact that CS is about

See Computer Science, A3

See Early Action, A3

jonathan ye / heights editor

Florio Previews Final Plexapalooza Campus Activities Board phases out winter concert.

By Jack Goldman News Editor With the final Plexapalooza less than a week away, Mike Florio, director of live entertainment for the Campus Activities Board (CAB) and CSOM ’19, said that this event is one of the most important ones he’s ever been in charge of organizing. This year’s edition is important on a couple of fronts,

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

one of which is slightly more controversial.

Florio noted that part of the appeal of the three major concerts CAB puts on for the BC community is ensuring each features its own style and ambiance. By staying true to the signature aspects of each show, Florio said he believes CAB is able to provide the entertainment experience that leads to each show selling out. It’s a lesson the senior learned early in his time with CAB. Florio rotated through the board’s introduction program for freshmen, where he most enjoyed working on the live entertainment side. His love for department was inspired by the event he just booked: the

Lynch Offers New Master’s

The Lynch School opens a new program in learning engineering..................................... A2

final edition of Plexapalooza. In 2016, CAB booked The Chainsmokers just as the duo was hitting its stride. Now, Florio is looking to live up to the legacy of one of the most well-known Plexapaloozas as he brings the event to its close.

In a way, it’s ironic that Florio is dropping the final curtain on Plexapalooza, the event that drove him to enter live entertainment in the first place. His first priority is making sure that his department stays true to the legacy Plexapalooza is leaving behind.

“Plexapalooza in itself embodies

2019 Boston Women’s March

See Plexapalooza, A3

Thousands march in third annual demonstration

The Sabia Effect

Maggie dipatri / heights editor

Joe Sabia, “73 Questions” creator, got his start at Boston College..................................................... A10

INDEX

NEWS.........................A2

METRO..................... A4

Vol. C, No. 1 MAGAZINE..................A10 SPORTS.................... A16 © 2019, The Heights, Inc. OPINIONS...................A6 ARTS..................... A8 www.bchelghts.com 69

The Heights

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TOP

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things to do on campus this week

The Campus Activities Board is hosting a bingo night to kick off the semester at 8 p.m. on Tuesday in the Rat. The event will include food and prizes.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

The Spring Career and Internship Fair will be held in the Heights Room in Corcoran Commons this Wednesday from 3 to 6 p.m. and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., with different types of employers present on each day. Students are invited to explore employment and internship opportunities.

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The Boston College theatre department will be presenting Jailbait this weekend. The play follows two 15-year-old girls, desperate to grow up, and two 30-something men, looking to feel young again.

Performances will run Thurs. - Sat. at 7:30 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Robsham Theater.

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NEWS Walsh Announces Opposition to Title IX Change BRIEFS

New Rec Center Renamed

The name of one of the most anticipated buildings at Boston College is being tweaked in honor of one of its most generous donors. The University announced on Thursday that Margot Connell, BC trustee associate, honorary degree recipient, and mother or grandmother to 10 alumni, will be the namesake of the new recreation center—originally, the replacement of the Flynn Recreation Complex was to be named after the entire Connell family.

The change was made after Connell’s six children, all BC graduates, convinced Margot to allow her name to be used on the building.

“Mom attributes a lot of our family’s good fortune to our time at Boston College,” Bill Connell, Margot’s son, member of the BC Board of Trustees, and BC ’94 said in the University release. “Having witnessed firsthand the impact the BC experience has had on our entire family, she wanted to do something to further enhance the student experience, and felt that the recreation center was a great way to do so.

“As a parent, athlete, and sports fan, she was thrilled to help BC enhance its recreational offerings through this new facility. She deserves to have the building bear her name. [Our family] could not be more proud of her.”

Margot gave $50 million to help jumpstart construction, while BC’s capital campaign Light the World was still ongoing. She also donated $10 million in memory of her husband, William, BC ’59, after he died in 2001, leading to the nursing school being named in the family’s honor. William served as chairman of the Board of Trustees from 1981-84 and was a veteran of the U.S. Army.

The building is constructed where Edmond’s Hall once stood and will feature four wood-floor basketball courts, three indoor tennis courts, multipurpose rooms for various fitness classes, a jogging track, a state-of-the-art fitness center, and a new pool—albeit one that has caused some controversy over the past few years. The Margot Connell Recreation Center is scheduled to open this fall.

Landrigan Wins ‘Book of the Year’ Wolters Kluwer Health and the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) has named Children and Environmental Toxins by biology professor Philip J. Landrigan, BC ’63, and his wife Mary M. Landrigan, BC ’64, as book of the year for environmental health. Boston College hired Philip to lead the creation of the University’s Global Public Health Initiative in September.

As the World Health Organization attributes more than one-third of all childhood deaths today to environmental causes and rates of childhood disease continue to shoot up, Children and Environmental Toxins offers a guide to identifying and understanding possible sources of harm in children’s environments.

The AJN B ook of the Year Awards honor exceptional texts that help advance the quality of health care. The program is “a prestigious competition that garners the attention of the nursing community and supporting healthcare publishers,” according to an AJN release. A panel of judges ranging from clinicians to nursing executives to college professors select the winners of first, second, and third place awards in over 20 nursing-related categories.

By Colleen Martin Metro Editor

“Today, as new federal regulations are being considered, we must be mindful not only of the progress that we have made, but also the work that still needs to be done,” Pelton said. “I fear that if approved with modification, the new regulations could risk reversing that work.”

One of the changes would alter the Obama administration’s “preponderance of the evidence” standard of proof for sexual harassment and assault cases.

Established through the 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter, this rule asks that the party bearing the burden of proof present evidence—although regarded as the lowest standard of proof—that showcases that the crime is more than likely than not to have occurred. The new proposal would offer colleges the choice of requiring “clear and convincing evidence,” which is a higher threshold—although still below “beyond a reasonable doubt,” which is the level used in U.S. court systems.

Kelly said that she believes in the importance of a presumption of innocence and the right to due process, but she is concerned about the new changes to the requirements for evidence in colleges and universities.

“We also believe that the process must not serve to discourage students who have experienced sexual assault from coming forward and need not and should not attempt to approximate the

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, Boston College ’09, announced that he will be issuing a public comment to the U.S. Department of Education to challenge the proposals to change Title IX in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

“We’re making sure that [U.S. Secretary of Education] Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump hear our message loud and clear from Boston,” the Democrat said. “We believe survivors. We believe women and we believe they deserve the most support and more compassion, not less.”

Walsh was joined by representatives from colleges and nonprofits in Boston, including Pam Eddinger, president of Bunker Hill Community College; Lee M. Pelton, president of Emerson College; Melissa Kelly, president of Suffolk University; and Debra Robbin, executive director of Jane Doe Inc. Title IX is a federal law that states that no person can be denied benefits or excluded from participation in activities on the basis of sex under any education program that receives federal funding. The changes DeVos has proposed would change how sexual harassment in education is defined and handled under these rules.

criminal justice system,” Kelly said.

Other changes would allow the accused to cross-examine the accuser, although both parties would remain in separate rooms and communicate electronically. Critics argue that such a system would intimidate victims from coming forward due to fear of facing their attacker.

“When a survivor of sexual violence is deterred from coming forward, repercussions can be enormous,” Pelton said.

A number of the speakers stressed the damage that sexual assault can have on students’ lives. Some have trouble attending classes, and many will drop out or experience mental or physical health problems.

Robbin emphasized that students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ students are more likely to be victims of sexual violence.

“This is not just about gender justice,” she said. “It’s about racial and social justice.”

The new rules would also change the definition of sexual harassment from any “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” to “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to the recipient’s education program or activity.”

Furthermore, colleges would no longer be required to investigate incidents that occur off campus. This would be especially detrimental to students at urban campuses, since many of them live off campus in apartments, according to Robbin. Additionally, this could impede investigations of assaults that take place while students are abroad.

The legal responsibilities of colleges and universities will also decrease under the new proposals. Schools will no longer be liable if a professor or resident assistant does not report sexual assault or harassment. Lastly, colleges would be given more flexibility in the option to use mediation and other forms of informal intervention. This, however, would only be used at the discretion of the accuser.

“As a member of this society and as a feminist, it is my moral obligation,” Walsh said. “As mayor it is my job to protect the health and safety of all of our residents.”

BC has not issued a statement regarding the proposals to change Title IX. As of now, the University is maintaining the policies it has in place but will revisit them when the final regulations are released to see if any of them are required by law to change, according to Melinda Stoops, the Student Affairs Title IX coordinator and associate vice president for Student Affairs. n

Lynch Launches ‘Learning Engineering’ Master’s

By Abby Hunt Asst. News Editor

kinds of things that are difficult to learn or require a lot of nuance and flexibility to carry out.

“We’re not talking about helping people memorize things,” she said. “We’re talking about really understanding gravity. We’re talking about really understanding evolutionary processes, really understanding and … becoming able to write the history of something based on whatever resources are available.”

Kolodner said that the program has similar emphases to the learning design and technology master’s program that has been running at Stanford for around 20 years but that BC’s learning engineering program will focus more on putting the “doing” of design projects at the center.

The program is designed for people with various educational backgrounds who are interested in a career in “designing for learners,” according to an email sent to undergraduate students. This might include people with degrees in education, computer science, human-computer interaction, instructional design, or information science who want to design learning technologies or new ways to use them. It also may include others with degrees in a wide variety of other disciplines—such as STEM, the humanities, social sciences, or helping professions who are interested in helping people learn but do not want to be teachers.

“There’s all these people out there, including on this campus, who want to be a learning engineer, but don’t know it,

The Lynch School of Education will begin offering a new master’s program in learning engineering—the first of its kind—this fall. The master of arts will be a 12-month, full-time, on-campus program with a 30-credit interdisciplinary curriculum. It will prepare its students to design learning experiences that are engaging and effective, informed by the learning sciences, and incorporate cutting-edge technologies, according to the Boston College website details on the intricacies of the program.

Learning engineering is a new field that involves “the systematic application of principles and methods from the learning sciences to support and better understand learners and learning,” the website reads.

Those working in the discipline help develop and improve design solutions—often using technology—that address specific learning needs and opportunities.

“It’s an engineering discipline in that learning engineers are using the science of how people learn, and the science of how to engage people, and the science of how to help people develop identity in order to design learning experiences … that will engage learners and result in them learning the things that you want them to learn,” said Janet Kolodner, visiting professor and special projects faculty member in Lynch.

Kolodner said that learning engineering usually deals with helping people learn the

POLICE BLOTTER: 1/14/19 – 1/15/19 Monday, Jan. 14

7:49 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding found property at Campanella Way. 9:09 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding found property at College Road.

11:20 a.m.- An officer filed a report regarding a medical incident at Conte Circle.

9:37 p.m. - An officer filed a report regarding larceny from a non-residence at Quonset Hut.

because it hasn’t occurred to them as a field,” said Nathaniel Brown, an associate research professor in Lynch and the director of the learning engineering program.

“They might be sitting in a history department or a chemistry department, and they really are interested in how you learn that discipline—they don’t want to be a teacher, but they want people to understand what they love and are interested in.”

Students who complete the program may find employment in careers related to designing educational technology; constructing technology-enhanced teaching methods; creating employee training and consumer education programs; developing online, hybrid, makerspace, and active-learning environments; and building after-school and community programs, according to the BC website.

“They’re not going to be real technical as engineers, but they’re going to be really good designers and really systematic designers and imaginative designers, and … designers who talk learning language, who keep always keep in the fore what they know about how people learn, what they know about how to engage people so they’ll stay long enough to really learn the stuff that they need to learn,” Kolodner said.

Throughout the program, students will complete design challenges, shadow working professionals, intern with local organizations, and take field trips to technology incubators and collaboratories.

“You’ll graduate with a dynamic portfolio that showcases the depth and breadth

Tuesday, Nov. 15 12:07 p.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a medical incident at Medeiros Hall.

12:45 p.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a fire alarm at Conte Forum.

of your design work and demonstrates your capabilities in learner-centered design, leadership, and forward-thinking imagination,” BC’s website reads.

The program features a three-credit Introduction to Learning Engineering course, followed by one or two-credit modules in various subjects, such as Principles of Fostering Learning and Motivation in Educational Contexts. Students will also take an elective in one of Lynch’s courses offered on the psychology, development, or sociocultural context of some population of learners, and choose from various options in order to fulfill a three-credit elective requirement.

Each semester, students will also take Design Studio, where they will apply their coursework to designing learning experiences and partake in a reflective seminar.

Kolodner emphasized that the program is designed to be very personalized—students will work on design projects related to things they are actually interested in—and that the program will have a social justice undercurrent running through it.

“They’re going to graduate from this program understanding a lot about how people learn, having a lot of imagination about how you help people learn things that are challenging to learn, how you help them deepen their understanding, how you help them gain masterful complex skills, and how you help them learn to be the people they could be,” Kolodner said. n

7:46 p.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a suspicious circumstance at Corcoran Commons.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

CORRECTIONS What is your opinion of winter?

“I’m from Southern California, so everyone told me that I wasn’t ready, so I wanted to prove them wrong.”

—Sunny Lee, MCAS ’22

“I grew up with snow because I’m from New Jersey and I hate shoveling snow so much.”

— Demetra Chang, CSOM ’22

“I like it. I personally enjoy snow since I’ve never been many places that have snow and I like it more than 100 degree weather.”

— Luke Knight, CSOM ’22

“Cold and slippery and not a fun time.”

— Brandon Portillo, MCAS ’22

Please send corrections to eic@bcheights.com with ‘correction’ in the subject line.

The Heights

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

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TOP MAJORS OVER THE YEARS

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Economics

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Finance

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Students Embrace New CSOM Minors

By Abby Hunt Asst. News Editor

Biology

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Political Science

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Communications

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Ikram Ali / Heights Editor

Major Trends Catalyst for CS Consternation Computer Science, from A1 more than just programming and technology. The gist of the matter is that faculty and students across campus are realizing the power of CS techniques, and they want to get in on these developments.”

The department has struggled to address this drastic increase in student demand, especially as it loses faculty to retirement, Alvarez said. There is currently an imbalance between the number of majors and the number of computer science faculty, which has lead to ballooning class sizes.

“Our department would need over twice the current number of tenure-track faculty in order to match the median ratio of [tenure-track] faculty to majors among CS departments at private universities in the U.S.,” he said.

The department welcomed one new tenure-track faculty member, as well as one full-time faculty member this year. The department will be searching for additional faculty for the 2019-20 academic year, according to Alvarez.

“For the moment, we are focusing much of our energy on meeting existing demand for undergraduate CS courses by hiring additional faculty,” Alvarez said.

The department is addressing these short-term concerns against the backdrop of the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. The new center, which is a long-term, $300 million investment in the sciences, will bring 22 new faculty and new courses in applied sciences, data science,

and global public health. It is projected to be completed in 2021, leaving it out of reach as a solution to the current understaffing the department faces.

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields are experiencing high growth overall. In 2007, 14 percent of BC undergraduates were STEM majors.

By 2018, they made up 24 percent of the undergraduate student body, according to Student Services—their ranks boosted last fall when BC moved the economics major into the STEM family.

Economics has been the most popular undergraduate major at BC every academic year since 2013. The number of undergraduates majoring in economics spiked from 643 students in 2008 to 1,227 students in 2018, according to Student Services. To accommodate the rapidly growing number of students pursuing economics, the department now has 39 full-time faculty.

In addition, the department has expanded the number of sections for classes required by the major.

Political science has remained one of the top five most popular majors for the past six academic years and has grown from 672 undergraduate majors to 873 since 2008.The department has already hired two senior faculty members, and this year it is searching for two new full-time tenure track faculty, according to Susan Shell, the chair of the department. The department is also seeking alternative solutions to the problem in the meantime, such as offering post-doctoral fellowships to graduate students. n

Admissions Changes Affect Regular Decision Early Action, from A1

middle ground between normal Early Action and single-choice Early Action, which is nonbinding but prevents students from applying to other schools Early Action or Early Decision. The change brings BC in line with typical Early Action programs and allows student who might otherwise forgo applying to take an early interest in the University.

The new policy has also caused a change in the balance between early and regulardecision applicants. The total applicant pool increased by approximately 6,000—14 percent—from last year, but almost the regular decision wave actually fell by nearly 2,000, indicating that prospective students are shifting their focus to the early admis-

sions process.

While the altered policy does allow for students to apply to an Early Decision school and BC simultaneously, the BC Admissions website asks that since such candidates have promised to prioritize other colleges, they should consider not applying Early Action.

In line with past years, Gosselin identified the University of Notre Dame, Georgetown University, and members of the Ivy League as BC’s top rivals for applicants. Of those, Georgetown offers standard Early Action.

Most Ivy League schools offer traditional Early Decision plans, although Harvard, Princeton, and Yale offer single-choice Early Action. Notre Dame allows students to apply under “Restrictive Early Action,” which, like BC’s previous stance, bars students applying Early Decision elsewhere. n

Sorkin to Face Charges in Middlesex County Sorkin, from A1 released as a part of the Brighton case—as well as the public blotter released to the BC community—that charge is noted, but was dropped since the incident occurred in Middlesex County. The report noted that Sorkin bit an arresting officer’s finger at the time of the arrest.

Sorkin was committed for psychological

evaluation in December after the incident.

The BCPD police report noted concerns that Sorkin was under the influence of drugs at the time of his arrest. Officers did not question him about the incidents in Walsh or Welch after Sorkin was arrested, due to concerns for his mental and physical well-being.

Sorkin remains on summary suspension from the University. n

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Nine hundred fifteen students have declared new Carroll School of Management (CSOM) minors for non-CSOM students—which were first announced in March 2018—far outnumbering the school’s expectations going into the program, according to Ethan Sullivan, the senior associate dean in the school’s undergraduate program.

Before this year, students outside of CSOM could apply to minor in management and leadership, with only around 25 students accepted into the program each year. CSOM announced the introduction of four new minors for students outside of the school and removed restrictions for the management and leadership minor last spring before fall registration. Of non-CSOM students, 270 are now minoring in management and leadership, 331 in finance, 222 in marketing,

77 in accounting for finance and consulting, and 15 in accounting for CPAs, as of the beginning of the spring 2019 semester.

Sullivan said that to determine how many students would be interested in the minors, the school looked at the graduating class of non-CSOM students in 2016. Of those approximately 1,500 students, 832 of them had taken at least one CSOM course over their four years at BC, and those students had combined to take almost 3,000 CSOM classes total. Sullivan said that the model predicted a total of 650 to 700 students to pursue the new minors.

In the spring, according to Sullivan there was a high demand for many of the classes required by the CSOM minors, but the school managed to accomodate students.

Some classes had waitlists, such as Introduction to Financial Accounting, a course that is a requirement for four of the CSOM minors as well as a part of the CSOM core curriculum. It started out with a waitlist of

more than 100 students on it, but by the start of the fall semester, every student had been placed into a section of the class.

“We were able to get ahead of it enough and do enough planning that we were able to accommodate students,” Sullivan said.

The school also looked at introducing minors that lined up more with career paths—for example, investment banking, consulting, or advertising—but determined that these seemed somewhat misleading, because a minor alone would not guarantee students a job in the field. It was eventually decided that the minors’ curriculum would be aligned to CSOM’s concentrations. As CSOM is not fully internally equipped to take on non-CSOM students as advisees, Sullivan said that the Fulton Leadership Society—a new program for incoming freshmen created in the wake of the announcement that the CSOM Honors Program would be ending—has helped with advising. n

Winter Concert Changes on the Way Plexapalooza, from A1 something that is much more than just an artist,” Florio said. “While it’s great that we have all these talented people, I think the event has become more than that.”

Florio cited the event contains a unique emphasis on production elements not present at every BC concert, or even some professional events. The live entertainment team sees the final Plexapalooza as an opportunity to go bigger than ever using the video boards and lighting effects it has at its disposal. To Florio, the visual components of the show are what drive a great artist performance to another level of excellence in the eyes of an audience.

The Plex provides unique problems for the live entertainment group to deal with.

