The Heights April 19, 2018

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The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

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THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018

THE RIGHT STEPS ARTS

CHASING HISTORY SPORTS

Fourteen of Boston College’s dance teams performed at the 2018 ALC Showdown.

Jessica Preswick won her program-record-tying 55th game as the Eagles shut out UMass, 5-0.

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Filings Show Coach, Admin Salaries BC’s fiscal year ’17 tax filings were released this week.

BY STEVEN EVERETT Creative Director

KEITH CARROLL / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Nearly 30,000 runners passed BC during the 122nd Boston Marathon.

Commencement to Feature Archbishop of Atlanta

Wilton Daniel Gregory will deliver this year’s keynote address.

BY COLE DADY

News Editor

Archbishop of Atlanta Wilton Daniel Gregory, the highest-ranking African American bishop in the United States, will be the keynote speaker at Boston College’s 142nd Commencement Exercises on May 21, BC announced this morning. At the ceremony, University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., will present Gregory with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Pope John Paul II appointed Gregory as the sixth archbishop of the archdiocese of Atlanta in 2004. While serving in this capacity, the archdiocese has expanded threefold, growing from less than 400,000 members to 1.2 million, with 103 parishes and missions, 277 diocesan and religious priests, and 18 archdiocesan Catholic schools. In 1973, he was ordained as a priest of the Chicago Archdiocese, becoming the youngest bishop in the United States at age 35 as auxiliary bishop of Chicago. Later in 1994, he was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Belleville, Ill., where he served for 10 years. He holds a doctorate in sacred liturgy from the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome.

Gregory has also released pastoral statements on controversial issues such as the death penalty and euthanasia, and articles on the subject of liturgy, particularly

in the African American community.

The University will also present honorary degrees to Drew Gilpin Faust, the outgoing president of Harvard University and former University Secretary; Rev. Joseph Duffy, S.J., former BC administrator and BC ’50; Kendall Bridges Reid, an award-winning HBO documentary producer and BC ’79; and Alberto Vasallo III, president and CEO of El Mundo Boston and BC ’89.

Faust, who was named Harvard’s president in 2007, will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree. During her tenure, she has expanded financial aid to improve access to the college for students of all economic backgrounds and advocated for increased federal funding for scientific research.

Additionally, she is credited with broadening the institution’s international presence, raising recognition for the arts on campus, embracing sustainability, launching the “edX” partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and promoting collaboration across academic disciplines and administrative units.

As a Civil War historian, Faust has authored six books and been honored the Francis Parkman Prize. She also received the Bancroft Prize in 2009 for her most recent book, The Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. She delivered the inaugural lecture in a series to mark BC’s 150th anniversary and received the first Sesquicentennial Medal

See Commencement, A3

Football head coach Steve Addazio and men’s basketball head coach Jim Christian were Boston College’s two highest-paid employees in the fiscal year that ended May 31, 2017, according to the annual disclosure of BC’s 990 tax filings released this week. Addazio received $2,514,859 in total compensation and Christian received $1,480,826. Both have contracts that run through 2020.

As with fiscal 2016, John Zona was the University’s highest-compensated administrator. Zona is BC’s chief investment officer and is responsible for managing the endowment. He received $906,746 in total compensation, after receiving $1,131,195 in fiscal 2016. BC’s investment gains over the same period totaled over $281 million, according to the annual report released last year. BC’s endowment totals $2.4 billion, growing $205 million from the prior year and displaying investment returns of $279 million, or about 11.5 percent.

According to the 990, in 2015 BC

established a “performance compensation plan” relating to the recruitment and retention of its investment office professionals. Participants are eligible for “certain awards” based on BC’s investments, which are delivered in the forms of bonuses or other deferred payments.

The University paid 914 individuals and 338 independent contractors over $100,000 in fiscal 2016. Following Zona, CSOM Dean Andrew Boynton was paid $667,544, head hockey coach Jerry York $660,141, former Director of Athletics Brad Bates $622,055, Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley $599,000, and Senior Vice President of University Advancement James Husson $581,226.

York did not appear on last year’s 990 after receiving $1,249,617 in 2015, which likely included a signing bonus. Former Provost Cutberto Garza, who stepped down in 2013, had a base compensation of $149,055. Garza was reported to begin a professorship in 2014.

As was apparent in previously available reports, BC gave about $5.4 million to the Jesuit community for “instructional, administrative and institutional services, which include the services rendered by the university’s jesuit officers.” The compensation for University President Rev. William P.

Leahy, S.J., and that of other Jesuits are deferred to this payment.

The form also states that BC compensates three highly paid employees and a former officer for “health or social club dues or initiation fees… [and] receive an annual membership to a local country club. The full value was included in their taxable compensation.”

The 990 also showed an increase in permanently restricted assets from about $971 million to just over $1 billion. The total amount of gifts decreased by $38,847,468 from last year, with gifts in fiscal 2017 totaling $171,722,628.

In the category of “auxiliary services,” BC’s expenses exceeded its revenue by $8,567,806. This comprises expenditures for dining and residence halls, the BC Bookstores, Health Services, and BC’s 31 NCAA Division I athletic teams. In 2016, this value was $5,876,475, and $2,757,940 in 2014.

As with last year, BC paid $75,000 to Cassidy and Associates, a lobbying agency, to “assist management in the identification, development, and presentation of institutional initiatives for consideration by committees of congress, federal regulatory agencies, and others.” 

Deaette Awarded Truman Scholarship Natalee Deaette plans to pursue a master’s degree after BC.

BY CHARLIE POWER Asst. News Editor After writing almost a dozen essays and navigating many interviews, Natalee Deaette, LSOE ’19, found out this week that she was selected as a 2018 Truman Scholar. Deaette is Boston College’s 19th recipient of the honor.

A double major in applied psychology and human development in the Lynch School of Education with a minor in managing for social impact, Deaette is a McGillycuddyLogue Fellow and has been involved in the Student Initiatives division of the UGBC, as well as the Montserrat Coalition.

Next year, she plans to continue her involvement in UGBC. She will also work as a coordinator for the Emerging Leader Program, a leadership program for a select number of freshmen that she said left a significant impact on her.