For instance, CAB can’t use pyrotechnics, which are typically a major part of EDM performances, because of the way the Plex’s fire sensors work. Florio noted it provides his team with a unique opportunity to find other ways to create a unique, engaging performance style inherent primarily to Plexapalooza.

The concentration on production value doesn’t mean the artist—or, more aptly, the artists—don’t play a part in making this particular performance special. Florio noted that Plexapalooza has never had two artists before, and RL Grime and Audien provide a unique blend of EDM specialties that will make up a concert unlike any of Plexapalooza’s previous editions. RL Grime’s sound is more electro trap, while Audien’s is more electro pop. Florio said that by choosing two artists whose styles blend but aren’t the same, the audience will be treated to a

more in depth interpretation of EDM on Saturday than any previous performance.

The primary criticism of EDM is that it lacks artistic creativity and can be too repetitive, and though Florio doesn’t think that issue has affected past Plexapaloozas, he said he believes RL Grime and Audien’s wide-ranging combined expertise will prevent any aspect of the performance from lacking interesting, comprehensive EDM experience.

CAB traditionally brings in students to open for the headliners—this year, Matt Kuda, MCAS ’19, and Max Gates, MCAS ’19, will serve as DJs for the final Plexapalooza. Florio emphasized the importance of bringing in as many aspects of the BC community into CAB performances, making the student DJs a vital part of Plexapalooza’s history. In terms of merchandise, shirts will be given out as they always are, but a special memorabilia poster has been created just for this performance. The first 500 students who pick up their tickets, which can be picked up at Robsham Theater between Tuesday and Friday, will receive the poster.

The pressure on CAB this year isn’t different just because Plexapalooza is ending, but because of the controversy surrounding last year’s Modstock.

Florio was abroad when CAB announced that the headliner for Modstock would be B.o.B last April, and the organization came under fire for bringing a headliner to BC who has made comments with anti-Semitic undertones in the past.

Over 200 faculty signed a letter calling for a response from administrators, and then-vice president of student affairs Barb Jones and Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley

wrote a letter to the community that stated vetting processes for performing artists would be reviewed.

CAB issued an apology for the oversight, and is working to ensure its vetting process is more vigorous in order to weed out any candidates to headline a show that would be a detriment to the BC community. CAB is working closely with BCPD on this issue: The two organizations have always worked together on vetting options, but BCPD now produces more detailed background checks for CAB to go through before making any decisions on a headliner.

Florio and his team have worked to move past the issue as quickly as possible to restore the community’s faith in their work.

That effort began with this year’s successful Stokes Set, which Florio raved about, specifically citing headliner Daya’s performance as the highlight of the evening. Now, with more distance and a successful performance showcasing what Florio believes is his team’s best work, CAB and its live entertainment division are primed not only to put on a marquee final Plexapalooza, but also to put together Modstock and make preparations for what will replace Plexapalooza.

Florio said that the winter concert won’t disappear from BC’s calendar, but that CAB has not yet decided what will slot in in Plexapalooza’s place. CAB is planning on keeping the winter concert an on-campus event, and Florio’s crew is considering the Margot Connell Recreation Center as a potential new location, but no concrete plans are in place. Regardless, CAB will be using the year in the lead-up to the new event to flesh out what kind of concert they want to replace Plexapalooza with. n

Jesuit Sexual Abusers’ Names Released

By Colleen Martin Metro Editor The names of Jesuits credibly accused of sexually abusing minors were released by the U.S.A. Jesuits Northeast Province Tuesday morning. The list includes two Jesuits, now deceased, who worked at Boston College, although the alleged abuse did not occur while they worked at the University.

“Hoping to contribute to healing from the pain and anger caused by clergy sex abuse and the lack of accountability and transparency on the part of church leadership,” said John J. Cecero, S.J., provincial of the Northeast Province in a release. “I am making public a list of any Jesuit in the U.S.A. Northeast Province who has had a credible allegation of abuse against a minor or vulnerable adult since 1950.”

University Communications released a statement about the list, and included the names of the two priests who were employed at BC. Joseph Fox, S.J., taught at BC from 1931

to 1934 before he was ordained, and then was assigned to BC as a priest from 1939 to 1943. Allegations were raised against him in 2012 about incidents in 1956 and 1957, while he was at Bobola House in Boston. He died in 1986. Joseph McInnes, S.J., was assigned to BC from 1946 to 1947. He left the Society of Jesus three years after his departure from BC. His alleged misconduct is said to have taken place between the 1960s and the 1980s. Allegations were made almost 20 years after his death in 1986.

Nine Jesuits have been accused of abuse during their time working at Boston College High School. There are six more priests, who at one point worked for BC High, on the list for alleged incidents that did not take place during their time at the private boys school.

Of the 50 priests on the list, 14 are still alive. All of the alleged incidents are said to have taken place before 2009. Two of the former priests are incarcerated—one for child pornography and the other for multiple counts of abuse.

Forty percent of the Jesuits on the list spent at least some portion of their careers stationed in Massachusetts—the list accounts for any abuse in the states of New York, northern New Jersey, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

“At the heart of this crisis is the painful, sinful and illegal harm done to children by those whom they should have been able to trust,” Cecero said in the release. “We did not know any best practices to handle these violations many decades ago and regrettably made mistakes along the way.”

The release also said that since 2002— when the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team released investigative reports detailing extensive clergy abuse—steps have been taken to ensure that there are no new cases of abuse against minors or vulnerable adults.

The Northeast was the last Jesuit province in the United States to release a list.

The Central and Southern, West, Midwest, and Maryland Provinces released lists in December. n

The Heights

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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

2019 WOMEN’S MARCH

Thousands of people marched on the Boston Common for the third annual women’s rights demonstration.

The 2019 Boston Women’s March: Until All Voices are Heard was organized by March Forward.

By Celia Carbone Asst. Investigative Editor People flooded the Boston Common by the thousands to take part in the third annual Boston Women’s March: Until All Voices Are Heard, on Saturday.

The intention of this year’s march in Boston was to “re-energize, reinvigorate, and recommit to the mission of the original Boston Women’s March in 2017,” and to create a safe space for all allies who share the values of fairness, inclusivity, and dignity.

Massachusetts can lead by example for the world to follow, the march’s website said, by demonstrating the possibility of “radical inclusion.”

The Boston Women’s March was organized by March Forward Massachusetts, a non-profit organization that aims to create communities for advocates of social justice. A steering committee consisting of representatives from advocacy groups in Boston—including the Boston Women’s Fund, Mass NOW, and the NAACP—worked throughout the year to put on the march.

The Boston Women’s March is not organized by the same group that puts together the Washington D.C. Women’s March and the resulting sister marches around the country.

The Women’s March Inc., which the Boston march is not affiliated with, has been criticized this year after some of its leaders were accused of anti-Semitism.

The group released a statement in November saying that it denounces all forms of bigotry and discrimination, but acknowledged that they did not respond quickly enough.

The Boston Women’s March specifically denounced anti-Semitism, among other things, in its mission statement.

At the formation of the Women’s March three years

ago, some people worried about the direction it might take, said Sasha Goodfriend, president of Mass NOW. The 50-year-old organization advocates for “intersectional justice for people who identify as women and girls.”

“For a lot of long time serving gender equity organizations, there was a bit of nervousness around the new pop coming together of the women’s movement coming together in 2016,” Goodfriend said, “because whenever a … women’s movement comes together, it kind of naturally gives way to marginalizing minorities.”

The steering committee for the march this year is a better representation of the kind of intersectional feminism that the movement needs, said Goodfriend.

The organizations sitting at the table this year are the signal of change, showing the direction in which the march is headed. #WhyWeMarch The Women’s March is held on the anniversary weekend of President Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration, in which over 500,000 people crowded the nation’s capital on his second day in office, transforming it into a sea of pink.

In the months leading up to the election, a 2005 recording surfaced showing Trump using crude language to describe how he used his celebrity status with women to “grab them by the p—y.”

Several women came forward in the aftermath of the released tape to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct, but he dismissed his comments as “locker room banter” and disputed their claims.

The Women’s Wave Is Here Women have since reclaimed the word “p—y” by creating a social movement through fashion: a handmade pink hat peaked like cat ears.

Hundreds of women of all ages arrived off the T wearing their pink hats from home and vendors toured

through the crowd selling the merchandise that has become a symbol of female power.

A playlist of empowering anthems played over the speakers as more people arrived at the Common, the size multiplying in the hours leading up to the march.

The Black Eyed Peas’ “Where Is the Love?” had people singing the lyrics that still carry weight a decade later.

Attendees carried signs with messages from female empowerment to criticisms of Trump. Generations of women held hands as they walked the route near the Common. They traveled from far and wide to march alongside their allies and sisters, some traveling as far as 130 miles from western Massachusetts.

Speakers took to the bandstand before the march to excite the crowd and reiterate why they have gathered. Topics ranged from immigration and racism to LGBTQ+ and disability rights, but the overarching theme present in all of the topics was taken from the Pledge of Allegiance—liberty and justice for all.

Respect All Women Mni wiconi means “water is life” in the Lakota language. Mahtowin Munro of the United American Indians of New England explained how resource exploitation projects, like the Dakota Access pipeline, built partially on Native American reservation land, affect their cultural history.

The land and water are part of their lives, bodies, and families, and indigenous people are compelled to lay down their bodies to protect the land, she said.

“Nothing should happen to our bodies or our land without our consent,” she said.

Six women dressed in red cloaks and bonnets covering their eyes to raise awareness of the widespread epidemic of murdered and missing indigenous women.

They wore red to show that their “stolen sisters” are not forgotten, Munro said.

Out to Change What I Cannot Accept Tanisha Sullivan, president of the NAACP-Boston, addressed the crowd as a collection of sisters, acknowledging the male and female supporters as one.

She delivered a message of optimism and aspiration for what women as a whole hope to accomplish in this pivotal moment in history. She urged the crowd to not forget what she said she believes to be the country’s most persistent foe: racism.

“The humanity we seek to see in one another,” Sullivan said, “transcends any issue and any person because this movement is not about agreement on any issue, it’s about redefining how we engage, how we use our voices, and supporting the commonality in our values.”

Sullivan stood tall with a message for white women.

“We need you to show up for us. … Though justice is slow for all of us, justice has always been more inclined to the voices of our white sisters than it has been to our sisters of color,” she said.

If you see it, you can be it Mehreen Butt carries two things everyday: a copy of the U.S. Constitution and prayer beads. As the first Muslim-American women elected to a municipality in Massachusetts, she believes in “We the People.”

Butt is a Wakefield town councilor and knows that diversity, equality, and inclusivity are not only words that are aspirational, but must become a reality, she said.

“My religion taught me that I must be a voice for those that don’t have one,” she said. “To treat everyone equally.”

Congress has 36 newly elected women, a number once unimaginable, she said. She made the same plea to the crowd as she does to every woman she meets—run for office.

“I need more women sitting at the table with me,” Butt said. “They can’t tell all of us to wait our turn, to be quiet, to stop speaking.” n

Women’s Center and BC Dems Talk 2019 Women’s March

By Isabel Fenoglio Assoc. Metro Editor Among the thousands of protesters who filled the Boston Common on Saturday for the third annual “Boston Women’s March: Until All Voices Are Heard” were a number of Boston College students. The College Democrats of BC sent a group of 30 students, some wielding hand-drawn posters and noise makers, and others came with roommates and friends. The message of the afternoon was clear: The Women’s March is still relevant and not going anywhere.

In the days before the march, the Women’s Center held poster-making sessions, and Kathryn Berman, vice president of College Democrats and MCAS ’21, hosted a poster-making night in her dorm. Conversation centered on the impact

of the march and the importance of continued civic engagement.

“It is always important for students and young people to get involved in politics, not only to go out and vote but also to campaign,” said Amir Orosca, MCAS ’19.

“A lot of candidates this year were saying it’s not enough to just vote anymore, you need to get out and protest and campaign and stand up for what you believe in. As young people, it’s important to show what we care about.”

College Democrats members stressed advocacy and action in the face of complacency.

“We live in a nation in which women continue to be marginalized through discrimination, being underpaid, and sexualization,” said Gabby Kastrunes, communications co-director of College Democrats and MCAS ’22. “Attending the Women’s March is just one way that we may urge

lawmakers to make a change.

“Although the situation for women has improved over the years, women’s rights still have a long way to go. We march to stand up against the injustices committed against women of all races, ethnicities, religions, sexual identities, abilities, socioeconomic statuses.”

The theme of this year’s march was “Until all voices are heard”—a message of inclusivity.

“We were inspired by the passion of all who used their voices to speak up against hatred, bigotry, and violence,” said Abbie Howell, a member of College Democrats and MCAS ’22. “We were especially excited that intersectionality was a main focus of the speeches, posters and sentiment of those in attendance.”

Orosca agreed.

“Barring all scandals, we just need to make sure that every person feels included and kind of re-

ally be acutely aware of a lot of the intersections and oppression that lie with being a woman, and being a woman and black, and to be a woman and trans is a separate experience and separate form of oppression,” she said.

Above all else, students asserted that the message of the Women’s March should not be a yearly reminder, but a daily goal.

“The Women’s March is similar to the Women’s Center as a space where women can feel community, and feel that they are supported in their efforts for remedying gender and equity on campus, in Boston, and across the world,” said Julia Barrett, a Women’s Center employee and MCAS ’19. “So we have that sense here in this office so we support people doing things that are going to help them feel that and help them feel that they are taking steps and action towards improving gender and equity.” n

The Heights

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

A5

MWPC Takes Yearlong Activism to the Women’s March

By Colleen Martin Metro Editor

A woman peered to get a look at the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus (MWPC) banner, trying to read what it said. When she was able to see the name on the 10-foot-long flag, she went up to Laurie, executive director of the MWPC, who was standing in the middle and shook her hand.

“You endorsed me in 2012,” she said to the row of people who had gathered for the third annual Women’s March in the Boston Common.

“She” was Sarah K. Peake, the representative for the fourth Barnstable District in the House. Just more than eight years ago, she was one of the female candidates supported by the MWPC. Each year, the organization filters through the dozens of applications submitted by women seeking support.

Its goal is to increase the number of women in public office. Ninety-two percent of female legislators in Massachusetts are endorsed by MWPC. Many of them find their start in politics with school boards, Laurie explained, before moving on to local or state government.

One young woman named Antonia stopped when she saw the banner and walked up to the group holding it. She said she’s been meaning to try to get more into politics, but doesn’t know how. Laurie told her about the endorsement part of the MWPC, offered her card, and told Antonia to send her an email. Antonia wasn’t the only person to stop and check out the group of women with the hardto-miss sign.

U.S. Senator Ed Markey walked up wearing a hot pink scarf—”Like my scarf?”—and asked to take a picture.

The MWPC members greeted him with enthusiasm, asking if he was going to be marching with them again, as they said he did two years earlier.

He laughed and took his place behind the banner, before disappearing backstage again.

For the march in 2018, the MWPC was a fiscal sponsor, meaning that it lent its legal and tax-exempt status to the Women’s March, giving it a larger role in the march’s assemblance.

Although MWPC has not reprised its role, Laurie did serve on the steering committee, which consists of women from a variety of social justice backgrounds.

The executive director chatted about her experiences in the MWPC and on the steering committee, often pausing to admire the signs that were passing by as people headed closer to the stage.

“I love your p—y hat!” Laurie called out more than once, referencing the pink cat ear-like knit hats that have become a symbol of female empowerment since the first march in 2017.

Caitlyn, a member of MWPC, turned to Emily, the president of MWPC, and pointed out a sign that someone had just put up in the air ahead of the group. The sign read “You should smile run for office more.” The two laughed and voiced their approval of the message.

Throughout the day, the group evaluated the size of the crowd compared to past years. The first year, Emily said, the event was so crowded that you could barely walk. People

COLLEEN MARTIN / HEIGHTS EDITOR

MWPC members lead the procession for the 2019 Boston Women’s March. The group endorses female candidates running for office in Massachusetts.

were pushed all the way to the police barricades on the edges of the Common. This year, though, the crowd was congregated in front of the stage, with plenty of breathing room.

The lower turnout could be because people don’t think that there’s a point anymore, but there is, Caitlyn said.

Deloris, treasurer of the MWPC and director of Internal Audit at Boston College, said that some people feel that there isn’t enough unity within the march and that there’s no direct issue that they’re pushing for. Still, she said, the march sends a message that women have a voice.

Other possibilities that the women floated were that there wasn’t

enough publicity. Emily said that her all-women gym had been sending out reminders, but some of the others said they hadn’t seen advertising for it at all outside of the MWPC. Deloris turned to her daughter Mira, a junior in high school who came along with her mother to the march.

Deloris asked if she’d seen anything for the march on Instagram, to which Mira replied, “no.” Mira said that some of her friends were going to come to the march, but a lot of other kids her age just aren’t politically active.

As the speakers neared an end, the group moved closer to the stage— nobody wanted to miss the words

of Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts’ first African American woman in Congress. Laurie and some of the others from MWPC chatted about her cadence, saying that her voice sometimes sounds like a preacher’s. When the Democrat came to the stage, the women cheered and clapped, nodding along to her words and putting their hands up in support.

As the speeches wrapped up, the group quickly did a 180, getting its banner in position along the walking route.

As the rest of the women at the march assembled to begin their walk, the MWPC stood at the front of the line, waving and waiting to step off for their its march. n

“ I w a n t t o b e a g o o d e x a m p l e f o r m y d a u g h t e r t o d a y. T h i s i s h e r f i r s t p ro t e s t , h e r f i r s t m a rc h , a n d s h e w a s j u s t a s k i n g m e a b o u t M a r t i n L u ther King. I told her he stood up to bad values, he stood up against e v e r y t h i n g t h a t w a s w ro n g w i t h A m e r i c a a t t h e t i m e — a n d s t i l l i s — a n d she wants to do her part to save the world.”

- Nayera (above, right)

PEOPLE OF THE MARCH: WORDS FROM THE WALK “It’s important not only to be an ally, but to counter the war on women and women’s rights ... It’s overdue.”

- Dave (above, right)

“If people would just recognize the humanity of all human beings and the fact that we are all fundamentally the same and be respectful of that, the world would change.

Really, that’s what it’s about: it’s just recognizing the commonality among us.”

- Jane (above) MARY WILKIE / HEIGHTS EDITOR

The Heights

A6

Editorials

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Pause on Computer Science Major Inhibits Department Growth Boston College has “temporarily paused” the registration of new computer science majors, “necessitated by the combination of the very busy registration season with low staffing numbers in the CS office” said Sergio Alvarez, chair of the computer science department, in an email to The Heights.

The stoppage of major registration comes during a continued and expected rise in the number of computer science majors. With only nine core faculty (plus four “shorter term” visiting professors), the department has been struggling to keep up with student demand given its 420 majors and 86 minors. Not only has major registration been paused, but even registered majors are not guaranteed entrance into classes and instead have been admitted into classes based on how “qualified” they are. The specific “qualifications” have not been publicly specified by the department.

“We’re doing our best to move qualified students from the wait lists into the appropriate courses when possible, but the process takes time. We cannot guarantee that all interested students will get into their desired courses,” said a computer science faculty email.

The effects of difficulty in registering, coupled now with a pause in major registration, is a detriment to current and prospective students, as well as the University as a whole. Course registration for computer science classes has already been restricted. As of Spring 2017, courses above Computer Science 1 were restricted to majors. Minors are

required to go to the computer science department during their pick times to be added to a waitlist before they can join courses.

Computer science is BC’s fastest-growing major—experiencing a 518 percent increase in the last 10 years. The increase in registration is not unexpected, but rather a continuation of long-signaled trends as major registration.

There were 238 registered majors in 2016 and 323 in 2017—it is hardly a stretch to imagine that 420 majors in 2019 would be expected. The faculty problem is not unforseen either. Back in 2017, Alvarez told The Heights that his department needed a minimum of 20 faculty members, but he placed the ideal faculty number at 30, which would have made the the faculty to student ratio to about 1 to 15 or 1 to 10, respectfully. This was back when the department had 323 majors, which is 24 percent smaller than the current department. This year, BC hired 68 new faculty members. The computer science department acquired three more faculty members through that hiring this year, one of whom is part-time. Those three were additions to a 10 person faculty, bringing the final number to 13 full and part-time faculty.