The Truman Scholarship Foundation, established by Congress in 1975

LEE PELLEGRINI / UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS

Natalee Deaette, LSOE ’19, is BC’s 19th recipient of the Truman Scholarship.

in honor of the 33rd President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, aims to cultivate the next generation of public service leaders by providing a scholarship of up to $30,000 that they can use toward a graduate program or their professional endeavors.

“I was always interested in graduate school, but I didn’t know how I would afford it,” she said.

After BC, Deaette plans to pursue a master’s degree in education policy

and management.

Of the 756 candidates nominated by 312 institutions across the country in 2018, 59 undergraduates from 52 colleges and universities were selected as Truman Scholars.

Scholars are selected on the basis of academic achievement, leadership accomplishments, and their potential for public service.

See Truman Scholar, A3

Piercey, Fletcher Inaugurated to UGBC UGBC welcomed the pair into leadership on Wednesday night.

BY CATHERINE CREMENS Asst. Investigative Editor

KAITLIN MEEKS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

METRO: Eataly Pop-up

L’Orto in La Cucina is the current Eataly pop-up and showcases seasonal herbs.....A8

Reed Piercey, MCAS ’19, and Ignacio Fletcher, MCAS ’20 were inaugurated Wednesday night as Undergraduate Government of Boston College president and executive vice president.

The event began with a farewell ad-

NEWS: Take Back the Night

dress by outgoing UGBC president Akosua Achampong and and executive vice president Tt King, both MCAS ’18. They reflected on their year in office and shared their hopes for Piercey and Fletcher.

“The relationships that we’ve honored and strengthened over the past 12 months have been critical to everything that we’ve been able to achieve with everyone here,” King said. “We know that this tradition will be upheld and protected by Reed and Ignacio.”

Except for the vice president of student organizations and the chair of the Council

Students gathered on O’Neill Plaza to hear the experiences of sexual assault survivors..............A3

INDEX

for Students with Disabilities, Piercey and Fletcher have largely set their Cabinet for next year. Taraun Frontis, CSOM ’19, will serve as vice president for diversity and inclusion; Annika Li, CSOM ’19, will serve as vice president for financial affairs; Cilla Bay, MCAS ’19, will serve as vice president of student initiatives; Subraiz Ahmed, MCAS ’20, will serve as vice president of communications.

Drew Boland, CSOM ’19, and Tiffany Oluoch, MCAS ’19, will direct the UGBC

See Inaugration, A3

NEWS.........................A2 OPINIONS................... A6

Vol. XCIX, No. 12 MAGAZINE..................A4 SPORTS......................B1 © 2018, The Heights, Inc. METRO........................ A5 ARTS..........................B8 www.bchelghts.com 69

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things to do on campus this week

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Michael Massing will be giving a book talk on his newest work, Fatal Discord: Erasmus and the Fight for the Western Mind today from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in Stokes S461. The book is a dual biography of Erasmus and Martin Luther, and focuses on the conflict of their two worldviews: Christian humanism and evangelical Christianity.

Thursday, April 19, 2018

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The Boston College Dramatics Society will be putting on The Addams Family starting tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Robsham Theater. Tickets are $10 dollars plus fees, and all performances are open to the general public. Shows run through April 21. For exact times, see the BC Events Calendar.

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The Pinderhughes Annual Diversity lecture will take place on Friday from 8:30 to 11 a.m. in the Murray Function Room. Cia Verschelden will give an address entitled, “Bandwidth Recovery: Reclaiming Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Other ‘Differentisms’.”

NEWS Legislator Highlights Tensions Between Israel, Palestine BRIEFS

By Jack Miller

BC Athletes Honored

Daniel Creighton, MCAS ’18, and Jacqueline McDonnell, MCAS ’18, have received Weaver-James-Corrigan awards from the Atlantic Coast Conference. The scholarship, worth $6,000, recognizes academic and athletic excellence, and is presented to students who intend to pursue postgraduate studies.

Creighton and McDonnell received recognition along with 52 other student-athletes from other institutions at the Cone Health ACC Postgraduate Scholarship Luncheon, held by ESPN. Creighton is a biochemistry major and was the team captain for men’s swimming this past season. Creighton gave the student address at the event.

He is a three-time winner of the athletic director’s award for academic achievement and was named Boston College’s Class of 2018 Scholar-Athlete of the Year. He plans to go to medical school after graduation.

“This award means two very important things to me: First, it’s a firm demonstration of the continued growth and evolution of our swim team, both academically and athletically, and I couldn’t be happier graduating with the team in such a good place,” Creighton said to BC News.

McDonnell, a member of the rowing team, is an English and communication double-major who hopes to attend law school. McDonnell is a three time All-ACC honor roll recipient and has also won the athletic director’s award for academic achievement three times.

“Receiving the ACC postgraduate scholarship is a blessing particularly because of the ACC’s generosity and the honor of being among an exceptional group of student-athlete recipients,” McDonnell said to BC News.

“Both Dan and Jackie exemplify what it means to be a student-athlete,” said Robert Murphy, faculty athletics representative and associate professor of economics. “More broadly, their success reflects Boston College’s motto—‘Ever to Excel’—on the playing field, in academic studies, and in life.”

BC Alum Releases Book Patrick Downes, BC ’05, and Jessica Kensky, both of whom are Boston Marathon survivors, have released a children’s picture book entitled Rescue & Jessica: A Life Changing Friendships. The husband and wife sustained multiple injuries to their bodies, forcing them to undergo dozens of surgeries and a difficult recovery process. Downes was running the marathon, while Kensky was spectating.

The book centers on Rescue, a dog who thought he was going to be a seeing eye dog. He finds out, however, that he will be trained as a service dog. Rescue is paired with Jessica, who relies on Rescue for help in all kinds of tasks. Slowly, Jessica and Rescue journey together on the road to recovery. The book is illustrated

by Scott Magoon.

The book also focuses on the training methods that handlers use to prepare service dogs for their work. As well as highlighting the work of service dogs, Downes and Kensky hope to destigmatize physical disabilities.

A portion of the revenues from the book sales will benefit the National Education for Assistance Dog Services. The organization trains service dogs, who are then partnered with people who are deaf or have another disability.

Assoc. Investigative Editor

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator, scholar, and activist, spoke about the ongoing struggle between Israel and Palestine on Thursday evening. She highlighted problems with their current relationship at the negotiating table and the rhetoric that has repeatedly impeded progress so far.