In a previous Heights article, Billy Soo, vice provost for Faculties, said that faculty hiring was based on a combination of department requests, retirements and departures in department faculty, and courses and credit hours offered and filled by students in a given semester.

The computer science department’s unusually small faculty

seems especially tiny when compared with other departments at BC that have similar major numbers. According to the BC 2018-19 factbook, there are 12 full-time faculty members, and one part-time member in the computer science department.

The problem is exacerbated by majors pursuing B.S. degrees, who must take four more credits than their B.A.-seeking counterparts.

It’s worth noting that the department isn’t especially young either. It started as a major in 1981, and prior to that it was a minor in CSOM. The major’s numbers have been rapidly increasing since 2011. Alvarez’s email did not say when major registration would reopen, but rather noted that the department would “revisit the situation in the coming weeks.” A long-term solution was not immediately clear, as Alvarez added that the department has not “even discussed any definitive course of action at this time.”

The pausing of major registration, as well as the inability of even majors and minors to register for necessary courses has a negative effect not only on current students, but also on prospective students looking to major in computer science, a number which, if consistent with computer science trends from the past eight years, will only continue to rapidly grow once the hold on major registration is lifted. Computer science is increasingly popular at top U.S. universities, and if BC wants to keep up with its peer institutions while looking out for its students, it must address its computer science crisis soon.

Letter from the Editor A Note on The Heights Centennial Dear readers, The Heights used to change its masthead frequently. The Gasson emblem didn’t appear until a decade into publication. In fact, it wasn’t even called Gasson until the 1940s when someone suggested it in the opinions pages.

Once, the entire issue was all red-andgreen for Christmas. Occasionally, all that appeared alongside that header on the front page was “STRIKE” or “CENSORED” in times of discordance between the organization—an officially-sanctioned club—and Boston College.

But we’ve never strayed from our mission, first stated in the original editorial published November 19, 1919, when the paper was no larger than a flier: “For a Greater Boston College.”

The Heights has served as BC’s newspaper of record since 1919, and as we begin our centennial year of publication, our dedication to our mission is as strong as ever.

And in what now seems like a Heights tradition, we’ve changed the masthead yet again. In our 100th year, we want to renew our commitment to the mission of our past while striving to offer BC coverage today, and for decades to come. In order to focus more directly on being a digital-first publication, we reduced our printing schedule in the fall of 2017 to once-a-week—just like it was from 1919 until the early 2000s. This was also motivated by the inescapable truth of a declining advertising market felt by all news organizations—college and professional alike. We still believe that our longstanding commitment to

print journalism ensures The Heights remains a tangible presence on campus and within the sphere of printed college journalism.

To best provide that service to BC and the surrounding community, we have begun the first major capital campaign in our history. As an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, we are proud to receive no compensation from the University. Instead, we turn to you. Through donations, readership, interaction, and support, you allow us to further our mission “For a Greater Boston College.”

Signed, Steven Everett President, Editor-in-Chief

customer service Clarifications / Corrections

The Heights strives to provide its readers with complete, accurate, and balanced information. If you believe we have made a reporting error, have information that requires a clarification or correction, or questions about The Heights standards and practices, you may contact Steven Everett, Editor-in-Chief, at (617) 552-2223, or email eic@bcheights.com.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

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Jacob Schick, A1 Editor Emerson DeBasio, Creative Director Jack Goldman, News Editor Bradley Smart, Sports Editor Kaylie Ramirez, Arts Editor Brooke Kaiserman, Magazine Editor Colleen Martin, Metro Editor Madison Haddix, Opinions Editor Celine Lim, Photo Editor Danny Flynn, Copy Chief

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Letter To the Editor In Response to: Michael Sorkin Incident Amid the stress of finals and the weeks of winter break, it seems that we’ve dropped Michael Sorkin’s hate crime from our collective mindset.

This saddens me, because it was an important opportunity to address a problem that has diseased this school for a long time. I think it’s time we revive a dialogue on race at Boston College. But we need to revive it correctly, because I have been intensely aware—and disappointed—in our profound inefficiencies in discussing both Sorkin’s act and the larger issue of racism itself.

I see many white people immediately turn defensive when subjects regarding race come up. I believe myself to be a white ally, and seeing how other white allies conduct themselves, I feel we are partly to blame.

We are bellicose when someone disagrees with us about racism. Most white allies do this because we think there is an expected way to behave to eradicate it. We don’t stop and think through our own beliefs about this, or how a broad, general term like “racism” can be more nuanced in real life. We simply rip talking points from the aggrieved; marginalized peoples explain their experience and white allies just run with it—we don’t try to learn or understand the experience itself.

By ripping talking points without forming an individual, unique thought upon them, white allies adopt a stance of righteous indignation to compensate for our lack of understanding.

Since our beliefs are copied from the marginalized people who actually suffer from racism, white allies appropriate the aggrieved feeling without ever having to live with it. We don’t listen to people of color, we appropriate their pain. Then we aggressively assume the high road in dialogue, and any counterpoint to it must be coming from the low road. We prepare a regurgitation of our talking points without truly listening to the person with whom we are talking.

Earnest listening is the cornerstone of understanding. White allies do not earnestly listen—to defensive whites or marginalized peoples—and thus never understand anything. Because we don’t understand anything, white allies cannot initiate a productive dialogue. This is sad, because it is what white people have been doing for centuries. We need to practice listening and form our thoughts after someone is done speaking and not before. We can’t anticipate what we think a person of color wants to hear, or anticipate what defensive white people have failed to hear.

This brings me to defensive white people: the other half of the problem.

Like white allies, defensive white people don’t appreciate nuance. Like white allies, they don’t try to. However, their refusal to understand the experience of marginalized people in America seems to be a lot more active than the passive misunderstandings of white allies. It’s absurd to label any white person on the defensive as racist. People are defensive for a lot of reasons. Although I try and listen, it is difficult for me to fully understand where defensive white people are coming from, because I consider myself a white ally and we do not approach this subject in the same way.

Yet I notice that whenever someone

raises the subject of race, and an opinion dissents to theirs, defensive white people clam up. They erect immovable walls. To protect the privileged worldview behind these walls, many deny the relevance of a marginalized person’s experience and dismiss the larger implications a single racist ac may have. They say, “well I don’t see it” or “just because one racist evil nutjob does something terrible doesn’ mean black people actually face racism everyday at Boston College.”

Denying the existence of racism is the easiest way to maintain their privileged status quo. There may be a lot of reasons for protecting this worldview. One of them is that in recognizing the exclusion of marginalized peoples from our exclusive white society, we recognize that there may be something endemically wrong with white society, or furthermore whiteness itself. This is a distressing thought for white people who have never had to confront that question before. And distressing thoughts make people clam up.

It is hard and it is painful to confront your identity, to figure out how it fits in the world. Dialogues concerning American racism frighten white people because these conversations imply that there may be something bad about white identity, a question we have never had to deal with before—a question forced daily upon people of color in American society Of course, feeling this wound for the first time, we will holler like a kid who’s scraped his knee. By contrast people of color have ancient, profoundly deep wounds that may never fully heal. It is not the fault of white people on an individual basis, but i will be if we continue refusing to listen and refusing to hear. This includes white people to white people, white people to people of color, etc.

I think addressing the dissonance in dialogue is the first step to mending racial wounds at Boston College The Undergraduate Government o Boston College set forth many reasonable demands. One of the easies to achieve would be the required first year cultural diversity seminar Whatever subjects these classes may address, I believe they should be discussion-based, primarily focused no on what to say in these conversations but how to have these conversations White allies are too quick to pounce on any right-leaning white person and right-leaning white people are driven further behind their walls as a result. Being told what to say and wha to do perpetuates our misconceptions of race.

It is time for white people to figure it out for ourselves, empathize, and hone the skills necessary to step ou of our worldview and appreciate the existence of another. Finding ground for this understanding should be the focal point of this class, and it should be all-inclusive regardless of race or belief system. Furthermore, opening these pathways to a broader understanding of complex topics, such as race, goes beyond our uplifting our community—in fact, it is one of the core tenets of a liberal arts education and adds to the value of higher education as a whole.

The Heights reserves the right to edit for clarity, brevity, accuracy, and to prevent libel.

The Heights also reserves the right to write headlines and choose illustrations to accompany pieces submitted to the newspaper.

Letters and columns can be submitted on line at www.bcheights.com, by e-mail to editor@ bcheights.com, in person, or by mail to Editor The Heights, 113 McElroy Commons, Chestnu Hill, Mass. 02467.

Maeve Reilly, Asst. Magazine Editor Ally Mozeliak, Graphics Editor Isabel Fenoglio, Assoc. Metro Editor Jhon De La Cruz, Online Manager Amy Vanderschans, Social Media Director Mary Wilkie, Asst. Metro Editor Maggie DiPatri, Assoc. Photo Editor Meegan Minahan, Multimedia Editor Jonathan Ye, Asst. Photo Editor Chris Chilton, Outreach Coordinator Éamon Laughlin, Asst. Multimedia Editor Jack Miller, Assoc. News Editor Scott Baker, Copy Editor Abby Hunt, Asst. News Editor Izzy Cavazzoni, Copy Editor Peter Kim, Assoc. Sports Editor Stephanie Liu, Copy Editor Luke Pichini, Asst. Sports Editor Owen Fahy, Assoc. Investigative Editor Emily Himes, Assoc. Arts Editor Celia Carbone, Asst. Investigative Editor Jillian Ran, Asst. Arts Editor

Signed, Caleb Tansey, MCAS, ’19

Business and Operations Will Powers, Operations Manager Barrate Janney, Centennial Director David Goodfellow, Collections Manager Krishan Hinzen, National Accounts Manager Peter Pinto, Local Accounts Manager Sophie Lu, Local Accounts Manager Ashley Yoon, On-Campus Accounts Manager

The Heights

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

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A Transformative Tennis Journey Play for Pay quit, but that just simply could not be done.

From an early age, I was mature enough to understand how much time and effort I put into tennis. I could not let it go only because it was difficult.

Maria Ross My mother spent hours and hours in The beads of sweat slowly drip the sweltering heat trying to teach me down my face. I can feel the heat bakthe best technique while attempting to ing the back of my neck. I can barely make tennis enjoyable. As I grew older, stand because I am so fatigued. I step I learned to appreciate her dedication up to the baseline, realizing that this to her sport. I recognized that she was is the last time I will serve in a junior the sole reason that I became the tentournament. As I look around, I can nis player and person I am today. see the playground I used to play on My father also played a crucial role as a child before matches, the indoor in my career alongside my mother. He racquetball court that all the tennis supported me at every match, from the players would warm up on amid rainmoment I began playing tournaments storms, and the benches my friends at 9 years old to my last junior match and I would sit on while trying to calm at 18 years old. I always looked to him our nerves prior to competition. Evduring my matches, because he knew erything felt so familiar, like home. In a when to calm me down and when to sense, it was home. push harder. He, too, was tough on me I had been coming to the same as a child. He never accepted excuses tournament sites ever since I was 10, or lack of effort. I have him to thank accumulating wins, losses, and in for instilling in me a fearless mentality, hindsight, memories. It was a bitterand for helping me gain the courage to sweet moment when I stepped up to never give up. Even when I was losing, the baseline to serve, because I knew I I knew that winning was never off the was having to say goodbye to the past table.

10 years of competing in Florida.

My father used to tell me to never I now play varsity tennis at Boston be scared and only hit harder if I felt College, but I first embarked on this tennis journey first when my mother brought me to the tennis court at age 6 and began teaching me the sport. She was the top-ranked player in the Soviet Union as a junior and later became a coach when she moved to the United States. Her background made her a stickler for perfect technique, work ethic, and focus. As a 6-year-old, I pressure. Without my parents’ was oftentimes more curious about commitment and support, I would not the butterflies flying around than the be at BC today. I am forever gratedrills she was forcing on me. My lack ful for their belief in me. They are the of desire to play created resentment reason I was able to meet some of the between my mother and me, making most talented and passionate girls with home life difficult at times. She urged whom I was able to create everlasting me to work harder, run faster, and keep friendships. hitting until my forehand shot was I was always thankful to have a perfect. At the time, tennis was tedious group of girls in my life who knew how work that I hated and at multiple challenging tennis was. They were my points I wanted nothing more than to cheerleaders at tournament. We shared 69

White Powder - Snow! Campus looks stunning, like a collection of iced Jesuit gingerbread houses.

Acapella tryouts were Sunday, and consisted solely of singers dressed in Elsa costumes belting “Let It Go” while summoning magic ice castles out of thin air. Make sure to catch all the cute Instagram stories of your freshmen friends from California reacting to real snow.

Game of THrones - Full Disclosure—this author is still on season six. I haven’t even watched the trailer—I know nothing. Maybe I could drink and start knowing things about the trailer. The wait for the final season is dark and full of terrors—but remember BC, we say no to the God of despair and yes to the God of holding out until the final season is released in April.

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“What makes competing so special is having someone with whom to share the memories.”

Eagle’s Nest - The Eagle’s Nest’s new setup. What even? Bowls are where sandwiches were, the salad section is all tossed up, and everyone is confused. Lines are twice as long. This may be due to normal start of the semester stuff as well, but we’re just bitter because the delicious (and reliably quick) premade wraps have disappeared. #bringbackthetuscanveggie

Maria Ross is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

On Race-Based Friendships

Alicia Kang

Freezing Temperatures - Winter is no longer coming—it is here. Y’all know that part in Shrek where they talk about onions and cakes having layers? Well in January, so do we.

This is tank-top, long sleeve shirt, sweater, scarf, hat, mittens, and then coat weather. And it’s still cold beneath all those layers. White girls even switched from their normal iced coffee to slightly lukewarm coffee. At least we didn’t tweet about wishing for global warming.

the same dream of playing tennis at a collegiate level. We, together, went through the hardships of overcoming injuries, dealing with the college recruitment process, and trying to balance our schoolwork and tennis. On the court, due to our desire for success, we were enemies and battled each other. We didn’t, however, let competition create tension. Off the court, we consoled one another after a disappointing loss or celebrated with each other after a sensational win. These girls became both my biggest fans and my toughest competitors. They made me resilient and tough. Their success became my success.

Most importantly, tennis brought me to BC, a place where I knew I would thrive. All the memories, wins, losses, tears, sweat, heartbreak, and exhilaration were left behind. I said goodbye to tournament sites that I knew like the back of my hand and to girls with whom I competed. Though my goodbye to junior tennis was bittersweet, it was also freeing and exciting.

There are matches that are etched in my mind, driving me to keep playing and improving. All the tough losses and comeback wins contributed to the person I am today. They have made me a fighter—determined, spirited and happy. I carried all those attributes to BC, and have grown tremendously since. Growing up, the characteristic I liked most about tennis was that it was an individual sport, where I relied on no one but myself. Yet, since coming to BC, I realized that what makes competing so much more special is having someone with whom to share the memories. I no longer play for myself, but for my teammates who motivate and empower me everyday. As I head into my second season, I know that with every step, every shot, and every match, my teammates will be on the sidelines, cheering me on.

Coming into Boston College, I thought one of the most difficult challenges would be making white friends.

As a Korean-American who grew up in an almost entirely Asian community, I had not been in a very diverse pool. And whenever anyone from my hometown left the nest, those left behind wondered how they would fare as a minority in college: Would they be able to assimilate and have a “normal” group of friends?

Or would they end up categorized as the Asian nerds, who only associated with each other? It was a silent question, a criterion that permeated my shared headspace of my community.

The main reason why I felt I needed some white friends was that having only Asian friends could actually hinder me from making friends of other backgrounds: In the past, I have experienced many racist conclusions about minorities who stick together.

“Do you speak English?” asked a Caucasian lady in a museum stairwell.

I was in New York with my seven closest friends, and the question left us speechless—which did not really assist in convincing the woman that we could all speak perfect English.

Though such quips are much rarer here at BC, moments like these are familiar memories to minorities. No one sees an all-white friend group and passes such judgments. In fact, no one thinks anything at all because white people do not need to make excuses for hanging out with only other white people. On the other hand, as authors Gerald and Marianne Corey say in “I Never Knew I Had a Choice,” “when a group of black

teens sit together in the cafeteria, school administrators want to understand why this is so and how this can be prevented.”

This view that minorities only stick together as a “coping mechanism” contributes to the incorrect idea that people of color only spend time with other people of color because something has gone wrong.

The primary issue of focusing solely on making “white friends” is that it idolizes the Caucasian race. In doing so, it makes me feel that I am second-rate, that I could never be at the top of the social chain because I am Asian. Despite these red flags, this pressure is normalized and even embraced by my community.

“Have you made any white friends?” my mother asks during one of our phone calls. “White people!” reads a Snapchat caption from a high school acquaintance, flaunting the fact that she had Caucasian friends.

In the beginning of the year, when I entered a classroom or participated in a residence hall activity, I found myself once again shifting over to the Asians, deciding to sit with those I saw as familiar, even though I barely knew them. And at the end of the day, I would feel this gnawing worry in my mind. I was driven by the fear that, if I chose an Asian crowd from the get-go, I would automatically be considered the kind of girl with whom white students did not associate. And so I began studying in the lounge rather than in my room, or staying up a bit later, so that I could meet the Caucasian people in my residence hall. These little actions, though driven by a want to socialize more often, were also motivated by that small part in the back of my mind that told me this was what I needed to do.

One night my friends and I stayed up to watch The Princess Diaries, and I looked around the room to size up the demographic—a habit I had begun to develop after coming to BC. In a rare turn of events, it was 50:50 Asian and

Caucasian. I felt this strange pride in myself, as if I had accomplished something astounding. As the night went on, like any other night, I made conversation and we all talked about how our days went. The conversations we had were just as pleasant and regular as the ones I had with my Asian friends. There was nothing at all otherworldly or particular about these new friends I had made. And I was never expecting there to be. I knew that just as there was not something in my Asian-ness that made me inherently undesirable, there was nothing in their Caucasian-ness that made them as special as I saw them in my head. It was only a delusion that told me I needed this race—this validation.

I chased after “white friends” to fit a mold, to fulfill a goal I thought I had set for myself, but one that my community had actually set for me. There was nothing wrong with wanting to meet new people of different backgrounds, or with seeking a more diverse friend group. It was just that my obsession with this idea of a “white friend” was turning this innocent motivation into something twisted.

By my second semester at Boston College, I have learned to gradually let go of this obsession. I am still not perfect at it, and I doubt I ever will be.

Just recognizing this mentality in the first place, however, has helped me to prevent it as much as possible. So far, I have enjoyed spending time with the friends that I have chosen, and I do feel that being around them enables me to become a more active participant in my community. Those aspects—whether or not I enjoy their company, whether or not we make each other better people—are the ones I choose to focus on, because they are the ones that I have realized actually matter.

Alexa Sarci I hear the neverending roar of 70,000 cheering fans echoing through both my eardrums and the stadium. I stand on the bleachers, wearing a Boston College V-neck, my face plastered with eagle stickers and maroon and gold glitter. I’m anticipating the brutal conflict of BC’s modern-day gladiators As they fight for victory. I scream at the top of my lungs, “For Boston, For Boston, We Sing Our Proud Refrain!” as I watch the players on the field, the looks of happiness and smiles slowly fade and are replaced with looks of anguish and anxiety.

Fast-forward to the third quarter.

BC is down by 20, and I decide I’m tired and I have a paper to write. It’s time to go. On the field, I see the freshman football player who lives in my dorm. Unfortunately, he must stay and deal with the double-digit deficit, the booing in the stands, and then the load of work that awaits him back at his dorm, all while running on four hours of sleep. This is the life of a college athlete—having to balance the ardent eyes of the fans in the stands, the University, and recruiters. The pressure doesn’t stop there. Athletes still have a full class schedule with homework, deadlines, and papers at a college that breeds thoroughbreds.

After the game, I have so many questions. Are athletes exploited? Do they get an education? Should they be paid? I researched the NCAA. Based on what I found, I’ve come to understand that they are an institution or a company, whichever you would like to call them, that function not primarily in the athletes’ interest but in their own.

Athletes receive only a scholarship for the hard work they put in. When you think about the issue of paying athletes in terms of how much athletes give and what they get, it becomes much simpler. They are given four years of free education, which at BC is worth approximately $280,000. This is no small figure, as many students and parents know too well. The NCAA, however, has had a history of using athletes’ likeness for economic profit.

Last year, the NCAA made more than a billion dollars in revenue from college sports. It essentially has ownership over the players during their student careers.

It may be difficult to understand from just being a fan in the stands, but consider yourself in an athletes’ shoes.

You wake up everyday at 5 A.M., go to practice, then go to classes, have more practice, have tutoring, do homework, and go to bed. Student athletes work more hours a week than most jobs require or allow.

“With all the

revenue these athletes are making, BC needs to start paying them what they’re worth.”

We may call them student athletes because universities say that they are students first, but in reality they are not primarily here to get an education.

They are here to play a sport that gives them nothing. They bring in revenue from fans in the stadium, the donors, and the merchandise in the bookstores. All they get is a education they don’t even have the time to utilize.

In the words of Nike, “Talk is cheap.” With all the revenue these athletes are making, BC needs to start paying them what they are worth.

Alicia Kang is an op-ed columnist for Next time when you’re in the stands The Heights. She can be reached at wearing your Eagles attire, respect the opinions@bcheights.com. amount of work college athletes put in. You can leave after “Mr. Brightside.” They cannot.

The opinions and commentaries of the op-ed columnists appearing on this page represent the views of the author of that particular piece, and not necessarily the views of The Heights. Any of the columnists for the Opinions section of The Heights can be reached Alexa Sarci is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at at opinions@bcheights.com. opinions@bcheights.com.

The Heights

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

‘Heard It in a Past Life’ Propels Pop Forward

By Kaylie Ramirez Arts Editor Move over Taylor Swift—pop music has a new princess in 2019. After Swift’s 13-year radio reign, Maggie Rogers has risen from the ashes of radio rubbage to give popular music a complete makeover.

On Heard It in a Past Life, Rogers shouts out to the distraught souls of the Instagram generation, a group quick to hide the ugly reality behind “candid” content.

Behind the upbeat music of Rogers’ debut album lies a fleeting cynicism, a dual-emotionality that leaves listeners constantly confronting the choice to dance to the beat or cry to the raw truth behind the lyrics.

Pulling from singles that first debuted as far back as February 2017—“Alaska”

and “On + Off,” both originate on the 2017 EP Now That the Light is Fading—Rogers constructs an album with full emotional range and a distinct, intoxicating sound.

The album kicks off its soul search with “Give A Little,” a 2018 single that instills its infectious optimism with an airy beat and catchy chorus. Repeating “Give a little, get a little” between verses, Rogers looks forward to the prospect of rekindling a once flickering flame.

Rogers continues treading through Swift’s territory—writing about past relationships—with a similar naivete that is equally frustrating and familiar on the track “Overnight.” The 24-year-old singer sways between vulnerability and conviction with the lyrics “Take a big sip of my whiskey and then leave quickly / And pray you missed me” and “But if you lie to

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HEARD IT IN A PAST LIFE MAGGIE ROGERS DISTRIBUTED BY CAPITOL RECORD RELEASE DATE NOV. 30, 2018 OUR RATING

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me / I’m gone” over the sliding beat. The album reaches a party playlist height on the jangling metallic beat of the following track, “The Knife,” a song in which Rogers sings of being wounded by the “knife of insight.” Romantic reverbs reminiscent of those found on Lorde’s 2017 Melodrama course through the track with remarkable weightlessness to create a surefire magnetic dance track.

Aside from Rogers’ eloquent lyricism, the pop powerhouse’s incredible vocal range shines on the album. Shifting effortlessly from vulnerable voice breaks to resolute rising notes on “Light On,” Rogers mimics the adaptable nature of a light switch. In contrast, Rogers steadies her tone on “Past Life,” the album’s “Landslide” moment during which Rogers reflects on her rapidly changing life with the same folkish defenselessness Stevie Nicks displays on the legendary Fleetwood Mac track.

Rogers fearlessly boards a rapidly turning relationship roller coaster on “On + Off.” Resigning herself to the stomach-churning cycles of deep dependency, Rogers thrusts her listeners in to the pushand-pull momentum of the song with a repetitive piano-driven beat and skillful electronic mixing.

The track embodies the unique sound that distinguished the American artist from her contemporaries in the first place—it melds the organic warmth of folk music with the cool removal of techno

music. As a result, Rogers unchains herself from genre conventions and carves out a style of her own, all while mashing her many influences together to produce a palatable poppy-sound.

Riding this high, Rogers cleanses herself with “Fallingwater,” a track that utilizes a drum kit and synth beat to mimic the drip sound of rain on the pavement. Rogers recalls rough waters during the chorus that admits “I fought the current running just the way you would” before finding herself immersed in a backing chorus of voices on the track’s building outro.

In Heard It in a Past Life’s final track “Back In My Body,” Rogers reclaims her emotional autonomy with the lyrics “This time I know I’m fighting / This time I know I’m back in my body.” Wrestling with a building beat composed of live drumming and synthetic bass, Rogers’ vocals finally give way to a resilient guitar solo that echoes the fighting spirit of the track.

Despite its nostalgic name, Heard It in a Past Life laments a sound that can hardly be traced back to a past life. Rogers pulls from genres of the past and present to construct a distinct sound that both preserves the natural imperfection of artistic endeavours long completed and polishes itself with pristine electronic touches. Lending itself to both acoustic covers and electronic remixes, Heard It in a Past Life strikes a careful balance between innocuous innovation and requisite replayability. n

Despite High Expectations, Shyamalan’s ‘Glass’ Cracks

By John Tsimis Heights Staff

It has been 19 years since M. Night Shyamalan released Unbreakable, a movie about security guard David Dunn (Bruce Willis) who discovers he has superhuman strength.

Unbreakable received lukewarm reactions upon its release, but as time went on, the film gathered an enthusiastic following.

In 2016, Shyamalan released Split, which told the story of the savage Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) who has 23 distinct personalities, including one called “The Beast” with inhuman strength.

Split garnered attention from audiences and critics alike for its post credits scene with a Willis cameo that reprised his role as Dunn, confirming audience’s suspicion that Split was in fact a sequel to the much-loved Unbreakable.

Glass, the 2019 installment of Shyamalan’s superhero universe, bridges the plots of the two acclaimed films but lacks the engaging qualities of its predecessors.

This time the saga introduces Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson) and stories his struggles as a result of his osteogenesis imperfecta, a disease that causes bones to break easily.

Despite his physical frailty, Elijah possesses superhuman intellect and fashions himself as the supervillain “Mr. Glass.”

At its core, Glass is a movie about finding purpose. David struggles to live up to the image of the hero his son believes him to be.

Kevin’s 23 personalities are constantly at war with each other, fighting for control over his body and mind.

Elijah is a tortured genius who wants nothing more than to prove he can achieve greatness despite his physical condition.

These three complex and interesting characters are developed wonderfully and are Glass’s greatest strength.

McAvoy clearly gives his all in his portrayal of each of Kevin’s competing personalities. Watching him transition from one to the other in the same scene is a remarkable display of his acting skills. McAvoy’s character is also incredibly interesting because his multiple personalities can fill whatever role the film requires in any given moment.

Shyamalan knows that a superhero movie can only be as good as its villain. In Glass, Jackson perfectly portrays evil mastermind Elijah Price’s ingenuity as well as his limits and creates a character that serves as the emotional anchor of the film. Price’s scenes are a class above all others, and the only problem with Jackson’s performance is that the audience gets so little of it. In the exposition the audience finds Price heavily sedated, and the mastermind stays in that state for almost two hours as the film focuses on its other characters.

Glass’s biggest problem is its pace: Put simply, the movie just takes too long to get going. Of course, the exposition is important, as Glass is the third movie in a trilogy, but this build up drones on for almost an

hour and a half before the real action starts It is mind boggling how Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy, and Bruce Willis can all be in the same scene and yet that scene isn’t the least bit interesting.

Even when the action does arrive, it is underwhelming. The two superhumans battling essentially have the same power of super-strength, and while this makes for a fair fight, it doesn’t make for a very cinematic one. Where Marvel movies give audiences incredible god-like beings doing battle with astonishing visuals, Glass’s fight scenes are more akin to a real world wrestling match.

Plot twists are a hallmark of M. Night Shyamalan’s films, and Glass continues this trend, but is less successful than some

of its predecessors. Sadly, the twists only convolute the plot rather than give the audience that “aha!” moment that twists in Shyamalan’s other movies often do.

Between its all-star actors, legendary director, and 19 years of buildup, Glass hit theaters with high expectations. While it is still a good movie, Glass does not live up to its full potential.

Perhaps the bar has been set too high for Shyamalan’s films—or maybe he has just lost his touch. Whatever the case may be, Glass leaves its story open for another installment in Shyamalan’s superhero cinematic universe—and if he chooses to continue this story he will have to pick up the pieces from the shattered Glass. n

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Heights Staff

Just like it did the first time around, the second season of Netflix’s Marvel show, The Punisher, dishes out a boatload of exhilarating, gut-busting punishment upon the unfortunate victims of Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal). This hit anti-hero series somehow found a way to deliver an equally thrilling sophomore season despite a new set of circumstances, a mixture of returning characters, and a few new faces in the cast—and that’s an achievement that few television shows can claim to have earned.

This season continues about a year or so after the events of the first season, with Castle free from the ghosts of his past and roaming the country on his own time. But, after making a rare emotional connection with a new character, he finds himself inexplicably thrown back into the world of

violence, in which he had lived for so long after the murder of his wife and children.

Old foes return along the way and Frank starts to care about some of the new people in his life.

Bernthal reprises his role as the bad guy-slaughtering ex-marine Frank Castle, better known as “The Punisher,” and continues to be the perfect combination of an unfeeling badass and a sorrow-stricken widower and ex-father. Bernthal is the glue that holds the entire operation together, the foundation upon which the show is built, and the reason that the series is so effective at what it does. His performance has so much range, and his ability to shift from brutish intimidation to vulnerable sensitivity at the flip of a switch makes the character come to life in a way few other actors could pull off.

The other shining light of the show comes in its action choreography, which

GLASS M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN PRODUCED BY BLUMHOUSE RELEASE DATE JAN. 18, 2019 OUR RATING

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has improved on the already impressive formula from the first season. Each fight scene features extended cuts that allow the viewer to experience some sort of fluidity and continuity so it is easy to understand, a significant improvement from the frantic jump cutting that has become a staple in the action movie genre over the past decade or so. These prolonged takes make the fights feel more realistic and exciting because the audience can actually see each punch, kick, gunshot and takedown. That sort of immersion is what sets The Punisher apart from other shows with similar plotlines and premises.

This season’s arc is a lot more complicated than the first, and that convolution actually managed to make it more interesting to watch. There are more people in Frank’s life now and he has to start allowing them to get close to him, and then subsequently protect them from the world he lives and almost thrives within. It creates a world with more stakes and causes his decisions to hold much more weight than they previously did, which makes for a more tense and exhilarating viewing experience.

One of the most impressive examples of this comes in the first episode of the season, where in the span of about 20 minutes, a newly introduced character is not only given a clearly defined role in the show, but also spends enough valuable time on screen to become emotionally important to the audience. The Punisher’s ability to pick and choose both who the viewer is invested in and when they become invested in them gives it more staying power for those who

SINGLE REVIEW EMILY HIMES

‘ONE MAN BAND’ OLD DOMINION

Old Dominion’s second single from its upcoming album follows the wildly successful “Make It Sweet,” which was released last fall. “One Man Band” is slow and calm in nature as lead singer Matthew Ramsey sings of his bad luck with finding love. The relaxed beat is reminiscent of the group’s 2017 hit “Written in the Sand”—in both tracks, Ramsey’s voice has a smooth, sliding quality that allows the listener to give the detailed lyrics their full attention.

The song also evokes imagery from another previous release: Ramsey’s simple chorus is quick to propose “We’ll get tattoos / And we’ll trash hotel rooms,” similar to what’s described in the band’s 2018 release “Hotel Key.” The lyrics in “One Man Band” are less witty and unique than most in Old Dominion’s prior releases, but they possess a simple and easygoing nature that make them great anyway. At first, the listener expects a sad song. The opening lines dwell on love gone wrong and loneliness, but once the chorus hits, it’s clear that those trials and tribulations are far in the past for Ramsey. Lyrics like “I’ll lay down the beat, you’ll carry the tune” sound similar to Blake Shelton’s “Honey Bee” and “I’ll Name the Dogs,” which use the same contrasting pattern within each line. While Shelton might have faced criticism for overusing that technique, it feels like a perfect touch in “One Man Band.” n

MUSIC VIDEO EMILY HIMES

‘7 RINGS’

ARIANA GRANDE

‘The Punisher’ Season Two Adds Emotion to Action

By Michael Troy

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enjoy getting attached to the characters in their favorite television shows.

Despite all of the high points, there are certainly a few serious issues with the show: the first being the genuinely awful CGI blood that rears its ugly head during a few of the shootout scenes throughout the season. Some of them are so glaring and unintentionally funny that it momentarily ruins the immersion, and a show like this can’t afford for its immersion to get broken.

The second glaring issue with the show is some of the acting outside of the core cast of characters. Some of the secondary actors in the series are just atrocious in their roles and make it difficult to believe that they are really the characters they play on screen. Adding to this, there are a few plot points that are solely designed to push the story along rather than products of an inspired, well-written script. There are entire storylines that are thrown to the side for episodes at a time and only reappear when it is opportune for the plot—and they’re very noticeable.

But, even with those issues, The Punisher is a non-stop adrenaline rush that is absolutely worth the watch for anyone who appreciates well-made action shows.

The choreography is great, the connections between Castle and his companions are emotionally packed and tangible, and the story is compelling despite some glaring flaws. Since Netflix seems to be systematically axing all of their Marvel television series, this might be the last chapter of arguably the best of the five shows. Enjoy it while you still can. n

Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next” video was hard to top, and her release of the “7 rings” video just two months later was clearly a poor strategic move.

While “thank u, next” had an aspect of wittiness and comedy to it, “7 rings” seems to be pure nonsense—there’s absolutely no plot or interesting development at all.

The video focuses on Grande’s countless possessions—which are all pink—while she crawls around on a kitchen counter wearing a diamond leotard and matching cat ears (and we all thought we’d never see those again after her stint on Victorious).

The video is packed with flashes of diamonds (the choker Grande wears is so large it nearly covers her entire neck), pink cars, countless girls who are halfdressed, massive champagne towers, and one giant fluffy coat.

Toward the end of the video, Grande peers into a large dollhouse, which looks a lot like her own home. It quickly becomes evident that she and her friends (the “six bitches” frequently mentioned throughout the song) are just like dolls in a dollhouse.

In a sense, if given a close inspection, the song is kind of sweet—it emphasizes and celebrates bonds between friends—but it’s portrayed differently in the music video than expected. A little confidence goes a long way, and while this was never a question for Grande, “7 rings” is an example of someone being so overly confident it’s laughable. Instead of focusing on actual friendships, it focuses on material bonds that she has created because of her vast wealth.

Although the scenery is somewhat entertaining, the video and the song get repetitive within the first minute or so. There’s some coordinated dance, but it’s not at all impressive, and the pink-tinted camera makes everything look the same. Audiences felt bad for Grande after her extraordinarily rough year, but they already knew that she had an exponentially disposable income.

Grande’s notorious “thank u, next” made her likable and funny, but “7 rings” just shed some light on her purely vain and conceited side. n

The Heights

A9

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Netflix’s ‘Fyre’ Film Illuminates Festival Fraud State of the Art

By Charlotte LeBarron For The Heights

Netflix has recently put forth a number of documentaries about social media’s increasing prevalence and impact on popular culture. For instance, The American Meme follows Paris Hilton and other famous Instagrammers as they work to morph their carefully curated online images into income-generating enterprises.

Similarly, Inst@famous features the creator of a different viral Instagram account in each brief episode. Although not advertently about the influencer movement, the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened certainly ties into this fascinating cultural trend.

Released on Jan. 18—just four days after Hulu released its Fyre Fraud docu-

mentary—the documentary depicts the complete and utter failure of the Fyre music festival in 2017. The brainchild of entrepreneur Billie McFarland and rapper Ja Rule, the festival was originally envisioned as a way to promote Fyre Media Inc.’s main product, a booking app. Ever a shrewd capitalist, McFarland leveraged the public’s lust for fame and “living high” and shot an enticing promotional video for the festival on a private island, replete with a dozen of the most prominent models in the world.

As the documentary shows, this advertisement was beautifully shot, including panoramic views of the breathtaking tropical atmosphere, yachts, private jets, and stunning supermodels. When these models then began to promote the event on their social media pages, the Fyre

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Festival morphed into the event to attend, with high-priced tickets selling out in a mere few days.

One might marvel at the inception of the documentary—how an event with such potential could devolve into thousands of people getting trapped on an island with minimal food and nowhere to sleep except disaster tents left over from a hurricane. One might question, far more disturbingly, why hundreds of Bahamian workers who toiled around the clock under completely unreasonable time constraints to get the island ready for the festival never received payment for their labor. It might also shock an unknowing viewer that McFarland, touted as a “promising entrepreneur” throughout the beginning of the documentary, is now a convicted felon serving six years in federal prison for fraud associated with the event.

The thought process and appalling result of the Fyre Festival seems akin to the construction of personal social media pages: The image put forth is often partially or entirely detached from reality.

McFarland had a vision of a luxury music festival experience in an exotic place with all of the most desirable people present. In terms of marketing, garnering investors, and bolstering belief within the Fyre team, the reality that it was impossible to host the festival successfully with the existing logistical constraints was engulfed by the image.

“We’re selling a pipe dream to your

average loser, your average guy in Middle America,” McFarland says to the models and cameramen at one particularly revealing point in the documentary.

The organizers of the Fyre Festival weren’t selling a music festival so much as an image of fame, glamour, and beauty.

This tactic mimics the cultivation of a marketable online image by a social media influencer such as Kendall Jenner—who, by the way, was paid $250,000 for a single promotional post about the Fyre Festival.

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened is certainly worth watching.

On-screen interviews with Fyre employees, festival goers, event organizers, lawyers, and Bahamian locals create a vibrant medley of shocking anecdotes about the event that never was. Interestingly, footage of McFarland throughout the process is readily present in the documentary, seamlessly corroborating accounts of his remarkable charisma, fixation with partaking in a luxury lifestyle, and grotesquely fraudulent ways.

The commentary and video footage allow a casual viewer to understand how a participant in the event could have become enamored with the dream of the Fyre Festival. The coverage of the festival’s epic downfall is at times humorous, but undeniably sobering as it demonstrates the power a smooth-talking, deeply dishonest individual with access to wealth and social media can have over a massive number of people. n

Blake Shapeshifts for New Album ‘Assume Form’

By Gio Lavoile Heights Staff

James Blake has managed to make an entire career out of releasing incredibly depressing music. All of his prior albums and EPs—which are for the most part rooted in the sounds of soulful R&B—have consisted of hollow or skeletal music that evokes feelings of isolation, longing, and overall sadness. Blake’s name had become so synonymous with melancholia that his songs have almost exclusively been reserved for the later hours of the night.

The sadness has notably been represented by the experiences of his life: Blake has mentioned that the constant work, touring, and lack of rest can wear on the soul. Having started music at such a young age, the artist has had ample time to feel the negative side effects of his nomadic lifestyle. He has been candid about his struggles with mental health in the hopes of raising awareness and combating the wave of depression that seems to plague many artists. But on his new album, Assume Form, Blake takes a step in a completely different direction, delivering his most optimistic album yet.