Ashrawi served as a member of the Leadership Committee and as an official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace process, starting with the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991. Making history as the first woman to hold a seat in the highest executive body in Palestine, she was elected as member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 2009.

The Islamic civilization and societies program and the Middle Eastern Islamic Studies Student Association (MEISSA) hosted her talk at Boston College, which was the first lecture in the Omar Aggad Memorial series. Aggad, a prominent Saudi-Palestinian businessman and philanthropist, is also the namesake of the Omar A. Aggad Travel and Research Fellowship, which provides funds for BC students to travel to the Middle East to study.Ashrawi began by thanking Aggad, who passed away last February, for his work in inspiring a new wave of activism and hope for the future.

“Unfortunately Omar did pass away, but not before he managed to pass on to his children, the younger generation, a sense of belonging and a sense of commitment and a sense of responsibility and humanity,” she said. “Even though they all

may eventually pass, as we all must, the young will carry on. We will persist, and I don’t think that with such people we will just go gently into the night.”

She pointed out that last year marked several major anniversaries for the IsraeliPalestinian relationship. The Balfour Declaration, Britain’s original call for land to be allocated to the Jewish people through Palestine, was issued in 1917. In 1947, the United Nations passed its Partition Plan for Palestine, which recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States, to the objection of the body’s Arab nations. 20 years later, the West Bank and East Jerusalem fell under Israeli occupation and control following the Six Days War. “We were told we didn’t exist as a nation or as a people,” said Ashrawi. “And of course, in the public discourse, we were reduced historically to the Aristotelian dualism of pity and fear. We were either the pitiful refugees or the fearful terrorists.”

Ashrawi drew on this long history to diagnose the power politics that have obstructed the peace process. In her view, the dramatic imbalance between the two parties has prevented any negotiations from becoming productive.

“The first problem was the forced assumption of symmetry,” she said. “Where people dismissed or ignored the power disequilibrium between occupied and occupier. This is not a border dispute or a conflict between two equal parties.

This is a situation of enslavement and captivity of a whole nation.”

Although third party involvement could provide a solution, she decried America’s presence for tipping the scales more in favor of Israel. She pointed to

Kate Mahoney / Heights Staff

Palestinian legislator Hanah Ashrawi discussed the state of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. the Trump administration’s recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as a recent example, as well as the long list of vetoes against U.N. resolutions as an enduring one.

Ashrawi also characterized the frame of the debate as biased against Palestine, with Israel receiving rewards for joining the talks while Palestinians are constantly put under probation-like pressure to prove good faith. Consequently, Israel isn’t incentivized to truly compromise.

On the flip side, she sees even nonviolent actions by Palestine as immediately condemned. The Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement, which aims to place international economic pressure on Israel, has often been criticized, despite similar tactics being used successfully against Apartheid-era South Africa. The religious rhetoric surrounding the conflict, both in Israel and in

America, also makes discussion harder.

In Ashrawi’s eyes, it pushes the debate to the extreme, to a point where negotiating would be seen as unnecessary.

“The ultimate power play, of course, involves the ultimate power. The guise of absolutist, ideological claim, divinely ordained or sanctioned,” She said. “When you claim that, then of course, absolute right leads to absolute wrongs on the other side. There is no solution.”

Ashrawi hopes that moving away from the ideological and religious dimensions of the debate will offer a more stable path forward for peace talks.

“This has to be resolved on the basis of political, legal, moral, human terms,” she said. “There is no other solution.

There’s not even a military solution. Because the strongest army and a country that has nuclear weapons cannot defeat the will of a people who are bent on being free.” n

Nellis Tells Students to Reject College Hook-Up Culture

By Abby Hunt Copy Editor Philosophy professor Rev. Paul McNellis, S.J., explored the effects of the fleeting nature of most college relationships today in a talk entitled “The Hook-up Culture: The New Normal?” on Thursday evening.

Before offering critiques or alternatives to the hookup culture, McNellis examined the reasons why those who participate in it do so in the first place.

Some of these reasons, he said, are that some of its participants might believe they are partaking in the type of self-discovery that should take place in college, be attracted to a connection that doesn’t require the time and effort of a commitment, or see hookups as a pleasurable way to deal with stress.

“I think what all of these reasons … to varying degrees have … a couple of presuppositions in common, and they’re the following: What I do with my body has no effect on me—my soul, my person—unless I want it to,” he said.

“But I cannot do something only with

my body. Anything I do with my body I do with all of me.”

McNellis argued that men can justify hookups by convincing themselves that women want the same thing that they do—sexual pleasure, nothing more—but that this is hardly ever the case.

“Men … would you want any guy thinking about or doing to your sister doing what you’re thinking about doing to this woman under these circumstances?” he asked.

McNellis then specifically addressed the men in the room, suggesting to them that the most important question for them to answer while at Boston College was not about their majors or future careers, but about what kind of father they eventually want to be.

“Nothing you ever do will be as demanding as being a good father,” he said.

“Ok, you’re in college now, but do you really think the habits and virtues necessary to being a good father can wait? Until when? When are you going to get on with the task of becoming a man, rather than remaining a boy?”

McNellis then urged the men to not

participate in the hookup culture, but rather replace it with something better.

“Have the courage to be a better man,” he said. “Don’t say you love someone unless you really mean it. Don’t say it because she expects it. And when you do say it, back it up with what you actually do.”

McNellis said he is convinced that what fuels much of the hookup culture is not simply pleasure, but rather a fear of loneliness. While it may seem like any connection is better than none, he said, this is not actually true—what most people truly want is friendship.

“Work on living a chaste life, which is not the same as celibacy,” McNellis said.

“Chastity means loving someone as they deserve—traditionally virginity before marriage, fidelity in marriage, or chastity in a celibate state.

“Think of what waiting for marriage might allow, what it might open up for you. Think of the kind of marriage that could grow out of a chaste courtship.”

McNellis argued that fidelity in marriage grows out of chastity before marriage—and that the reason some men wonder if they can be faithful after

marriage is because they’ve never done it before. He continued on to say that, today, many women have come to expect very little of men and that this will only change if men, through their behavior toward women, start giving them concrete reasons for hope.

“Women … should say to themselves, ‘I’m worth waiting for,’ and men should say to them, ‘Yes you are, and I’ll prove how much I love you by waiting until I’ve promised my whole life to you ’til death do us part,” he said.

McNellis argued that the hookup culture develops habits of defensiveness and can negatively affect one’s emotional being—but that he doesn’t believe it is here to stay.

“Notice … I haven’t explicitly said anything about the Christian faith or the Catholic Church,” he said. “That was intentional: I wanted to demonstrate how far you can go in thinking through this just using reason and common sense—and an honest look at your emotions, inclinations, desires. Look at them as potentially revelatory of a deeper meaning about your life." n

POLICE BLOTTER: 4/16/18 – 4/18/18 Sunday, April 16

Monday, April 17

10:40 a.m. - A report regarding vandalism to a residential building in Thomas More Apartments.

1:28 p.m. - A report was filed regarding vandalism to a residential building at Walsh Hall.

12:12 p.m. - A report regarding a property confiscation on Lower Campus.

4:27 p.m. - A report was filed reagarding an underage intoxicated person at Corcoran Commons.

11:55 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a medical incident off campus.

12:06 p.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a medical incident at Corcoran Commons.

7:44 p.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a medical incident at Alumni Stadium.

9:10 p.m. - An officer filed a report regarding larceny at O’Neill Library.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

CORRECTIONS Who’s your dream headliner for this year’s Modstock?

“Beyonce because her concert would be awesome.”

—Scott Baker, MCAS ’21

“Drake but I know that’s probably not going to happen.”

—Liz Caldrone, MCAS ’ 18

“Playboi Carti because he’s the greatest artist alive.”

—Noah Jordan-Williams, MCAS ’21

“Cardi B. She just dropped a new album.”

—Mikaela Sam-Hinton, MCAS ’21

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

The Heights

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Truman Scholarship Awarded to Deaette Truman Scholar, from A1 Scholars also participate in programming over the summer at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Mo, to help prepare them for careers in public service and community leadership.

“It was a six-month application process, and I found out a lot about myself in the reflection required to work through those essays,” Deaette said.

The scholarship committee was expected to announce the results next week, so Deaette wasn’t expecting the news when she picked up her phone earlier this week.

“It was a Tuesday night, and I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize,” Deaette said. “It was Fr. Leahy calling to congratulate me. It was pretty incredible.”

For the past three summers, Deaette has worked for the Upward Bound program at Johnson State College in Vermont. The

program prepares low-income, first-generation high school students for higher education.

Deaette participated and is a first-generation college student herself. She views her current involvement in the program as a way to share her experience with others who share a similar background.

“I want to go back and assist students who have the drive to complete a higher education, but don’t have the resources to get there,” she said. n

Katie Genirs / Heights Editor

Women’s Center Recognizes 2018 Commencement Speaker Announced Victims of Sexual Assault Commencement, from A1

By Anthony Rein Assoc. News Editor The Women’s Center held an annual event entitled “Take Back the Night” Wednesday evening at O’Neill Plaza to discuss sexual assault at Boston College.

The event featured an address by Jessica Shaw, a professor in the Lynch School who specializes in community response to sexual assault, speeches by two student survivors of sexual assault, musical performances, and culminated in a solidarity walk down to Lower Campus.

Take Back the Night events began in the 1960s and 1970s as protests against sexual violence and have since spread to over 36 countries and 800 communities across the globe, according to the Take Back the Night Foundation’s website.

This year’s event at BC was originally scheduled for March 21, but was moved to Wednesday due to poor weather conditions.

Shaw began her address with her story of how she became involved in preventing violence against women. After going to a mandatory program on sexual assault during her first year of college, she was inspired to become one of the student facilitators of the program. Becoming more interested in learning about being a student facilitator, she completed 40 hours of training to work the sexual assault hotline at her local rape crisis center and became a medical advocate to accompany survivors to the hospital after their assaults. With more training, she became involved in education and prevention work in her community and university.

While originally planning to pursue a graduate degree in neuroscience, conversations with a mentor and exposure to community psychology convinced her to switch to a graduate degree in community psychology with a focus on sexual assault.

“Since making that pivot, I have never looked back, never doubted that this is where I am supposed to be, and I am privileged to do this work everyday,” Shaw said. “I tell you this story as I am here today to tell you that this work matters. Don’t let anyone ever tell you different. That I am doing the work that I am supposed to do, that I am privileged to do it every day, does not mean that this work is easy.”

Shaw then spoke on the effect that her research has had on her and how it motivates her to prevent sexual violence.

“In my research I have encountered thousands of sexual assault cases,” Shaw said. “I have read and told the stories of hundreds of survivors and when I sit down with my community partners and think how we might craft solutions to emerging problems and how we work with survivors, I carry the weight of all those who have been hurt and I try to prevent further harm. I carry each survivor with me, and while it is heavy I am willing to carry it, as it helps lighten

their load. Thus I am also here today to tell you, I see the weight that you carry, that we carry, and I know it’s heavy and I know it’s hard.”

Speaking to the student activists for ending sexual violence present, she offered words of support and solidarity.

“I imagine that you might get angry sometimes. I get angry too,” Shaw said.

“I imagine you might feel sad. I do too.

Perhaps sometimes you feel hopeless.

I’ve also felt that. I hope you find comfort knowing that I, that others here sharing this space with you today, feel angry, sad, and hopeless too, as it means that you don’t have to feel that way all the time on you own. Thus I am here today to also tell you I will carry that weight with you.”

Next, two student survivors of sexual assault shared their stories. The Heights does not publish the names of victims of sexual violence, and they were not shared at the event.

The first survivor discussed the troubles she had with the conduct system and legal process at the Washington D.C. university where she experienced her assault. The conduct system failed to expel the perpetrator and lawyers threatened her with defamation lawsuits.

“Although I felt defeated, there were certain instances that shed light to the darkness of it all,” the student said. “BC’s Women’s Center provided me so much guidance and support throughout this whole process. They have introduced me to the Heal Group, a support group for survivors where I met incredible, fearless, and badass women and provided me one of the bravest and safest spaces.”

Her story was followed by a performance by the BC a cappella group The Sharps.

The second survivor told her story of sexual assault, perpetrated by another BC student, and revealed the struggles she has had coming to terms with what happened.

“There was no way I could be a rape victim, because I am a rape survivor,” the student said. “Learning this powerful distinction has unlocked a world of opportunity for me, because being a victim means that I am defined by what you did to me in that room. Being a survivor means that I have been shaped and deeply impacted by that experience, but that it does not come even close to encompassing who I am.”