Blake attributes this new perspective and love of life to his relationship with girlfriend Jameela Jamil, who is most well known for her portrayal of Tahani on NBC’s The Good Place. The first single from his new album, “Don’t Miss It,” is a perfect representation of this newfound happiness.

Lyrics such as “When you get to hang out / With your favorite person everyday / When the dull pain goes away / Don’t miss it” show a side of Blake that his listeners are not quite used to. Gone are the songs about pain and longing for affection, replaced with contentment and appreciation for a stable and comfortable life.

No stranger to the transience of certain aspects of life, Blake acknowledges that this happiness may not last forever, but also makes sure to show that he is doing his best to make sure that it carries on for as long as it can.

A perfect example of this is on the title track, a song in which he describes steps he’ll take to maintain this stability. Lines like “I’ll be out of my head this time” and “I’ll be reachable to her” show a mentally fortified Blake, who acknowledges his tendency to let the roller coaster of emotion that comes with his depression often overtake him and clarifies his desire to live in the present, appreciate the moment, and be more accessible to those around.

Not every song on the album holds as much emotional weight, but nevertheless all remain enjoyable. On the second song on the album, “Mile High,” which features Metro Boomin and Travis Scott, Blake and Scott go back and forth, toying with the idea of joining the mile-high club. Although not a thought-provoking song, the track displays a humble admittance that it is nothing but a fun listen.

As much fun as he’s having, Blake does make clear his doubts about this sudden shift. On “Where’s the Catch,” a track that features the ever-elusive Andre 3000, Blake and Andre exchange verses expressing how some things can simply be too good to be true: “There’s no reason really, treason to myself / So silly / So perfect, so perfect, so why do I look for / Curtains?” Andre wonders.While questions about the downside might always loom over Blake, he is occupied enough with his life to live in the moment as best he can. On the album’s closer, “Lullaby for My Insomniac,” Blake shows a desire to be there for his significant other and help her as she’s helped him. He expresses his hope that he can calm her down and help

her sleep, but he acknowledges that even if he can’t, he’ll be more than happy to stay up with her and enjoy their time together.

Blake had very clearly been pigeon-holed as a depressed crooner over the course of his career, but on this new album, he begins to shed his sad-boy persona. Blake delivers a beautiful album about enjoying life and keeping your head up, something that many people can relate to. While it may be hard to fully resign oneself to happiness, Blake makes it clear that he’s going to try his best to let go of his baggage so he can open himself up to those he loves. Assume Form is a beautiful album with a powerful message, and it is definitely a step in the right direction for Blake, both sonically and personally. n

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Politics Trump Plot in ‘The Kid Who Would be King’

By Peter Gavaris Heights Staff

There’s a self-aware trend in blockbuster cinema that is manifested in a number of immensely popular films which investigate the very process of myth-making. Maybe this shouldn’t come as a surprise given the current political climate, and even if this trend is reactionary, there’s something admirable in the way hits like The Last Jedi, Blade Runner: 2049, and even Into the Spider-Verse sought to question and even re-center the myths that lie at the center of their respective franchises.

Along with us as viewers, it seems that the fictional characters within these worlds have also grown weary of these same old heroic tales that champion, over and over again, myths of destiny and the chosen hero. In debunking the hierarchies implicitly peddled in these stories, many of these

films have also challenged the gender and racial norms enforced by upholding these conventions. All of this is well and good, at least conceptually, which brings us to The Kid Who Would Be King, Joe Cornish’s restaging of Arthurian legend in contemporary, post-Brexit England.

Aptly enough, the film begins with an animated sequence recapping the ancient tale of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the sword in the stone, before reminding the audience that a dark evil lies dormant. This vaguely defined force has been hiding underground, growing strong and waiting for the day when division and chaos in the world will allow for it to gain strength and, of course, destroy humanity. Hard cut to a gloomy London suburb drained of any and all hope—the film holds on one shot of newspapers headlined “Division in Europe.” The camera settles in on a small family comprised of Alex

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Elliot (Louis Ashbourne Serkis), an average middle-schooler, and his mother (Denise Gough). They have a sweet rapport as he gets ready for school, and when he eventually gets there, he invariably must save his klutzy friend, Bedders (Dean Chaumoo), from the clutches of garden-variety bullies, Lance (Tom Taylor) and Kaye (Rhianna Dorris).

Cornish paints a portrait of a divided England, where even schoolyard spats seem politically related, in one way or another. These tumultuous times awaken the aforementioned dormant evil, which the audience soon learns is the demon Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson), as she begins dispatching legions of demonic horseman to wreak havoc on England.

Alex, in turn, finds Excalibur one day sticking out of the exposed concrete foundation of a luxury condo. Convinced of some greater calling, Alex sets out with Bedders, the two bullies, and a coked-up young Merlin (Angus Imrie) for Tintagel Castle where, apparently, a portal to the underworld exists.

In attempting to defeat Morgana, Alex also hopes to reconnect with his long-lost father who, incidentally, also lives on Tintagel.

After hearing countless stories of heroes with absent fathers—Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, to name a few—Alex comes to believe his father’s absence can be chalked up to some higher purpose.

While it’s commendable that a children’s film would even would make such an abstract allusion, The Kid Who Would Be King runs up against a wall in that its story is beyond generic. While it may be

self-aware of the fantasy tales it’s frequently riffing on, Cornish ultimately fails to act on this referentiality, settling instead for self-satisfaction. Save for a few twists along the way that attempt to comment on how audiences understand these myths, the film sinks into a bland, bargain-bin fantasy narrative. The film’s visuals are similarly uninspired. Granted, the story calls for an unholy fusion of the generic everyday and medieval tack, but Cornish, borrowing visual ideas from Steven Spielberg and Edgar Wright, should have leaned heavier into a formal kineticism that a fantastical film like this ultimately requires.

Furthermore, the film’s attempts at political relevance never cohere with the narrative it’s selling, regardless of how laudible its politics may be.

Audiences have seen children’s films lately grapple with the fallout of a post-Brexit and post-Trump world (i.e. Paddington), but in order for these political signifiers to mean anything, especially to the children for whom they’re made, they must connect to the story being told.

Nothing about King’s worldview connects to the thematics of its story: The evil of Rebecca Ferguson’s cackling villainess has nothing to do with the real-world evil, a division witnessed by Alex and other Londoners. Instead, references to Brexit only come across as opportunistic, mere window dressing, for the most part, which is a real shame, considering Cornish and the rest of the creative team seem to have some interesting ideas on their mind. If only they had followed through. n

Emily Himes Cuba essentially fell off the map after Fidel Castro died in 2016. Talk of opening the country, then closing it, prevailed in the United States, but was muffled by the never-ending turmoil resulting from our own problematic government. Miguel Díaz-Canel is currently serving as the president (don’t be fooled—he’s part of the communist party) of Cuba. While the island has been relatively quiet since he took power, he recently introduced legislation that is enraging people near and far: Decree 349. The decree contains intentionally vague language that allows for unfair punishment and imbecilic censorship of artists on the island, and while harassment of artists is nothing new among Cuban officials, it will now be totally legitimized and sanctioned.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Decree 349 “bans the exhibition and sale of artworks and music shows not authorized by the state,” and therefore empowers the government to further censor anything not conducive to the communist regime. It also targets song lyrics that are sexually explicit or vulgar.

Art is not always political, but often it is—and it should be as political as the creator wants it to be. Art has historically acted as a force for social and political change and gives a voice to the people. Countless pieces of famous artwork have political messages behind them, from Picasso’s Guernica to “Highway 61 Revisited.”

Music with political messages is especially prevalent, and the freedom to create it is often taken for granted. From Beyonce’s “Formation” to Childish Gambino’s “This is America,” artists use powerful lyrics to address the injustices America faces today. John Lennon’s “Imagine” and The Beatles’ “Revolution” are famously deeply political, not to mention how much money Americans—and ironically, Londoners—are spending to get tickets to see Hamilton, an intrinsically political production that doesn’t necessarily portray our founding fathers in the most positive light, instead highlighting their faults alongside their many strengths.

Imagine if President Trump could censor artists and musicians based on the content of their work. Further, what if comedians were censored? Saturday Night Live hardly ever airs an episode without making jokes about Trump. America would be in an uproar if Pink’s “What About Us” was pulled from the radio because of its potentially political undertones, just like we’d be outraged if classic Hamilton catchphrases like “Immigrants: We get the job done” were retracted from the set. I can’t even imagine what would happen if they tried to take away, well, just about anything Dylan has ever written.

Cesar A. Cruz once said that “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable,” and Decree 349 completely disavows that quote’s entire second clause. By a single sweep of legislation, the Díaz-Canel regime is removing art that will “disturb the comfortable” (e.g., the government officials themselves) simply to make themselves appear more legitimate.

Out of sight, out of mind, right?

No matter how far Cuba has come as a country, it will never get to where it needs to be without freedom of speech and expression. Censorship is a clear sign of weakness, but as long as censorship is in practice, the current regime will be too.

After watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel over Christmas break, I was inspired to look up old bits performed by Lenny Bruce, who is portrayed by Luke Kirby on the show. Listening to him in 2019 is a weird experience because I think he was considered obscene even by 1950s standards, when making racist jokes didn’t raise any eyebrows whatsoever. But I did come across a quote of his that fits so perfectly to Cuba’s eerie situation: “Take away the right to say ‘f—k,’ and you take away the right to say ‘f—k the government.’”

Ironically, he was arrested three times because of obscenity.

Censorship is a grave danger that is often overlooked among democratic countries. The more we fail to stand up to governments that prioritize censorship, the more they will continue to capitalize on it.

Emily Himes is the assoc. arts editor for The Heights. She can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

The Heights

A10

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

S ab i a W

By Joan Kennedy Heights Senior Staff

Y

ou just finished making popcorn in your kitchen.

You walk back into your living room and there’s a man you’ve never met sitting on your couch.

You’ve welcomed him into your home without knowing it.

Time after time he’s filled your ears and stunned your eyes with a charismatic voice and electricity that puts you in a trance. His spontaneity makes you wish he wouldn’t every time he vanishes. The more of him you see, the more you want to, until that want turns into a need, and it’s too late for you to leave.

He has an unparalleled influence over people, flying to Kazakhstan and Japan to charm the mouths of strangers to do exactly what he asks of them. Often, high-profile people invite him into their homes to reveal their secrets.

His message has already touched someone you know—your friends, your parents, your priest. He lives in an apartment in New York City without a buzzer—but also everywhere, his followers and admirers making him omniscient. He’s grazed your arm even if you’ve never felt it. You’ve given him your allegiance, even if you never meant it.

Since graduating from Boston College in 2006, Joe Sabia has created one of the biggest cult followings in the world with Vogue’s “73 Questions,” which has over 572 million lifetime views and a battalion of fierce commenters typing their minds in the thousands beneath each video.

In fact, creating cult followings is precisely what Sabia does for a living. If you’ve sat on your couch and scoured YouTube, chances are Sabia

status-soaked experience: In her video, Gigi Hadid began with saying how excited she was, because she had asked to do “73 Questions” “like a hundred times.”

Fans love it because it gives them an avenue to come face-to-face with their favorite stars in a place that’s familiar to them—markedly not at a press conference or on the other side

“All I knew was that something that was interesting, that I had never seen before, was an impressive amount of questions being thrown at someone as they’re looking at the camera.”

-Fran Shea of a talk show table.

Initially, Sabia figured he would ask his subject 100 questions, but once he started writing them he realized just how chancy having all of those asked and answered in one take was, so he cut it down to 73 because it was eye catching and had an appealing SEO. Condé Nast liked it, Sarah Jessica Parker said yes (“Why she said yes, I have no idea”) and then added an offer that set the bar for celebrities to come—she invited Sabia’s crew into her home.

“So we did it ... and we watched the first take, and everyone on set was like, ‘Oh my god, this is so cool.’” Sabia said. “I think it was at that moment where I’m like ‘Oh yeah this is going to be a thing.’”

Since, Sabia has had a cocktail in the home of Sean Diddy Combs, decorated cupcakes with Blake Live-

“He’s calm and yet he’s ... always looking around for ideas—you can see his brain never stops thinking and assessing what’s possible. He’s a great leader on set.”

-Marina Cukeric was sitting right next to you—he’s had a hand in phenomena and touched a variety of trends—everything from Celebrity ASMR (where celebrities sit down to explore sensory triggers for W Magazine) to Virtual Dating (where strangers have a blind date in virtual reality, then decide whether they would like to go on a second, real date). Since the inception of The BC—a nationally recognized spoof of The OC that read the conventions of the successful Fox TV series onto life on the Heights—he’s gone on to be a leader in all things viral.

While in the airport heading to the Dominican Republic in 2014, Sabia got a call from Condé Nast Entertainment—the media conglomerate that owns brands including Vogue, W, GQ, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. They asked him one question: “What would you do with Sarah Jessica Parker if you had four hours?”

Given a few days to come up with an answer, and not really knowing much about Vogue or Sex and the City, Sabia was struck with an idea on a whale watching tour—the reason one of SJP’s questions is about whale watching.

“All I knew was that something that was interesting, that I had never seen before, was an impressive amount of questions being thrown at someone as they’re looking at the camera,” Sabia said.

Sabia came up with a first-person point of view format, filmed in one take, that created a direct line to the audience instead of a direct line to a mediator, as was the norm for celebrity interviews. Celebrities see it as a club of sorts—a velvet-roped,

looking around for ideas—you can see his brain never stops thinking and assessing what’s possible. He’s a great leader on set,” said Marina Cukeric, producer of “73 Questions.”

Named VP of Creative Development at Condé Nast in 2014, Sabia does more than just ask questions.

He’s tasked with moving Condé Nast’s brands from images and words to

ly, sat on the booth from How I Met Your Mother with Neil Patrick Harris, asked Emily Ratajkowski to draw a self portrait and dedicate it to his friend George from Georgia, had tea with Saoirse Ronan, hung out with llamas at Nicole Kidman’s Australian farm, gifted a David Bowie book to Lady Gaga, watched Emma Stone do a Britney Spears impression, and had a run-in with a power tool-wielding Kris Jenner while talking to Kendall Jenner.

And, not surprisingly given the segment’s following Sabia’s array of high profile encounters and his Godlike voice without a face, beneath every YouTube video is at least one comment reading “73 Questions with the ‘73 Questions’ guy please!”

include sight and sound.

“It’s like basically taking something that’s three dimensions and saying, ‘Add a fourth,’” Sabia said.

Sabia has pushed onward and upward in views through patient experimentation and keeping in mind the company and his own team’s identity.

His old boss, former president of E! Entertainment and founder of HBOlab, Fran Shea, sees his hunger for trial and error—mimicking a painter in studio, with rough-draft sketches thrown haphazardly throughout the room—as one of the reasons for his success.

“He tries really, really hard. He thinks about [the concept] a lot and he engineers it. … He thinks a lot about what doesn’t work and why it doesn’t work. He experiments all the time, either on paper or creating it and not uploading it,” Shea said.

Sabia falls under the “concept is king” camp, and his team is marked by the strategic bets they make—such as one of their most recent, and most auspicious, on artist Billie Eilish.

Sabia and his team interviewed Eilish, an artist who was relatively unknown, on Oct. 18, 2017 in hopes that she would have gained notoriety a year later. At the time she had 250,000 followers on Instagram and the biggest crowd she had played in front of was 500 fans.

On Oct. 18, 2018, she was asked the exact same questions—her follower count had burst to 6.3 million (it is now at 9.4 million), and she had played in an arena for over 40,000 people.

The Vanity Fair video showed the 2017 Eilish and 2018 Eilish answering the questions side-by-side and has received over 11 million views in just a few weeks. Shea points it out as an instance of Sabia’s innovativeness and willingness to experiment. Sabia exudes excitement when he talks about it, the perfect example of his visionary approach to popular culture and storytelling. abia’s creative mind—the source of his many talents— is dictated by his various obsessions. As a kid, he channeled these infatuations to dominate spell-

S

“October 13, 2005 is the day I realized what I wanted to do forever. ... The audience was full in Devlin Hall for screening ... and that’s when I said, wait, hold on, look—I can do this for a living.”

-Joe Sabia Sabia and his crew work on very limited time—with only a few days for collecting information, coming up with questions, and mapping movement that encompasses each subject’s personality—so the job requires a lot of thinking on the spot, something Sabia excels at, with a mind that moves faster than a rumor.

“He’s calm and yet he’s … always

ing bees, memorize the capitals of every country (a skill that came in handy while bargaining for a T-shirt in Nairobi), and even teach himself how to read and write Russian.

As he grew older, he went from hating the piano to playing it three hours a day through all of high school and continues to pound the keys today, throwing himself into difficult

compositions like Rachmaninoff ’s 3rd Concerto.

Naturally, nowadays, when people ask Sabia what they should do with their 9-to-5, his eyebrows cower at the question and his mouth replaces it with another one, as he cocks his head and adds an innocent inflection to his voice: “Well, what are you obsessed about?”

But back in college, Sabia was rife with indecision—switching back and forth between the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, then the Carroll School of Management, then back to MCAS—until he ultimately earned degrees in political science and economics.

“I really thought I needed to be this political person, this lawyer, this Teach For America so I can get into law school, so I can be a politician—I thought that’s what I wanted,” he said.

But then Sabia, a member of the comedy group Asinine, picked up his dad’s video camera and taught himself to film and edit.

“October 13, 2005 is the day I realized what I wanted to do forever. …

The audience was full in Devlin Hall for screening, and 300 people were there, and they sold out and that’s

plays psychotherapist to then-Director of Athletics Gene DeFillippo, Dudley gives Tim Russert tickets to a game in exchange for status as host of NBC’s Meet the Press, and a slew of deans are shown playing video games.

Doug Flutie recreated his Hail Mary to save the beloved MacMillan—who was kidnapped by the board of trustees—and the cast of the show played “Mary Had A Little Lamb” on the bells of Gasson Tower.

“It made BC look good, and it made education here look like it was fun, not just a job,” MacMillan said.

Sabia’s parody, created in the absence of prior expertise and YouTube, is all on an independent website and uses QuickTime. It might be the only place on the Internet to find Jesuits singing Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer,” and a BC remix of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” called “St. Ignatius Started the Fire.”

It also got the attention of big names, specifically Bob DiLaurentis, executive producer of The OC, who said it was “hysterical.” Sabia, Tondorf, and MacMillan were even invited to visit the set by DiLaurentis and his daughter, who herself is an alumna of BC.

“It’s easier to call up Lindsay Lohan if you’re calling from Condé Nast than it is if you’re Joe calling from your apartment.”

-Fran Shea when I said, wait, hold on, look—I can do this for a living.”

Tho s e 300 p e ople sat in the squeaky chairs of Devlin Hall outside the bounds of history class to see the premiere of a hand-stitched show that everyone was talking about—producing headlines like “Soap and the Campus: A Web-Site Spoof Succeeds,” “A Star is born in ‘The BC,’” and “BC is so the New OC,” Sabia and his Asinine cohorts (specifically, Woody Tondorf, Mike Cherkesian, Sean Hanlon, and Michael Fox, all BC ’06) created a spoof of the Fox Television sensation The OC called The BC. It got hundreds of thousands

The BC might be the only place on the Internet to find Jesuits singing Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” or a BC remix of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” called “St. Ignatius Started the Fire.” It also got the attention of big names, specifically Bob DiLaurentis, executive producer of The OC, who said it was “hysterical.”

Sabia, Tondorf, and MacMillan were even invited to visit the show’s set by DiLaurentis and his daughter, a BC alumna.

Sabia, the skinny guy with a camera who never lived in the Mods and often wore hats that were egregiously

“It’s never been easier for people to do it, but it’s also never been harder to stand out.”

-Joe Sabia of viewers, which was completely unexpected. While The OC starred the likes of Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson and follows a fallen teen from a working-class community who is taken under the wing of a well-off lawyer in Orange County, The BC starred college kids and a Jesuit priest, who takes in a troubled BU student after his father stops paying tuition.

“One day in March, in between watching how obsessed this campus was with The OC and visiting the Taco Bell at BU, I said to myself, ‘What if instead of a rough kid from Chino, it was a rough kid from BU? And instead of a pro-bono lawyer taking him into the glamour of The OC, it was a good-hearted Jesuit who took him into the haven of The BC?’” Sabia said in a Heights article from 2005.

The show was consumed by the whole campus and also consumed the whole campus— the bigger it got, the more BC groups were included. Notably, the NCAA tournament-storming basketball team consisting of Jared Dudley and Sean Marshall appeared frequently for comedic asides, Rev. Donald MacMillan, S.J., talks rap music, Baldwin the Eagle

2000s, was now on everyone’s radar.

But even though he was a something of a sensation in the headlines, he was a mess in the classroom—probably because he spent upwards of six hours a day working on the show. Sabia says he failed all of his classes, but an alumnus reached out to him to connect him with a woman at HBO, and Spring Break he was taking JetBlue (because its planes had TVs on the backs of the seats) to take interviews in LA. “And [HBO] said ‘We want to hire you right out of college,’ and that was it—it was the best senior year anyone could ever have,” Sabia said.

It was that simple–Sabia turned an idea into an obsession, which turned into an interview that eventually turned into a job and gave him direction in the dizzying world after graduation. Sabia’s long journey has the arc of a modern day LinkedIn succuss story.

He went on to work at HBOlab— an experimental incubator for TV talent—and was soon described by The New York Times as the “whippersnapper at HBO who speaks to the Web the way Dolittle does to animals.”

The Heights

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

A11

E f f ect Though he’d landed a dream job in a campus sitcom director, producer, star, and writer’s paradise, Sabia remained restless.

But it wasn’t drinking a Sex on the Beach or on Rodeo or Melrose that Sabia found repose. Instead, he was excited most by what was going on illicitly in his basement.

He and his roomate Paul Gulyas had been messing around with nearly 100 hours of footage from the hit crime show The Sopranos and created a seven-minute recap of the first six seasons.

Gulyas came up with the script, which touched on major plot points, and Sabia edited the video.

One day, Sabia pulled his boss aside and asked if he could show her something he was working on. Shea, used to playing the sage, called it a common occurrence—but what Sabia showed her wasn’t ordinary at all.

“Oh my god, that was probably the best piece of marketing I might have ever seen working at HBO—and HBO does amazing marketing,” she said.

“Seven Minute Sopranos” was particularly impressive to Shea given the timing of the idea—it came right before the premiere of the seventh season. But back then, people weren’t using YouTub e like S abia—e ver controversial—wanted to. Staring at Sabia’s screen, Shea was looking at promotional gold, but also at a potential lawsuit.

“He was using David Chase’s work, essentially, to promote himself—you could see it that way, right? At the same time, he was helping the franchise because of the timing of the piece,” Shea said.

Shea flew from department to department and was met with various answers to her questions about the potential gem Sabia had revealed to her. Some voices thought it was amazing, other screams were sorely against it, and she didn’t even ask legal because she already knew what their answer would be.

“And my boss goes—I’ll never forget what she said—‘I’m not going to tell you not to do it, but if you do, put it under your roommate’s name,’” Sabia said.

With that, Shea walked away, and Sabia pressed upload.

The recaps blew up, and HBO’s lawyers suited up.

Then, writer and producer David Chase was shown the video on set of the show’s finale— instead of commanding the legion of lawyers to pursue the two basement-dwellers, Chase “laughed all the way through it.”

When it came out that a kid who worked in HBO’s lab was partially behind the sensation, people were shocked. he self-made generations of the early 20th century, who found success after locking eyes on the Statue of Liberty, worked their way up the social ladder after long journeys on large ships through foreign waters to islands like Ellis Island.

Before his arrival in New York City in 2011, Sabia also had to make a great naval passage. But Sabia’s boat ride was just a little bit different—it was a networking boat cruise to the Bahamas with an organization called Summit Series.

On the cruise he met Jon Batiste, an up-and-coming musician and piano virtuoso who also lived in New York.

Batiste, who’s played with Prince, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Lenny Kravitz, Ed Sheeran, and is the bandleader and musical director on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, became the door through which Sabia began CDZA. He introduced Sabia to the two guys he began the musical collective with. CDZA stemmed from Sabia’s

idea to have a medley of conservatory trained musicians singing the lyrics of songs that weren’t lyrics. He and his crew took all of the dua diddy dum diddy dos and la da da das and mashed them into a video that got 1.5 million views in less than a year. Then YouTube, who Sabia had worked with as a consultant, funded the channel. nter Condé Nast.

Shea remembers getting a call from Sabia when Condé Nast offered him a permanent job. He, being the creative maverick she describes him as, was terrified about going corporate because he thought he would get antsy.

But he was also extremely ambitious and wanted to work with interested people, technology, and celebrity, so, she pointed out something important.

“It’s easier to call up Lindsay Lohan if you’re calling from Condé Nast than it is if you’re Joe calling from your apartment,” Shea said.

Sabia realized that Condé Nast could give him the freedom he had experienced for the past five years as a freelance artist, but he would have his own a team, much like at CDZA. That’s when he knew it was a company worth being a part of, and so, the prodigal son returned to the office from working out of cafes everyday.

“Its developed for me a whole sense of mission. I never really predicted I would be in this position—I don’t think a lot of people would have ever predicted that,” Sabia said. “I remember when I found out I was going to take the job my friends go ‘are you sure about that?’”

While Sabia was born out of a remix culture—parodying and cutting up everything he could get his hands on—he now has the resources to just create.

Looking online and seeing parodies of “73 Questions” feels right.

He was floored when he saw Julia Finkelstein’s “73 Questions” with Ari-

E

ana Grande spoof. The video, just two weeks old, already has over 3 million views, an example of borrowing and reinventing that energizes Sabia.

“I started out by grabbing clips without permission—I did that, I totally did that, but I would create new art out of it. I would create transformative art out of things I did at home, art that said something art that educated, art that could be used as examples for protecting the ability for artists to use art that they don’t own,” Sabia said.

As VP of Development at Condé Nast, as in everything he’s done, Sabia prioritizes creating human connections—and searching for something “sticky” that people will remember.

In seeking those human connections and great ideas, Sabia has seen a lot of success in creating formats with another level of importance.

“He’s very bright, he knows business now … He knows how to work it—it’s always a positive twist that he puts on things,” MacMillan said.

When Sabia was a junior at BC, being a passionate guy whose face pretty much everyone knew given his extensive involvement on campus, he ran for UGBC vice president. Despite getting a Heights endorsement, he lost. But, because of the absence of a title, Sabia was able to go abroad to Rome.

“There was a lot happening in [Woody and Joe’s] heads that I didn’t know about back here in the United States. Joe was constantly creating and writing and coming up with things,”

MacMillan said.

Because Sabia went abroad, he came back senior year with new ideas to continue The BC, because he continued The BC he went out to Hollywood, and because he went out to Hollywood—well, you know the rest. Sabia says that all of these things happened because of the singular moment of losing an election.

“What feels like world-ending for anyone who’s 21 is a door opening somewhere or something that could be really great,” Sabia said. “Because if I won that election I would probably be in law school and I’d probably be realizing into my third year that I hate law school.” ow, Sabia sit s on the 21st floor of One World Trade. The white cover of New York Times Bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, glistens on his desk.

The book’s author, Yuval Noah Harari, posits that the cognitive revolution—the watershed moment in human history—came about because of a genetic mutation that gave Homo sapiens the ability to think and communicate in unheard of ways.

Specifically, this mutation gave Homo sapiens the power of storytelling—to craft illusory worlds and forge tales to link themselves together. And armed in the power of stories, Homo sapiens were able to collaborate and advance, beating out other animals and establishing a dominant position in a rapidly spinning world. Humanity survived, in other words, because of

N

stories.

“There’s never been a time where it’s been this easy for someone to think of something from their brain, translate it from their eyes to their hands, shoot something, make something, and express themselves,” Sabia said. “It’s never been easier for people to do it, but it’s also never been harder to stand out.”

And Sabia’s journey to stand out has been unlike his social media attention-hungry peers. Sabia’s generation is filled with influencers and public figures, people who post their every move on Instagram to hint that there might be an interesting story beyond all the posts.

But his approach has led him to discover not what of his own he can give the world, but what of others he can uncover. For someone who works among the glitz and glam at Conde Naste, Sabia’s career is refreshingly selfless.

Most people only know Sabia as a voice, an elusive storyteller who exists primarily in the cadence of his inquiries. But beyond that voice—beyond the obvious “what?” “where?” “why?” or “how?”—is a mind that knows the best stories are not the newest or trendiest.

They’re the questions that start open-ended, with curiosity but no presumptions, that assure the viewer that whatever follows will be engaging, thought-provoking, and enjoyable. They reveal just as much about the celeberity as the questioner. And Sabia has 73 of them. n

It’s 4 a.m. on a Saturday night, what would you eat?

Blake Lively

What’s the strangest rumor you’ve ever heard about yourself?

T

Lady Gaga

What’s your favorite cocktail?

What’s your most overused phrase?

James Corden

Michael Kors

What is one household chore you hate to do?

Simone Biles

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Anna Wintour

What’s your songwriting process?

Taylor Swift GRAPHIC BY ALLYSON MOZELIAK

PHOTO COURTESY OF CONDÉ NAST ENTERTAINMENT

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TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2019

WOMEN’S HOCKEY

Two-Goal First Period Lifts Eagles to Win at Vermont

BY LUKAS MCCOURT Heights Staff

Entering Friday night’s contest, Boston College women’s hockey sought to extend its 21-game winning streak against Vermont. Yet, with Vermont 2 the struggling Boston College 4 Eagles dropping six of their last eight games, there was no guarantee that BC would continue its dominance over the Catamounts.

Through the first 15 minutes of the game, BC controlled the action. The Eagles owned a significant advantage in terms of shots on goal, pressuring Catamount

netminder Melissa Black. Both Makenna Newkirk and Daryl Watts served as the primary attacking forces for BC, but it was Delaney Belinskas who jumpstarted the Eagles’ scoring effort. The junior notched her fourth goal of the season off a great dish from Erin Connolly. Less than two minutes later, Newkirk doubled BC’s lead by slotting a wrist shot by Black and the Eagles never looked back, earning a 4-2 victory.

Despite ruling the first period, the No. 10 Eagles (15-9, 12-7 Hockey East) faced an immediate response from Vermont (7-13-4, 5-10-2). Taking advantage of a Megan Keller penalty, the Catamounts

scored with the extra skater just two minutes into the second frame, as Sammy Kolowrat blasted a shot by BC goaltender Maddy McArthur. The Eagles dominated the rest of the period but were unable to add to their lead. In one stretch of play, BC fired six consecutive shots at Black, yet none slipped by her.

Fortunately for the Eagles, it did not take long for them to seal the game in the third period. Just three minutes into the final frame, Megan Keller raced down the left side of the ice before firing her 12th goal of the season into the roof of the net.

Five minutes later, Jillian Fey added the finishing blow. The freshman scored the

first goal of her career, leveling a shot into the top right corner of the net. Vermont got one goal back late through Saana Valkama, but it failed to serve as anything more than a consolation prize.

This win comes at a crucial time for the Eagles. After suffering two separate threegame losing streaks within the last month, BC has been tested. Yet after taking care of the Catamounts and triumphing over No. 3 Northeastern last week, it appears as if BC is regaining their momentum at a critical time of the year.

However, it is notable that BC continued to commit penalties at an alarming rate. Entering Friday’s contest, the Eagles

ranked second in Hockey East in penalty minutes. Against Vermont, BC players spent 12 minutes in the penalty box, as opposed to just four minutes that the Catamounts played down a skater. It did not cost the Eagles tonight, but it has hurt them all season long and will continue to harm them unless they get more disciplined, especially on the penalty kill.

Regardless, as BC proved once again tonight, it possesses the talent of a Hockey East title contending team. The question for the Eagles now is whether they can find some consistency and close out the last month and a half of the season on a high note. 

FOOTBALL

A LOOK AHEAD: 2019 BC FOOTBALL Week 1

vs Virginia Tech TOP FIVE NFL DRAFT PROSPECTS 1) DE Zach Allen (ESPN Grade: 88) BC hasn’t had a first-round pick since Luke Kuechly was drafted by the Carolina Panthers with the ninth overall pick in 2012—but Zach Allen will surely put an end to that drought. After stealing the spotlight from Harold Landry in 2017, the New Canaan, Conn. native decided to return for his senior season and more than lived up to expectations. He’s one of the most complete defensive ends in college football.

Allen can also stuff the run, bat down passes at the line of scrimmage, block kicks, and intercept passes.

2) OG Chris Lindstrom (ESPN: 68) Chris Lindstrom is as consistent as it gets. The Shepherd Hill High School product started his final 47 games in a BC uniform, receiving All-ACC honors in each of his final two years on the Heights. At the moment, Lindstrom is ranked as CBS Sports’ second-best offensive guard in the 2019 NFL Draft.

3) TE Tommy Sweeney (ESPN: 63) Over the course of the 2018 season, BC rolled out five tight ends, but Tommy Sweeney stood out the most. Sweeney’s stats don’t jump off the page compared to some other college tight ends, but his soft hands and ability to slip open in coverage are what make him so valuable in today’s NFL—that and the fact that he is a capable blocker.

4) FS Lukas Denis (ESPN: 79) Whenever you finish the regular season tied for the national lead in interceptions, it’s almost impossible to come back with a stronger campaign the following year,. Yet Lukas Denis—who picked off seven passes in 2017—decided to return for his senior season. Unfortunately, his stock took a bit of a hit, due to somewhat of a mediocre season. Despite this, Denis’ coverage skills, raw athleticism, and high football IQ should be enough to sway scouts.

5) SS Will Harris (ESPN: 63) Will Harris has all the makings of a rover, similar to that of the Arizona Cardinals’ Deone Bucannon or the Los Angeles Rams’ Mark Barron—players that were drafted as safeties but then switched to the linebacker position. Harris, who finished the past two seasons with the fourth-most tackles on BC’s roster, is a hard-hitting machine that has a knack for filling gaps and stopping the run. 

Week 5

vs Wake Forest

Week 10

at Syracuse

Week 2

vs Richmond

Week 6

at Louisville

Week 11

vs Florida State

Week 3

vs Kansas

Week 8

vs N.C. State

Week 13

at Notre Dame

Week 4

at Rutgers

Week 9

at Clemson

Week 14

at Pittsburgh

Schedule Features Two of Last Year’s CFP Teams

BY BRADLEY SMART Sports Editor

After a strong second half of 2017, expectations were high for Boston College football this past fall. With the ACC Preseason Player of the Year in A.J. Dillon and loads of experience on both sides of the ball, the Eagles entered the year with plenty of hope for a strong showing. And, through nine weeks, they’d lived up to it.

BC was 7-2 and ranked No. 17 in the country, earning a College GameDay bid for a primetime matchup with No. 2 Clemson on ESPN. Then, the wheels came off—BC was rolled over by the Tigers, 27-7, after starting quarterback Anthony Brown went down with an internal body injury. Disappointing defeats to Florida State and No. 19 Syracuse followed, and the Eagles limped to another seven-win season under head coach Steve Addazio. Despite there being question marks surrounding his future with the program, Director of Athletics Martin Jarmond extended Addazio’s contract, and the head coach will have to deal with the loss of 11 All-ACC players and two of his top assistants.

The 2019 schedule was released last week, which features matchups with two of the four participants in the 2018 College Football Playoff—including the defending national champions.

WEEK 1 Aug. 31 vs. Virginia Tech Arguably the Eagles’ biggest win in 2018 was a win at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, with Travis Levy stepping up in what proved to be a 10-point victory. The Hokies had an uncharacteristic 6-7 season in Justin Fuente’s third year as head coach, but they also suffered through plenty of

injuries and should enjoy a strong season in 2019.

WEEK 2 Sept. 7 vs. Richmond For the first time in 47 years, the Eagles will take on the FCS’s Spiders. BC took the last two meetings handily and will likely have a similarly easy go of it in 2019—Richmond is coming off a season in which it went 4-7 and finished sixth in the Colonial Athletic Association.

WEEK 3 Sept. 14 vs. Kansas The Jayhawks haven’t had a winning season in a decade and have lost nine or more games in each of the last three years, but there’s hope in Lawrence for the first time in a while. Former LSU head coach Les Miles is replacing David Beaty (who went 6-42 in four years with the program) and looks to rebuild the program.

WEEK 4 Sept. 21 at Rutgers Next up for BC is a Scarlet Knights program that it consistently finds itself recruiting against in the Northeast. Rutgers has been a cellar dweller since it joined the Big Ten in 2014 and is coming off a 1-11 season in 2018. History is also on the Eagles’ side—they’re 19-6-1 historically against the Scarlet Knights and have won the last 10 meetings.

WEEK 5 Sept. 28 vs. Wake Forest Head coach Dave Clawson is building something good in Winston-Salem. The Demon Deacons have won three bowl games in a row, an impressive turnaround after Clawson went 6-18 in his first two years on campus. While offensive weapon Greg Dortch is off for the NFL, quarterback Sam Hartman and leading rusher Cade Carney return while a youthful

defense has the potential to take a step forward.

WEEK 6 Oct. 5 at Louisville Life after Lamar Jackson hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for the Cardinals.

Without him piling up yardage and points, Louisville’s shoddy defense was exposed in 2018 to the tune of a 2-10 regular season.

Bobby Petrino was fired with two games left, as Louisville went winless in conference play. The Cardinals did find a strong replacement, though, as Appalachian State’s Scott Satterfield is taking over the reigns.

WEEK 8 (*AFTER BYE) Oct. 19 vs. North Carolina State BC has found itself in toss-up games with the Wolfpack each of the past few years, with the last three games decided by a total of 15 points. Two of those went N.C. State’s way, but that was with Ryan Finley under center. The likely NFL signal-caller is graduating, so the Wolfpack will have a different look when it comes to Alumni Stadium.

WEEK 9 Oct. 26 at Clemson The defending national champions and likely preseason favorites are, quite simply, absolutely loaded. The defense is losing some talent, but defensive coordinator Brent Venables has had a lockdown unit over the last few years and should keep it in good shape. Meanwhile, quarterback Trevor Lawrence and running back Travis Etienne—two of the best players in the country at their respective positions—return, and the Tigers should be heavy favorites on their home turf.

WEEK 10 Nov. 2 at Syracuse The last two meetings between these

teams have gone in wildly different directions, with BC routing Syracuse by 28 points in 2017 before the Orange answered the next year with a three-touchdown win.

Syracuse and head coach Dino Babers are on the upswing—they won 10 games in 2018 for the first time since 2001.

WEEK 11 Nov. 9 vs. Florida State To say Willie Taggart’s first year in charge of the Seminoles was a disappointment would be putting it lightly—FSU failed to attain bowl eligibility for the first time since 1981. Taggart guided his team to a 5-7 season, with one of the wins a dramatic last-minute victory over the Eagles following a questionable fourth-down decision from Addazio.

WEEK 13 (*AFTER BYE) Nov. 23 vs. Notre Dame You can call it a rivalry, but in the last decade it hasn’t always been a close one.

The Irish—fresh off a 12-1 season which ended in the College Football Playoff against eventual national champion Clemson—have taken the last six meetings, three by more than two touchdowns.

Notre Dame is losing some key pieces, but they still should be one of BC’s toughest opponents in 2019.

WEEK 14 Nov. 30 at Pittsburgh In a surprise to many, the Panthers were the Coastal Division champions in 2018, going 7-5 in the regular season before falling to Clemson in the ACC Championship Game and to Stanford in the Sun Bowl. Pittsburgh and head coach Pat Narduzzi have some work to do—offensive coordinator Shawn Watson was fired after some scoring struggles—but should still be a difficult opponent as the Panthers went 5-1 at home last year. 