The a cappella group B.E.A.T.S. followed with a performance, and those who gathered observed a time for reflection. The staff of the Women’s Center stressed that its wide range of resources are available to anyone who needs them, especially the SANet hotline, through which anyone affected by sexual assault, including friends and roommates of survivors, can find support and guidance.

To end the event, the crowd walked in solidarity from O’Neill Plaza to Lower in an effort to reclaim the space for all those affected by sexual violence. n

in honor of her contributions to higher education.

Duffy served as University Secretary for two decades. He began his career at BC in 1975 as a faculty member in the Lynch School of Education. He later served as a University Trustee from 1982-88 and was a rector of the Jesuit Community. During this term, he made a $1.5 million gift to help establish the Jesuit Institute. He has also been a member of numerous boards, committees, and commissions in Jesuit, Catholic, and public education.

Reid has spent her 27-year television

career developing compelling shows for HBO Sports. She co-produced the 1996 Peabody Award-winning documentary Journey of the African American Athlete, which has been widely acclaimed as the most comprehensive examination of the history of black athletes in America, as well as another Peabody-winning film, Dare to Compete: The Struggle for Women in Sports. She is also a member of the AHANA Alumni Advisory Council, the AHANA Executive Committee, and the BC Energy and Environmental Network.

Vasallo forged his path by creating El Mundo Boston, the largest Latino news-

paper in New England, in 1972. He also established a partnership with the Boston Red Sox over 20 years ago to create Latino Youth Recognition Days at Fenway Park, and launched a variety of Latino-oriented initiatives through El Mundo, including a career expo, family festival, and Hispanic Heritage Breakfast.

Previous Commencement speakers include United States Senator Bob Casey, who spoke last year; former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest J. Moniz, BC ’66, who spoke in 2016; Chicago archbishop Rev. Blase Cupich, who spoke in 2015; and former Secretary of State John Kerry, BC Law ’76, who spoke in 2014. n

NYU Professor Performs Excerpts of Play

By Colleen Martin Copy Editor Actress, playwright, and New York University professor Anna Deavere Smith took to the stage in Robsham Theater on Tuesday, April 11, to perform excerpts from her most recent play, Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education. Acting out her one-woman show, Smith adopted the persona of the people she interviewed as she traveled to investigate the school-to-prison pipeline.

She has received one of the most prestigious awards for the arts, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, as well as the National Humanities Medal. She has acted in The West Wing, Black-ish, and Madame Secretary, as well as written plays such as Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles.

Notes From The Field is the centerpiece of her larger undertaking, “The Prison Project,” which exposes how the lack of resources available to children in poverty acts as a gateway to the criminal justice system.

Smith introduced the concept of her latest play by explaining that students of color, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ students are disciplined more often than their counterparts, following a report from the School Discipline Consensus Project, conducted by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice during the Obama

administration. In turn, these children are more likely to be suspended or expelled, potentially leading to their placement in a detention center.

The first excerpt centered around Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Ifill spoke about the United States’ role in investments—from the money invested in the population after World War II to create the white middle class to the current investment in expanding the criminal justice system. She examined the way that incarceration is intertwined with the education system, which Smith also delved into further later on.

Her next performance was a reading from an interview with Kevin Moore, the man who recorded the video of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray being arrested by police officers shortly before he died in police custody from a severe spinal injury. As she spoke, she adopted not only his tone but also his body language, moving her arms and expressing emotions of disbelief and disgust as she brought the encounter that he shared with her to life.

Smith transitioned to the state of South Carolina, where a high school police officer, Deputy Ben Fields, wrestled ninth-grader, known as Shakara, to the ground. Smith alternated between the voice of Niya Kenny,

the videographer, and Amanda Ripley, an investigative journalist who reported on the case.

She outlined the order of events, which resulted in Kenny being arrested and transported to an adult detention center herself.

This rapid chain of events was another example of the way in which some students have suddenly found themselves in prison—something that the next interviewee, a student concern specialist in North Charleston High School, believed to be the result of children’s “disrespect” for authority.

Her final reading was that of the interview of Congressman John Lewis as he recounted the abuse he faced in Montgomery, Ala. in the 60’s. He shared the stories of the apologies he received 50 years later, one of which came from a young Montgomery police chief, who spoke on behalf of the officers who came before him. The other that came in 2009 from a Klansman who beat Lewis in 1961.

During this segment, Smith, performing in character as Lewis, called on the audience to sing “Amazing Grace,” as Lewis accepted the apologies from both men.

As Smith ended the evening, she answered a question about her experience returning to her home of Baltimore, Md. “I really felt this was my way of going back home.” n

Piercey and Fletcher Confirm Cabinet Inauguration, from A1 Leadership Academy, and Natalee Deaette, LSOE ’19, will serve as UGBC chief of staff. Michael Osaghae, MCAS ’20, will chair the AHANA+ Leadership Council; Chris Ramirez, MCAS ’19, and Symone Varnado, MCAS ’19, will cochair the GLBTQ+ Leadership Council; and Amaka Nnaeto, MCAS ’20, will serve as the Diversity & Inclusion Programming manager.

Though Achampong and King are leaving office, Piercey and Fletcher will continue their efforts starting in the fall. A campus-wide survey will be debuting next semester as a result of collaboration between UGBC and BC administrators, gathering feedback on student experiences with safe spaces and overall comfort on campus. The survey will uncover the needs of all student demographics and include direct input from

members of UGBC. “It’s not something that would have been done unless you all asked for it,” Achampong said. “It’s not something that would have been done unless you all pushed for it, and put your time and effort, and your thoughts and your feelings into it.”

Piercey and Fletcher, whose campaign stressed the three pillars of advocacy, reliability, and engagement, followed Achampong and King’s farewell address with their plans for the upcoming academic year.

“We want you to think of every year in UGBC as a continuation of the past in some aspects, but also as an opportunity to change the way we traditionally do things in order to become more efficient,” Fletcher said.

Piercey stated that “action” would be the main theme dominating their time in office in the upcoming year. He defined the most important items on their agenda,

including improving the diversity of the Student Assembly, enhancing the accessibility of campus for disabled students, and the creation of an inclusive environment for Muslim students and for students of color. He stressed that cooperation with BC administration would also be imperative to the success of their goals and initiatives.