Bucs QB Coach Mike Bajakian Hired as Offensive Coordinator

BY BRADLEY SMART Sports Editor

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterbacks coach Mike Bajakian will join Steve Addazio’s staff as the new offensive coordinator, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Pete Thamel. BC Athletics confirmed Thamel’s report on Monday afternoon, announcing that he would additionally act as the quarterbacks coach.

“Mike has shown throughout his career he is an excellent offensive mind and a terrific quarterbacks coach,” Addazio said in the press release, per BCEagles. com. “He has had great success developing quarterbacks in the NFL and on the collegiate level and will be a tremendous addition to our staff.”

Addazio is turning to Bajakian after Scot Loeffler accepted a head coaching job at Bowling Green. Bajakian has worked with quarterbacks for much of his career, including the last four years, but has had

stints as an offensive coordinator at the collegiate level. After several years as the Chicago Bears’ offensive quality control coach, Bajakian oversaw offenses at Central Michigan (2007-09), Cincinnati (2010-12), and Tennessee (2013-14).

His first three seasons as an offensive coordinator were spent under Butch Jones, with whom he would connect often throughout his career. The Chippewas went to three bowl games and shattered many school records with Bajakian calling the plays—Central Michigan posted it’s three-highest scoring offenses since it joined the Mid Atlantic Conference. He enjoyed the talents of future Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown, while quarterback Dan LeFevour was a two-time MAC Offensive Player of the Year.

After going 12-2 in 2009 with an offense that averaged 33.9 points per game— 13th in the country—Bajakian moved on to Cincinnati with Jones. Similar success

followed, especially at the quarterback position with Zach Collaros enjoying a prolific two-year run. The Bearcats went 4-8 in their first season with an offense that ranked 68th in scoring, but Bajakian oversaw an increase to 27th and 39th in the next two years, respectively.

When Jones took the head coaching job at Tennessee in 2013, it was clear who he was going to turn to to oversee the offense. Bajakian spent two years in Knoxville, overseeing the likes of Joshua Dobbs and Alvin Kamara. The Volunteers took a step back in his first year with the offense, but that was with Dobbs buried in the depth chart. When he finally won the starting job, Bajakian’s offense took off, averaging 38.6 points per game over the final five games of the season, a stretch in which Tennessee went 4-1.

A move back to the NFL came amid rumors of Bajakian potentially throwing his hat in the ring for the head coaching job at Central Michigan. After spending

eight years alongside Jones, Bajakian reconnected with another former boss, Lovie Smith, whom he coached under when he was with the Bears. While Smith lasted just two seasons, Bajakian saw plenty of success as he oversaw a breakout rookie campaign from Jameis Winston, who won the NFL Rookie of the Year Award. The Buccaneers had two quarterbacks—Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick—play meaningful games this past season, and the duo combined to finish first in the league in yards, second in net yards per attempt, and third in touchdowns.

Tampa Bay opted to move on from head coach Dirk Koetter, though, and Bajakian wasn’t included on new head coach Bruce Arians’ staff. It didn’t take long for him to find a new job, though, as he’ll arrive on Chestnut Hill at a pivotal time for Addazio and the Eagles. Boston College underwhelmed in 2018, going 7-5 despite climbing as high as No. 17 in the national

rankings. The Eagles finished 39th in points per game (32.0), but struggled at times to find any rhythm on offense—the notorious “run, run, pass” play-calling style resulted in many opponents packing the box and limiting chances.

While BC is losing a lot of talent on both sides of the ball, the offense is poised to take less of a step back. Losing offensive lineman Chris Lindstrom, wide receivers Jeff Smith and Michael Walker, and tight end Tommy Sweeney are all notable losses, but much of the talent at the skill positions remains. Quarterback Anthony Brown took a step forward in 2018—he threw for 2,121 yards and 20 touchdowns with just nine interceptions—and running back A.J. Dillon still cracked 1,000 rushing yards for the second year in a row despite struggling with injuries. Throw in a deep tight end unit and returning leading receiver Kobay White, and Bajakian has the existing talent to find success in his first year at BC. 

TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2019

THE HEIGHTS

A14

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Bowman, Chatman Guide BC to Upset of No. 11 Florida State MBB vs. FSU from A16 In the early going against the Seminoles, it appeared that Bowman and Chatman had once again alternated.

Bowman went 7-of-8 from the floor and accounted for 18 of the Eagles’ 36 points in the first half. Meanwhile, Chatman only had two points on 0-of5 shooting. With BC down, 46-36, it needed a number of things to go its way, and one of those was for Chatman to find his stroke. In the second half, that’s exactly what happened. The BYU transfer poured on five 3-pointers, serving as the catalyst to propel the Eagles to a massive upset and their first ACC win of the year, 87-82.

One of the reasons BC (10-7, 1-4 Atlantic Coast) was able to notch a monumental victory was the fact that the team finally reached full health after a myriad of ailments that plagued a number of players. Ever since the beginning of November, Chatman, Nik Popovic, Steffon Mitchell, and Wynston Tabbs have all missed at least one game.

Against the Seminoles, though, those four players, along with Bowman, were all in the starting lineup. With its ideal rotation, BC outplayed FSU (13-5, 1-4) in the opening minutes. Bowman started out hot, nailing two 3-pointers along with a jumper, and with Tabbs

tallying a triple of his own, the Eagles raced out to a 17-11 lead.

In a similar manner to the Louisville loss last week, though, the wheels fell off. The Seminoles proceeded to tie the game at 19, and on the back of a 22-5 run, FSU took a commanding edge. Turnovers were problematic for the Eagles—they coughed the ball up nine times in the first frame, and the Seminoles turned these giveaways into points on the other end.

BC limped into the half with a 10point deficit. Bowman had 18 points, but his supporting cast was simply coming up empty. Couple that with the fact that the Eagles could not make a defensive stop and it seemed that any chance of an upset had vanished.

That was quickly proved wrong, however, as BC fought its way back into it. Bowman guided his team back, scoring six points in a row at one point to tie the game at 48 apiece. Mfiondu Kabengele immediately responded with a dunk in an effort to kill the Eagles’ momentum. Despite starting zero games for the Seminoles, the redshirt sophomore came into Sunday’s contest leading FSU in scoring with 11.8 points per game. Against the Eagles, he put up an impressive performance with 26 points and nine rebounds off the bench.

After Kabengele’s emphatic dunk,

Chatman proceeded to explode with a scoring outburst. A 3-pointer from the shooting guard allowed BC to take its first lead since the first half—and he was just getting started. Tabbs then recorded a steal and fed the ball to Chatman, who once again struck from deep. Bowman then reeled in an offensive board and dished it out to Chatman, who nailed his third-straight triple for the Eagles to give them a 5750 lead. Chatman’s remarkable display ignited Conte Forum and brought the crowd to its feet.

Now that the Eagles were playing with a true home court advantage, they fed off of the energy from BC fans and maintained their hot streak. While Kabengele hit several mid-range jumpers to narrow the gap, Chatman responded by knocking down two more shots from beyond the arc, and Bowman netted a triple of his own, along with a layup and another and-1 play. After the junior guard hit from the charity stripe, BC held a convincing 74-60 lead with under seven minutes left to play.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, it wasn’t easy coasting in the final minutes. The Seminoles rattled off sevenstraight points to halve the deficit over the course of three and a half minutes.

Bowman finally scored for BC, netting a layup, but FSU’s M.J. Walker converted from 3-point land to further diminish

the Eagles’ edge. Popovic was then sent to the free throw line on three separate occasions, and the junior came through under pressure, hitting 5-of-6 from the charity stripe.

The Seminoles hit four free throws of their own, and a 3-pointer by Terance Mann made things dangerous for BC, cutting the lead to four points.

What was once a 14-point cushion was now just a four-point advantage.

In order to clinch the game, the Eagles desperately needed one of their shots to fall—they got that in the form of Tabbs, who delivered the dagger on a clutch 3-pointer. Bowman hit three more free throws for the Eagles—upping his point total to a whopping 37—and BC held on for the win.

There were a number of factors that contributed to this win, with 3-point shooting being the biggest difference maker in the contest. Coming into the game, the Eagles were not shooting well from range, only converting 30.3 percent of their 3-point attempts. But with Bowman and Chatman on fire from beyond the arc, BC shot 61.9 percent from 3-point land, nearly doubling FSU’s 3-point conversion rate of 32 percent.

Even though the Eagles outshined the Seminoles from deep, they still only won by a mere five-point margin. This can be attributed to FSU’s dominance

within the arc. With the Seminoles’ big bodies, they were able to put up plenty of points in the paint. Steffon Mitchell, now looking far more healthy than he was earlier in the year, played an enormous role in slowing down FSU. The sophomore did it all for BC, compiling totals of five points, eight rebounds, four assists, three blocks, and two steals.

“I think once we get more consistent, we’ll develop the identity that we all know we want,” head coach Jim Christian said. “We’ve definitely shown it in stretches of games, but to do it for 40 minutes, that’s when you really establish your identity, especially at the level that we play at in this league …

We’re working on establishing who we are. We’re playing the right way.”

No one can knock the Eagles for their effort on the court—many of their earlier losses were a result of injury and the lack of depth that was exposed as a result. As the Eagles demonstrated on Sunday, they have the talent to compete in the ACC. It just took them a bit of time to put that talent on full display. If Bowman and Chatman can string together more dominant performances, the Eagles should be able to notch a number of victories against the bottom-half of the ACC, all while putting conference powerhouses on upset alert. 

STEVEN SENNE / AP PHOTO (LEFT) AND JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF (RIGHT)

Jordan Chatman (left) sunk five 3-pointers after the break, Steffon Mitchell (right) did a little of everything, and the Eagles used a 51-point second half to grab a back-and-forth upset victory over the Seminoles.

Second Half 3-Point Shooting Carries Eagles to Comeback Win MBB vs. FSU from A16 Bowman for most of the second half. The attention that Bowman drew from multiple defenders opened up shots for Chatman and Wynston Tabbs. The defensive strategy was designed to stop Bowman from scoring, but he was still able to get the ball in his hands and log 19 second-half points.

2) Crowd: Sunday marked this season’s second conference home game, the first of which was played when the majority of BC students were home for winter break. For this game, students braved the cold weather and despite only filling Conte Forum only filling up three-quarters full, they still made their presence felt. After big shots and plays, the crowd roared triumphantly in support of the Eagles, which seemed to frustrate FSU and make the Seminoles more susceptible to scoring runs. When Chatman heated up in the second, it was particularly loud, and Bowman’s bow-and-arrow celebration also drew plenty of applause.

3) Control: BC struggled with ball control in the first half, coughing up the rock nine times. The Seminoles converted turnovers into points, which allowed them to build up their lead. Nik Popovic com-

mitted six of the Eagles’ 15 turnovers in the game, and this was largely a result of the junior having to dribble the ball along the perimeter, thanks to strong defense down low from Seminoles big man Mfiondu Kabengele. BC turned the turnover tide in the second half, though, committing just six. It also did a much better job capitalizing off FSU’s miscues, pushing the ball in transition and outscoring the Seminoles in points off turnovers.

4) Return: Steffon Mitchell, who has battled injury for much of this season, returned to the starting lineup and played 39 minutes. It was the first time that the Minnesota native had started and played more than 20 minutes in the same game since Dec. 12 against Columbia. Mitchell did not attempt a field goal, but his impact on this team could not be understated. He hustled underneath for eight rebounds, tirelessly came away with loose balls, and recorded three blocks at pivotal points during the game that swung momentum toward the Eagles’ bench. It was a welcome sight to see the sophomore playing at close to full strength, as he is one of the engines that fuels BC’s success.

5) Stroke: Prior to Wednesday’s game

at Louisville, Jordan Chatman opened conference play shooting 2-of-18 from 3-point range. It was an uncharacteristic start for the marksman who usually has no problem finding his shot. After hitting six triples against Louisville, Chatman continued his hot shooting on Sunday, sparking BC’s second-half comeback. Down by two, the senior lined up from deep. The shot hit nothing but net, and confident Chatman would swish two more 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions, and all of a sudden the Eagles had a seven-point lead. As a team, BC shot 62 percent from beyond the arc on Sunday, its first contest shooting above 40 percent from distance this season.

6) Depth: Unveiling a lineup that was as close to fully healthy as the Eagles have enjoyed since November, it would seem that players like Chris Herren Jr., Jairus Hamilton, and Jared Hamilton who started and found success in the absences of Mitchell, Chatman, and Tabbs would continue to contribute off the bench. In this game, however, the Eagles scored just seven bench points, and the aforementioned trio combined for just 17 minutes. BC was able to ride its hot starters to victory, but it did come at the expense of a continued stretch of playing

time for young role players.

7) Pendulum: Momentum swung back and forth in this game with each passing minute. The first half consisted of a 17-1 Seminoles run that opened up a 15-point lead. BC chipped away near the end of the first half, beginning to turn the tide and cutting the deficit to 10 at halftime. The 3-point blitz in the second half opened the frame with a 19-4 Eagles run. The crowd got involved, and the energy remained with the Eagles for the remainder of the contest. While FSU never quit and made it interesting in the final minutes—it got back in the game and cut the deficit to as little as four—BC always had an answer and held on.

8) Smart: With over 12 minutes left to play in the game, Mitchell, Popovic, and Tabbs had all committed three fouls. With three of the Eagles’ starters in foul trouble, the Seminoles tried to drive at them and continue to draw more fouls. Each of them stayed disciplined, though, smartly contesting without fouling and switching to let Bowman contest more shots at the rim.

Although the trio each finished the game with four fouls, there were no foul-outs, and Christian trusted them to keep playing

effectively despite being in a dangerous situation.

9) Pressure: One of the reasons why the Eagles and especially Popovic were struggling with turnovers was because of FSU’s backcourt pressure. The long and athletic Seminoles swarmed the Eagles’ guards and in many cases forced the inbound to Popovic. While BC struggled to break the press in the first half, it improved greatly in the second, partially because of Popovic—on a few separate occasions, the 6-foot-10 big man dribbled the ball into the frontcourt and located a guard who could run the offense.

10) Home: Going back to last season, the Eagles have played significantly better at home. Over the past two years, the Eagles are 21-7 in Chestnut Hill and just 3-14 on the road. While the Eagles concerningly entered Sunday without a conference win, the schedule was laid out for BC to play three of its first four conference games on the road, with the lone home game being against No. 4 Virginia. The win on Sunday shows that the Eagles are capable of beating the brutal competition that the ACC boasts, especially when playing in the friendly confines of Conte Forum—BC’s last three wins against ranked opponents have come at home. 

MEN’S HOCKEY

Once Again, BC Returns to Winning Ways Against No. 11 Providence MHOK Vs. PC, from A16 Eagles, though. It took just 50 seconds for Cotton to swerve past defenders and rip a shot past Hayden Hawkey for a shorthanded goal.

The second period was no less physical than the first, as Providence’s Michael Callahan was called three minutes in for elbowing. Despite multiple shots by Oliver Wahlstrom on the power play, though, the Eagles weren’t able to connect. After returning to full strength, the Friars settled in around Woll, peppering him with a flurry of shots.

The veteran goaltender eventually got a chance to breathe—but only because McPhee went back to the box after being called for cross-checking. The Eagles held off Providence throughout the penalty, but one second before he was released, Jason O’Neill collided with Woll and knocked

the cage off its stand, resulting in the puck sliding past him. After a review from the referees, the Friars were awarded the goal.

BC extended its lead early on in the third when Chris Grando ripped a shot from the circle past heavy traffic for a third goal for the Eagles. Even with the sizeable lead, BC had cause for concern—it put its special teams to the test after Luke McInnis was called for slashing and Marc McLaughlin was called for tripping just 15 seconds later.

Despite being two players down, the Eagles were on the offensive. Shortly after McLaughlin sat, Fitzgerald broke away from his defenders and headed down toward Hawkey, but lost control of the puck at the last minute and couldn’t connect. As McInnis left the box, Brown made his own breakaway attempt, but was caught up to by defenders and failed to connect as well.

The chippiness between the two sides

again played a role, with Providence sending another player to the box as Ben Mirageas was caught for hooking.

York decided not to take a power play, and instead Brown, who was fouled by Mirageas, took a penalty shot instead. The senior skated confidently toward Hawkey and effortlessly tipped the puck past the goaltender, solidifying BC’s win. For York, the decision to take the penalty shot wasn’t difficult.

“You have a choice. You can take the power play or you can take the penalty shot, but the one who was fouled has to take it,” He explained. “I think [Brown] was excellent on that for us. He’s excellent at deking goaltenders so it was an easy decision for me.”

Despite beating Providence for the second time in eight days, the Friars are the only team the Eagles have bested in 2019. A win over a ranked team typically should inspire plenty of confidence, but in BC’s case, the

LIZZY BARRETT / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF

Joseph Woll made 25 saves, helping BC to a 4-1 upset victory over Providence Saturday. reaction following this win is one of wariness. After all, the Eagles followed last week’s upset of Providence with successive losses to conference cellar-dwellers in New Hamp-

shire and Maine. So, with a home-and-home against Massachusetts Lowell looming, BC has a chance to redeem last week’s setbacks by actually taking a step forward. 

The Heights

A15

Tuesday January 22, 2019

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Ogunbowale Scores 24 Points, Paces Irish to Comfortable Victory WBB vs. ND, from A16 added five rebounds and three assists to her efforts. Dickens finished with 12 points, five rebounds, and five assists but was a non-factor after the first quarter.

The Eagles kept things close in the beginning of the game, when they were tied 11-11. Dickens started out hot, hitting her first three 3-point shots of the game.

However, coming out of the first media timeout, the Fighting Irish turned up the intensity, switching from a zone defense to man-to-man defense. Notre Dame ended the quarter on a 21-8 run and it was only a sign of things to come.

Soule scored BC’s first six points of the

second quarter, connecting on a jumper and a pair of fast break layups, but Irish guard Marina Mabrey answered by nearly doubling her team’s lead single-handedly.

Mabrey sunk a free throw, consecutive 3-pointers, and a layup in a span of four minutes, pushing Notre Dame’s advantage to 20. BC had a mini 5-0 spurt left in its tank at the end of the half, Dickens converted an old-fashioned three-point play, and Georgia Pineau added a layup, but the Eagles still went into the break trailing by 15.

That gap closed to 11 at the outset of the second half, with Emma Guy sinking a layup and Soule hitting two free throws—she finished 8-of-10 from the

line in an impressive performance—but BC was never able to bring it within single digits. Ogunbowale had six points in the quarter, as the Irish had an answer for each Eagles bucket.

Notre Dame really upped the ante at the start of the fourth quarter, displaying its full offensive capabilities. Four different players scored as part of an 8-0 run, punctuated by a Mabrey jumper and a Young and-1. BC’s Sydney Lowery stopped the bleeding with a jumper off the bench, but the Irish strung together a collective 14-2 run to push the lead to just shy of 30. Seven minutes later, the Eagles were walking off the court, replicating last year’s 29-point road loss to the Irish.

Notre Dame was able to dominate offensively, scoring from all over the court.

Inside, the Irish outscored the Eagles in the paint by a convincing 42-28 margin.

Notre Dame also shot an impressive 46 percent from 3-point range and snagged an additional 15 offensive rebounds.

This decisive edge inside led to 25 second-chance points, an unrelenting style of play.

Offensively, BC was stifled by the Irish defense, which registered 14 steals and six blocks. The Eagles shot just 40 percent from the field, 25 percent from 3-point land, and were hurt by turnovers, coughing up the ball 24 times. Foul trouble was another problem for the Eagles, with four

players having three or more fouls. Emma Guy fouled out in just the third quarter, badly hurting BC’s depth.

The Eagles have a tough stretch of ACC games coming up soon, including a rematch against Notre Dame, this time at home. Last year’s loss to the Irish was followed by seven consecutive conference defeats in a row, something that head coach Joanna Bernabei-McNamee will seek to avoid in her first year at the helm.

While Miami, BC’s next opponent, is no slouch with four wins in five ACC games, the Eagles will look to shake off their offensive woes and steal a win in Coral Gables. n

WOMEN’S HOCKEY

Eagles Complete Sweep of Catamounts Behind Lonergan’s Two Goals

By Charlie Sommers Heights Staff

Midway through the second period in a tie game, Boston College women’s hockey forward Caitrin Lonergan poked the puck away from a Vermont player at the blue line. As the Boston College 5 puck slid free, it Vermont 2 was clear that Lonergan had only one person to beat: Catamounts goaltender Melissa Black. As Lonergan sped to gather the puck near the red line, her eyes were focused on the senior netminder, who could only wait for her to arrive. Lonergan charged into the slot, gracefully slid the puck to her backhand, and lifted it into the top shelf of the net, directly over Black’s right shoulder. In one flick of the wrist, the Eagles captured a lead that they would never give up en route to a 5-2 victory.

The opening period was a battle of

goalies. With 9:24 left, Serena Sommerfield was called for cross checking. No. 10 BC (16-9, 13-7 Hockey East) was able to kill the penalty but found itself short a player once again 20 seconds later after Delaney Belinskas was sent to the penalty box for hooking. These back-to-back penalties would force Maddy McArthur to face an onslaught of pucks from Vermont (7-14-4, 5-11-2), but she rose to the occasion and kept the game scoreless.

For the remainder of the period, McArthur’s counterpart put on a display of her own. On BC’s first scoring opportunity after its penalty kills, Jillian Fey sent a slapshot from the blue line, and right before it was able to slide into the goal, Black made a heroic kick save. Later, after impressive puck movement by the Eagles, Cayla Barnes had a virtually wide-open net to slap a one-timer into. Despite her momentum carrying her away from her glove side, Black was still able to snatch

Barnes’ effort. After 19 combined saves between the two goalies, the teams went into the first intermission scoreless.

Early in the second period, the Eagles committed their third penalty of the game when Maegan Beres was called for body checking—and Vermont would not squander this opportunity. As the power play wound down, Kristina Shanahan snuck her shot past McArthur to put the Catamounts on the board.

The Eagles responded to the 1-0 disadvantage by picking up their pace. In an attempt to probe the gaps of the opposing defense, BC skaters snapped passes back-and-forth to each other at a rate that presented the Vermont defense with an almost impossible challenge. The Eagles were rewarded for this in-game adjustment when Megan Keller and Lonergan played a game of give-and-go, setting Keller up for a wrist shot that evened the score at one.

Just 95 seconds later, Lonergan put the

Eagles up, 2-1, with her breakaway goal.

The ninth-place Catamounts, hoping for an upset of BC after taking an early lead, began to look distraught. Despite playing with a one-man advantage for eight minutes over the course of the first two periods, they started the third period down by a goal.

The Eagles sprinted out of the gates in the final period and put the game out of reach in a blink. About three minutes into the period, Fey rolled a shot through Black’s legs to give BC a 3-1 advantage.

Less than two minutes later, Lonergan scored her second goal of the game off an Erin Connolly pass that gave her an exposed net. All of a sudden, there was a three-goal difference in the score, and the game looked to be all but over.

Vermont head coach Jim Plumer quickly called timeout, trying to inspire his team to finish strong since there was still over 15 minutes to go. The Eagles would

silence the Catamounts for a majority of the period by retaining the puck and preventing them from chipping away at the lead. Maude Poulin Labelle scored to make it a 4-2 game with seven minutes to go, but Connolly answered back, sending Vermont fans to the exits.

The Eagles traveled to Burlington and did what they had to do—sweep the flailing underdog and do so in a convincing fashion. BC responded to a three-game losing streak with a three-game winning streak, and the latest two victories further extended its historical dominance over the Catamounts.

The Eagles are now 47-3-3 all-time against Vermont and have won each of the past 23 matchups with their conference foe. While the two wins aren’t exceptionally impressive on paper, they are road wins in Hockey East play, and head coach Katie Crowley’s team is now just six points away from conference-leading Northeastern. n

To Compete in the ACC, Christian Needs to Get More Out of Roster Moving Forward, from A16 That, quite simply, is inexcusable. So what does Christian have to do?

It starts with the fact that his team desperately needs to find some form of consistency. The last two games have been frustrating examples of how hard it is for the group to string together 40 minutes of competent basketball—the wildly different results reflect the inconsistency. Against Louisville, BC built an early 12-point lead on the road. Then, in a disappointing fashion, the Eagles rolled over and conceded a 18-1 run at the end of the half.

While BC would eventually heat up down the stretch—it trimmed a 23-point deficit to just five with several minutes left—it couldn’t make up for its earlier struggles and dropped a tough road game.

Against FSU, it was the exact same story with a different ending. The Eagles built an early seven-point advantage, only to watch the Seminoles use runs of 8-0 and 12-0 to eventually enter halftime up by 10. The 17-point reversal had students groaning in the stands, especially with everyone not named Bowman struggling mightily. In its typical hot-and-cold style of play, though, BC went on a 25-6 run to take the lead for good. Defensive struggles down the stretch—FSU hit three 3-pointers and worked its way back into it—made the final result way too close, even requiring a Tabbs 3-pointer with 24 seconds left to get sufficient breathing room, but the fact was that the Eagles did close out their visitors.

These two games, defined by runs from both teams, are something that BC needs to do a better job of avoiding. This inability to play a complete game is problematic for the Eagles, especially against teams in the conference that can heat up in an instant. BC can’t rely on impressive scoring runs, like Chatman’s three consecutive 3-pointers against the Seminoles or going 13-of-21 from distance as a team, to erase deficits it builds by lackadaisical perimeter defense and forced shots on the other end. The team also runs an inconsistent 2-3 zone at times, which often results in wide-open shots whether beyond the arc or in the soft spots. Christian needs to get his players into better position to avoid letting up long-winded runs from the other teams, especially if it wants to avoid some of the tougher results from last season. In 2017-18, the Eagles had countless losses in which they either made a late push that came up short because of the size of the deficit, or defeats where they built a big lead only to watch it fade away late. On Jan. 3, they lost to then-No. 25 Clemson in the final minutes, despite erasing a 19-point second half deficit. On Feb. 6, despite an incredible effort from Jerome Robinson, they couldn’t fully close a 18-point gap against Notre Dame and lost a shootout. On Mar. 3, they lost to the Seminoles after being outscored 18-4 in the final six minutes.

These are three of many games marked by “frenzied finishes” or “big runs.”

The problem for Christian and his team, though, is that you can’t always bank on

making that big run, or closing enough ground. Digging these holes in the first half time and time again is unsustainable, especially if BC jumps out to an early lead only to squander it. The reason this is such a noticeable point is because Christian and the Eagles coaching staff have arguably the most depth and talent than they’ve had in a while.

Consider the rotation: Bowman is a NBA-caliber point guard who is averaging 20.9 points and 8.4 rebounds per game—he’s also first in the country in percentage of his team’s minutes played and boasts an unrelenting motor. Chatman is a sharpshooter, who, when on, is easily one of the best in the conference—he’s connected on 11-of-17 from beyond the arc his last two games. Tabbs rounds out the guards as a freshman who, even if he’s slowed down, is effective at slicing into the lane and protects the ball well. Mitchell rarely is called upon to score, he’s too busy filling up the stat sheet everywhere else.

Nik Popovic is a prototypical European big man, he’s adept from mid range and has displayed some improved post moves to the tune of 13.5 points per game. Throw in Jairus Hamilton, Jared Hamilton, Chris Herren Jr., and even Luka Kraljevic as of late, and Christian has a roster with plenty of different looks to go with.

So why, against FSU, did the bench play just 27 minutes? Jairus, the younger Hamilton brother, has seemed to frequently find himself in his coach’s doghouse, while Jared is still getting worked into the team since gaining eligibility at

the start of the second semester. This is a problem that Christian and the Eagles need to work on—part of the reason the team is susceptible to runs is because the same guys often stay out there for long chunks of play. Bowman is an explosive scorer, but even he will cool down for bits of time. Look at Bowman against DePaul, where he was held to 11 points, or against Louisville where he had just eight points in the second half when his team was desperately attempting to rally. Chatman and Tabbs can both disappear from games—the latter hasn’t exactly looked the same since his return from injury. Add in tiredness on defense, and you see any ACC team with sufficient depth start to pick at them. The Seminoles, for instance, saw Mfiondu Kabengele come off the bench and put up 26 points.

Boiled down, the Eagles are wrestling with consistency and a more balanced rotation. These things obviously go hand in hand with each other, and it speaks to a potential problem with the coaching if the same issues from last year are creeping in again. Yes, several players have missed games with injury and that can cause problems with chemistry and consistent efforts, but it doesn’t excuse losing to a six-player Notre Dame team or digging too big of a hole against Louisville. Losses to Virginia Tech and Virginia are understandable—BC even made the former close down the stretch—but it can’t just limp through another up-anddown ACC season.

The conference is incredibly difficult,

yes, but with the talent and experience the Eagles have, the win over the Seminoles needs to be the baseline moving forward. Look at Pittsburgh, for instance.

The Panthers went winless in the conference last year, endured a mass exodus of players transferring, hired a new coach in Jeff Capel, and—even with the fact that three of their top four contributors are freshmen—have gone 2-3 in the ACC thus far with surprise victories over Louisville and FSU and a narrow six-point loss to No. 21 North Carolina State. If Capel can do that in his first year, there’s no reason that BC can’t be playing at a more consistent higher level in Christian’s fifth year. That starts with stringing together a complete 40-minute performance, and with everyone back from injury, that should be the expectation moving forward.

The Eagles have the talent to compete with nearly anyone in the ACC, it’s just that the execution hasn’t been there for long stretches. Ultimately, if BC suffers through another roller coaster season in which games are defined by furious finishes that come up short, there’s reason to consider moving on from Christian. Yes, he’s brought the program back from the lowest of lows, but anything other than an increase from last year’s 7-11 mark in conference play should be regarded as a huge underperformance of expectations.

Bradley Smart is the Sports Editor for The Heights. He can be reached on Twitter @bradleysmart15.

SPORTS in SHORT MEN’S Basketball aCC Standings Conference overall North Carolina 5-1 15-4 Duke 4-1 15-2 Louisville 4-1 13-5 Virginia 4-1 16-1 Syracuse 4-1 13-5 Virginia Tech 4-2 15-3 NC State 3-2 15-3 Pittsburgh 2-3 12-6 Georgia Tech 2-3 10-8 Clemson 1-3 11-6 Boston College 1-4 10-7 Florida State 1-4 13-5 Notre Dame 1-4 11-7 Miami 1-4 9-8 Wake Forest 1-4 8-9

Numbers to know

2

Wins by women’s basketball in conference play thus far, a mark that matches the entire total from last season.

16

Goals scored by women’s hockey over the past three games, more than its total from Nov. 30 to Jan. 11.

61.9 6

Percent of BC’s 3-point shots were made against FSU, 31.6 percent higher than its 3-point field goal percentage entering the game.

QUote of the week

“I think once we get more consistent, we’ll develop the identity that we all know we want.”

— Men’s basketball head coach

Jim Christian, after his team’s upset win over FSU.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2019

SPORTS MEN’S BASKETBALL

FINALLY IN SYNC BOSTON COLLEGE 87

NO. 11 FLORIDA STATE 82

A16

@HEIGHTSSPORTS

Finding Consistency

BRADLEY SMART

in the second frame. Jordan Chatman kept pace with his backcourt mate after the break, hitting five 3-pointers in the final 20 minutes. The 87-82 win, which got the Eagles off the conference schneid, was also the well-deserved 300th of head coach Jim Christian’s career. Here are 10 takeaways from the victory.

1) Hercules: Bowman’s effort truly was Herculean. The Havelock, N.C. native confidently piled up 37 points on 13of-18 shooting, including six 3-pointers.

He also skied high for nine rebounds, all while never coming off the court to take a breather. Seminoles head coach Leonard Hamilton praised Bowman after the game for his ability to be so effective while playing the whole 40 minutes. Knowing Bowman was hot, the Seminoles attempted to aggressively deny the ball from

Boston College men’s basketball knocked off No. 11 Florida State, 87-82, on Sunday afternoon, using 51 secondhalf points to erase an early deficit and claim its biggest win of the year. It did so on the back of Ky Bowman’s 37 points, Jordan Chatman’s five second-half 3pointers, a dagger from Wynston Tabbs, and a little bit of everything from Steffon Mitchell in a game that firmly established he was back from injury. While the first 20 minutes were largely forgettable, much of the action after the break reflected a team that has so much talent and potential that the Eagles’ 10-7 record—and 1-4 mark in conference play—is nothing short of underwhelming.

Beating the Seminoles, even if it required a 25-6 run and some late clutch shots once FSU clawed its way back, just prompts another iteration of a question that’s been asked of head coach Jim Christian and the Eagles many times over the past two years: How do you take the next step? BC entered Sunday afternoon’s game with five losses in a row, four in conference play, and shorthanded efforts had resulted in several frustrating defeats. Finally back at full strength, the Eagles came out of the gate against FSU strong, suffered their usual lapses, but had enough in the tank out of the break to rebound from an 0-4 start in conference play for the first time since the ill-fated 2015-2016 season.

So, if BC is ever going to contend for something more under Christian’s leadership, now is the time to take that step. The Eagles have a week to prepare for Wake Forest, who is under .500 and has just one win in five conference tries. They have back-to-back home games at the end of the month. Nagging injuries to Tabbs, Mitchell, and Chatman have vanished while Bowman was unguardable against the Seminoles.

All of these things have, on paper, the team trending up. The only question, though, is if Christian can avoid the pitfalls of last season and get his team to put together a full 40 minutes on a consistent basis. If he can’t and BC loses Bowman to the NBA and Chatman to graduation at the end of the year, a bulk of the hope surrounding the program will fade away, and the team will once again head toward even deeper irrelevance in the nation’s best conference.

See NOTE Vs. FSU, A14

See Moving Forward, A15

CELINE LIM / HEIGHTS EDITOR

STEVEN SENNE / AP PHOTO (TOP LEFT) AND JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF

For the second time this season, Ky Bowman and Jordan Chatman each hit multiple 3pointers in the same game, and BC erased a 10-point halftime deficit to beat No. 11 FSU.

BY LUKE PICHINI Asst. Sports Editor Ky Bowman and Jordan Chatman are two of the biggest playmakers for Boston College men’s basketball.

When both players catch fire, the Eagles are in position to pull off upsets—in last season’s win over No. 1 Duke, Bowman and Chatman combined to shoot 8-of-9 from 3point range. But, up until Sunday afternoon, the two hadn’t been able to heat up at the same time this season. In the 13 games that Bowman and Chatman hav been on the court together this year, there has only been one contest where each guard hit two or more 3-pointers. Through the same number of games last season, they had combined to reach that mark five times.

With Bowman and Chatman not gelling—and other injuries wreaking havoc on the rotation—the Eagles have stumbled. While initially enjoying success in the non-conference portion of play, BC entered Sunday’s contest against No. 11 Florida State on a five-game skid dating back to New Year’s Eve. Chatman, who missed three games with an ankle injury last month, needed time to work back into it. The redshirt senior only converted 11 percent of his triples to start off ACC play, but against Louisville he regained his form and shot 60 percent from beyond the arc to nearly pull off the upset over the Cardinals. In that same game, Bowman was cold and missed all six of his 3-pointers.

See MBB Vs. FSU, A14

BY MARC OCCHIPINTI Heights Staff Boston College men’s basketball took to its home floor on Sunday afternoon standing out for the wrong reason—the Eagles were the only team in the ACC yet to record a conference victory. Facing a 15-point deficit against No. 11 Florida State near the end of the first half, things appeared to be going from bad to worse for the Eagles. BC had other ideas, though.

The Eagles (10-7, 1-4 Atlantic Coast) erupted with a 19-4 run to open the second half and never relinquished the lead from that point forward, beating the visiting Seminoles (13-5, 1-4), 87-82.

Ky Bowman led the way with 37 points, keeping his team in the game when the rest of the team was struggling in the first half, then leading the offensive onslaught WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

No. 1 Notre Dame Hands Eagles a 29-Point Loss in South Bend

BY CONNOR THOMPSON For The Heights Midway through the first quarter of Sunday afternoon’s road game against No. 1 Notre Dame, Boston College women’s basketball point guard Makayla Dickens sunk her third 3-pointer of the day to give her team a 14-13 edge.

Five minutes later, the Eagles were heading into the second quarter down by 13 points, and it only got worse from there. The Irish—winners of 11 straight—went on four different eightpoint runs en route to a 92-63 win.

The Eagles (13-6, 2-4 Atlantic Coast) have already more than doubled their win total from last year, but the steps they’ve taken didn’t translate against an overpowering Irish opponent. Still, Notre Dame’s (18-1, 6-0) dominance was expected. It entered having won all six of its conference games by an average of 29 points, and its impressive depth was on display with all five starters reaching double-digits.

All five of Notre Dame’s starters reached double figures and two recorded double-doubles. Jackie Young ended the game with 18 points and 13

rebounds while Jessica Shepard filled up the stat sheet with 11 points, 10 rebounds, six assists and two blocks.

Arike Ogunbowale led all scorers with 24 points on 50 percent shooting, including 3-of-7 from distance.

Defensively, Ogunbowale recorded five steals, showing on both sides of the ball why she is among the top women’s basketball players in the nation.

Taylor Soule led the Eagles in scoring, putting up a career-high 18 points on 5-of-6 shooting off the bench. Soule

See WBB vs. ND, A15

ROBERT FRANKLIN / AP PHOTO

Taylor Soule had a career-high 18 points, but BC struggled against the No. 1 Irish.

MEN’S HOCKEY

BC Rebounds From Consecutive Losses to Beat No. 11 Providence

BY NICOLE PLA Heights Staff After suffering two disappointing losses in one week, Boston College men’s hockey had a chance at redemption when it hosted No. 11 Providence Saturday afternoon. Just eight days after what has been BC’s only win of the spring semester, the Eagles once again bested their Hockey East rivals, 4-1.

Despite the game being moved up

INSIDE SPORTS

three hours due to the snow storm, the Eagles (8-11-2, 8-3-2 Hockey East) and Friars (13-7-4, 6-5-1) drew a large crowd for what head coach Jerry York believes to be his team’s best game of the season.

“The biggest thing is that it would affect the crowd, so we wanted to get people in and out before it really hit us hard,” he said. “I think we had a incredible crowd for pending weather like that. And they saw us in perhaps our best game of the year from my vantage point.”

The game started off with an aggressive tone, as BC’s J.D. Dudek and Providence’s Greg Printz got into a heated discussion before the puck dropped, and both had to be switched out. It didn’t take long for either team to make their presence known, with both taking shots less than a minute into regulation. The aggression from before the puck drop was apparent throughout the period, with both teams exchanging words during stops in play.

The physical play hit an early boiling point when Providence drew the first penalty of the game, with Tyce Thompson called for hooking just three minutes in.

It didn’t take long for the Eagles to take advantage of their opportunity. Thompson was sitting for just 12 seconds when Chris Brown struck, deflecting the puck in after Michael Kim took a shot from the blue line that sailed past defenders. The goal was originally called for Kim, but later replay revealed the deft deflection.

WHOK: Eagles Cruise to Sweep of UVM FB: BC Hires Bucs’ Mike Bajakian as OC

Soon after, Dudek whipped up a shot of his own, but it was just barely too wide and connected with the post instead, much to the audible frustration from the crowd.

Providence soon had its own advantage, when Graham McPhee was whistled for cross-checking while trying to help Joseph Woll defend the goal. Having only four players on the ice didn’t phase the

See MHOK Vs. PC, A14

SPORTS IN SHORT...............................A15 BC is unbeaten in its last 32 games against the Catamounts, The former Tampa Bay quarterbacks coach arrives with MEN’S HOCKEY.......................................A14 registering two more wins over the weekend............. A15 plenty of play-calling experience....................................... A18 FOOTBALL...............................................A13