“Nothing meaningful happens on this campus without the collaboration of our administrative leaders,” Piercey said.

He went on to thank those who supported both him and Fletcher during their presidential campaign. He also expressed his gratitude in being elected to the highest position in the BC student government and conveyed the dedication he and Fletcher planned to give to their constituents.

“The job of leading UGBC is a massive privilege,” Piercey siad. “It will be our honor to use that privilege in whatever ways we can to push our community forward.” n

THE HEIGHTS

A4

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018

Words from the Drug Czar

PHOTO COURTESY OF OFFICE OF WHITE HOUSE DRUG POLICY

BY TIMMY FACCIOLA Asst. Magazine Editor How did you get your start in politics?

I grew up in a time, when I was a smaller child, the John Kennedy assassination happened. But when I was in high school, I was going to focus on science and math and MLK was assassinated and RFK was assassinated. The civil rights movement was going on, there was a lot of questioning going on and so I became interested in whether I could make a contribution.

I initially wante d to do that through the law but then when I went to study as an undergraduate, I found that there were questions I thought I had the answer to–about how politics should work, what was the better and worse order for human beings. I got interested in studying those things.

In graduate school I studie d with two American professors that were at Toronto, Alan Bloom and Walter Burns. I was working on a dissertation in political theory comparing Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville’s works on the French Revolution. My wife was a graduate student in the political science department here at BC. I met some of the people and they asked if I wanted to teach as an adjunct, teaching courses on political theory and American politics and I said “yes” and I started teaching here. In 1982, actually through Walter Burns, I got contacted by a man named William Bennett, who had been selected by Bush to be the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

He wanted young people who cared about undergraduate education, who wanted to refocus a portion of the humanities of endowment on improving college education. I thought the experience in Washington would be helpful, [there was] a tight job market, [and it was] something I was interested in.

So I went and one thing led to another, as it sometimes does. He became education secretary for President Reagan after being endowment chairman in 1985. He asked me to come to the education department in 1985 when crack was exploding in the U.S.

“It doesn’t happen in a vacuum, we’re a society.”

Was this at the very beginning of the crack epidemic?

It was in the early half of the epidemic. Cocaine started being a problem in the earlier ’80s but crack was a kind of enhancement and development of the cocaine product.

The cartels used it to provide very addictive, very cheap cocaine into our cities, spurring not only huge problems with addiction and all the consequences, including drug-affected infants being born, but also causing huge amounts of violence.

And so, when we left the Reagan administration just before it ended, Bennet and I, Congress passed a law that created the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which was globally called the drug czar’s office and that office was going to come into being with the election of the next president, who was H.W. Bush. Bennet and I left government to start a non-for-profit that was going to work on education reform and some drug policy education.

After the election, in December, Bush asked Bennet to be the next drug czar. So I went in in December to begin to set up the transition. The public concern wasn’t as bad–well you’re a bit young for 9/11–it wasn’t as bad as 9/11, but it was almost as bad. There were murders.

The murder rate in DC last year was probably 130 murders. At that time in DC there were over 400 murders. There were parts of the city, like where I lived, where that wasn’t a problem. But there were parts of the city where someone was being murdered at least a couple times a month, it’s not that big a city.

People were desperate to have something done. I was Bennet’s chief of staff and national security advisor.

He left after less than two years and I stayed in office until the end of the Bush administration.

After that, I began working with philanthropy, working with donors.

It was then that Bush’s office called me to talk about the Drug Policy Office in 2001.

My approval hearing was scheduled for Sept. 11, 2001, which I did not have because of the attacks. Then my hearing was rescheduled for the beginning of October. After it was completed, but before I was marked up and reported out, anthrax was found in the heart center office building which delayed in further. So I finally took the oath on Dec. 7, 2001.

I served in the Drug Policy Office until the election of President Obama and then I joined the Hudson Institute where I am now, a think tank in Washington D.C. focused largely on National Security issues. I didn’t intend to continue to do work on drug policy but the problems have gotten so big, people ask me to testify and do

From 2001 until the end of the Bush administration in 2008, John P. Walters served as the U.S. “drug czar,” coordinating the nation’s anti-drug efforts and funding through the Office of National Drug Control. During his tenure, teen marijuana use declined 25 percent and teen methamphetamine, ecstasy and LSD use declined over 50 percent. There was a marijuana arrest every 38 seconds in the United States during his term. However, black people were 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for possession charges than white people, despite using drugs at similar rates, according to the ACLU. On Thursday, April 12, he visited Boston College to discuss the pressing opioid epidemic facing the nation. He sat down with The Heights beforehand and the following is an edited selection of the transcript of a larger conversation.

“It wasn’t as bad as 9/11 but it was almost as bad.

There were murders.” other things.

When you first entered office in 2001, what was the biggest drug problem facing the country?

At that time, the terrorism problem was overarching and there was fear of two things. First, that money from enforcement and intelligence was going to be shifted and drugs were going to be a much greater problem–attention to the problem of drugs would cause more drug use and addiction.

But in fact what happened was people became more serious, they saw the dangers to our freedoms and selfdestructive behavior became more problematic.

Also, a lot of the security we did helped cut off drugs from entering the US–the inspection of airplanes, the border security, the intelligence that we used.

In 2001 we were already seeing some of the consequences in the abuse of pharmaceutical opioids: oxycodone, hydrocodone, etc. In addition, we were just starting to see some of the meth problem which peaked while I was in office, but also cocaine was still a problem.

We began working with the Colombians to cut the stuff off and with the inauguration in 2002 of President Uribe of Colombia who was a truly terrific and gifted leader, they began to dismantle the cartels, and also through aerial eradication which was highly controversial. By 2006 there was a peak in cocaine production and it started to decline after. It dropped 60 percent.

You also mentioned meth?

Meth gre w during that time,

Were there any drugs that youthuse became a problem with?

Steroid use, actually. President Bush felt quite strongly about this.

He had been involved with the MLB and was pushed very hard to support some congressional efforts to regulate steroid abuse in MLB. He absolutely rejected that and said ‘the teams need to take responsibility. If the federal government has responsibility then it’s a failure of the federal government.

It’s really a failure of them to create programs and to educate and police their own sport.

It destroys their own enterprise and they need to do it.’ And so steroid use dropped during that period. He spoke about it in one of his state of the union addresses.

lem of people not understanding the consequences. ”

In a piece for Politico, you cited pernicious parenting, domestic abuse, and socioeconomic failure as all problems that affect people besides the drug user. Don’t alcoholics and their families suffer similar consequences?

It doesn’t happen in a vacuum, we’re a society. We’ve had a lovehate relationship with alcohol for a long time, I mean Abraham Lincoln gave a speech to a temperance group about the evils of alcohol. It was bad enough that the country tried to ban it. I think people want to say looking back, ‘well organized crime happened so we repealed it.’ Actually, people wanted to drink.

The effects are not good and there’s a lot of violence done by alcoholism, but we’ve tried to live with that. It’s a compromise with some significant harm to society. However, what some want to take from that is, ‘well we allow some harm, why not allow some other harm?’ But the opioid problem is a much larger compromise and poses a greater threat to society.

It’s hard to compare addictiveness but I don’t think there’s any question that the current death rate [from opioids] isn’t staggering.

started out with large batch production in the U.S. and then that spread to Mexico. Then the outlaw motorcycle gangs [started] making and selling meth. Then small labs of people using cold and allergy medication to make meth, creating all kinds of dangerous by-products. Then we made it so those medicines were kept behind the counter and you had to show a driver’s license to buy it. We weren’t sure about it but we’ve had good results from it. When we left, overall youth drug use dropped 25 percent.

What about marijuana?

What you often hear is ‘heroin, hard drug. Marijuana soft drug.’ What that masks is two things. One, I think there are limits to things like selfreport surveys, which under-report people who are addicted because more addicts don’t consider themselves addicts.

A little more than half of people who need help for illegal drug use are dependent on marijuana. It’s the single biggest use of treatment need.

It was more important than cocaine and heroin combined at the time [that I was in office]. I haven’t seen

“I don’t think this is a prob-

“The idea that it’s okay to experiment is embedded in our society. And so we have to face the fact the culture we live in encourages it.” the recent numbers, though.

Where do you think the roots are for the opioid crisis?

After traveling the world and observing various drug problems, both U.S.-related and not, I’ve come to believe there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what the problem is about.

On an individual level, it is very important for you to pay attention to your family and friends and see a problem when there is one and to support them when they seek treatment.

It requires more from us as social beings. There’s confusion on this.

Part of that confusion is ‘this is an expression of freedom, you should be able to use drugs and be a heavy user or addicted user–depending on how candid you are with yourself–because that’s part of your freedom.’ That’s not really a definition of freedom.

The other thing is, I think we have failed to recognize because we don’t want to see it in this simple a term: This is really about the drugs.

The way we need to re-conceptualize this to lower the death toll is to see this as a mass poisoning incident.

When there’s more of these substances in society, more will become users, more will become addicted, and more will die from overdoses.

And when there’s less of these drugs, it goes down.

I believe in treatment. I don’t think there’s another human being who has argued more successfully for more federal money for treatment than me in the course of my government service.

But, you can’t treat your way out of this death toll. You can’t create a video tape that tells people not to use.

I don’t think this is an awareness of the danger problem. I don’t think this is a problem of people not understanding the consequences.

What it is is, we’re flooded with these substances and the backdrop of this is the message that a lot of people use drugs when they’re young, the idea that it’s okay to experiment is embedded in our society. And so we have to face the fact the culture we live in encourages it. 

The Heights

Thursday, April 19, 2018

TOP

3

things to do in Boston this week

1

On Thursday night, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in collaboration with Boston Art & Music Soul (BAMS) Fest for M.U.S.I.C.: Motivating Us to Share Intercultural Connections, will provide live music, artmaking, dance, and poetry readings to visitors.

Festivities begin at 5:30 p.m.

A5

2

This weekend, CraftBoston is hosting a sale and exhibition of one-of-a-kind works made by more than 90 local artists. The sale will take place at the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts.

Admission is free, and all are invited to browse and meet the artists.

3

On Saturday afternoon, Harvard Law School is hosting the lecture “Stand Against Racism.” Boston elected officials who are women of color to lead a panel on the importance of registering to vote, voting, and running for public office.

Science Strikes Back: Bostonians Rally for Climate Legislation

By Keely Dickes For The Heights

People of all ages and professions flocked to Christopher Columbus Park for the 2018 March for Science Boston: Science Strikes Back on Saturday. In 2017, tens of thousands took part in the same march to emphasize the importance of scientific knowledge in human advancement and to push for scientifically guided public policy. This year, marchers proclaimed the same vision, with an additional focus on gathering support in order to pass specific climate legislation.

350 Massachusetts, a statewide network of regional nodes that advocate for progressive climate and energy policy, hosted the event. 350 Massachusetts is supported by the Better Future Project, an organization that works to foster a grassroots movement to confront climate change and seek a renewable energy future. 350 Massachusetts’s name is telling of its mission, as the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million.

People carried creative, decorative signs with a variety of slogans. There was a penguin with a hole in its body where it was melting into a puddle on the ground, “Bill Nye 2020,” “Objective Reality Exists,” and more. In a row on the walkway, stands with representatives from the different nodes lined up along with other organizations.

People exchanged information and talked before migrating toward the stage to hear numerous speakers—ranging from

a high school student to a rapper to an ER doctor. Walking among sign-bearers were Boston College students. A number came as part of their Planet in Peril class, others simply to support the cause. The marchers were offset by a small group of anti-protesters wearing red and talking into megaphones. From them came calls of “false science dividing us” as well as profanities.

“Seeing the white supremacist group was really crazy because I’ve been to a lot of marches and protests and never seen something like that,” said Chloe CugginoZensky, MCAS ’21.

“It was interesting because they go by the title of an anti-marxism organization, which sounds like just a pro capitalism group, but in real life they were saying really racist and terrible things. It was also sad because there were a lot of kids at the march and they were saying things like ‘whore’ into a megaphone.”

Graciela Mohamedi, physics and engineering teacher at Rockland High School and part-time lecturer at Boston University, spoke of eliminating inequalities in the education system. In Massachusetts, public schools are funded equally, but shortages are mostly covered through town property taxes—creating a vast difference in funds due to differences in property value.

Weston, an affluent and predominantly white community, is able to spend more than $275 per student on class supplies. Brockton, in contrast, can only spend $1.28 per student, Mohamedi said in her speech.

“We must demand an end to educational redlining,” Mohamedi said.

A story of her daughter’s fifth grade class illuminates kids’ perceptions of the adult scientific community and is in line with present inequalities.

“Her teacher asked the class to draw a picture of what they thought a scientist looked like,” Mohamedi said. “Out of her class of 25, two of them drew women and my daughter was the only one who drew a woman of color. Science is for everyone.”

Christopher Barsotti is passionate about finding solutions to gun violence.

As an ER doctor, he has been on the front lines of the crisis and recognized that the problem would benefit from a public health focus. With federal funds for this research lacking, he co-founded and is the CEO of the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine (AFFIRM). This nonprofit is dedicated to raise finances for gun violence research from the private sector.

“Gun violence is the worst untreated public health problem our country is facing,” Barsotti said. “And the reason why we’re in this situation today is because we as a society have not invested in research.”

Angela Burnett, a climate change officer who witnessed hurricanes in the British Virgin Islands, gave marchers a poignant perspective on the present—and looming future—of consequences of climate change. Hurricanes may be normal in that area, but Category 5-plus hurricanes are not, she said.

Hurricanes are caused by water evap-

keely dickes / for the heights

Protestors gathered on Saturday to call for climate change legislation and raise awareness.

oration over the ocean, and when the water is warmer, evaporation is faster.

With carbon dioxide levels rising and oceans warming it is no surprise that hurricanes are more severe. Katrina, Harvey, and Maria all exemplified this, but Irma’s wind speeds were alarming: At landfall it reached 185 mph, the strongest in Atlantic history.

In response, Burnett wrote a collection

of 25 survivor stories, entitled The Irma Diaries: Compelling Survivor Stories from The Virgin Islands.

“Irma left over a third of our population without a house roof, or without a house at all,” Burnett said. “90 percent of business and other structures were damaged or lost. It took six months to fully restore electricity, and we were months without running water.” n

Early Renaissance Artist Blends Tradition With Innovation

By Isabel Fenoglio Asst. Metro Editor

Art lovers braved the icy rain on April 12 and flocked to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to pay homage to its latest exhibit, Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth.

While navigating the gallery, visitors took turns standing face to face with

Angelico’s work, some close enough that their noses nearly grazed the breathtaking altarpieces and frescoes.

After visiting the exhibit, visitors filed into Calderwood Hall and found an open spot in a sea of red seats. They came to hear Carl Brandon Strehlke, curator emeritus at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, speak on the evolution of Angelico’s artistic career as part of a

Isabel Fenoglio / Heights Editor

The exhibit features Fra Angelico’s most breathtaking frescoes and runs through May 20.

lecture entitled “Fra Angelico: Devotion and Painting.”

The event was the second in a three part lecture series on the exhibit. The final lecture, “From Saints to Celebrities, Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Relics of History,” will be held on April 28. Casey Riley, assistant curator at the Boston Athenaeum, will serve as the guest speaker. The exhibit runs through May 20.

“Anyone who has worked on this artist knows that Carl’s research has repeatedly broken new ground and shed new light on some of his most important paintings,” said Nathaniel Silver, the Gardner Museum’s associate curator of the collection, as he introduced Strehlke to the podium.

Next year, to celebrate the Museo del Prado’s 200th anniversary, Strehlke is organizing an exhibition on Angelico and the early Renaissance.

The lecture outlined the history of Angelico’s career, both as an artist and a Dominican Friar in 15th-century Rome—on the cusp of the Italian Renaissance.

Having studied the artist for the past 40 years, Strehlke joked that he isn’t

sick of Angelico quite yet, assuring the audience that Angelico is an artist that “keeps on giving.”

“Let’s bring Angelico back down to earth,” he said. “First, we have to take a closer look at that name.”

“If you were to look up the artist in the index of an Italian book, you would find that he’s not listed under the letter ‘a’ for Angelico, or the letter ‘f’ for Fra, but rather the letter ‘b’ for “beato,” or blessed”, explained Strehlke. This title emphasizes the significance and impact of Angelico’s work and the power of the narratives he produced.

Fra Angelico was officially made blessed by Pope John Paul II in 1982 and was declared the patron saint of artists in 1984.

“Making Angelico blessed was an important step for the Vatican, but it only confirmed the long-standing tradition,” Strehlke said. “For Florentines, he was always ‘Beato Angelico.’”

Strehlke went on to outline the evolution of Angelico’s career, starting with the artist’s humble beginnings in the workshop of Lorenzo Monaco in Florence.

At every stage of his career, Strehlke

said, Angelico remained at the forefront of artistic innovation, and was one of the earliest revolutionary artists from the Florentine Renaissance.

Strehlke presented viewers with five of Angelico’s works throughout his career, influenced by contemporaries including Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Filippo Lippi, to showcase his constant evolution in style and form.

The first work Strehlke showed the audience was Altarpiece with the Madonna and Child, completed in 1420.

Among the details he pointed out was the playful and squirming Baby Jesus, whose animated figure echoed developments in contemporary sculpture of the time and signified a clear break from tradition.

“At first look, Angelico’s might be like many others,” Strehlke said. “What I want to focus on, however, are several details which show us an artist working within a traditional framework, but, already at the start of his career, engaging in a search for a new type of realistic depiction.”

“Don’t be afraid to look closely. What you find may surprise you, I know it always surprises me.” n

BC Alum Joseph Allen Explores Link Between Buildings, Health

By Alessandro Zenati Metro Editor

Natural light pours down through skylights positioned above the central atrium of what was previously a Sears distribution center, replete with hints of 1920s art deco all around. Now, it has been retrofitted into a well-frequented commercial building with modern office spaces available.

Occupying an office leased by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and blessed with expansive views of the Boston cityscape, Joseph Allen, BC ’98, has dedicated his life’s work to bridging the communication and implementation divide between building science and health science.

Allen currently holds a teaching appointment as an assistant professor of exposure assessment science at the Harvard Chan School’s department of environmental health. He has introduced brand new courses including one titled The Impact of Buildings on Health,

Productivity and Sustainability, which is often taken by cross-enrolled students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

These initiatives stem from the Healthy Buildings group he began at Harvard to explore the way in which the indoor built environment—homes, offices, schools, planes—influences our overall health and performance. Drawing from his experience as a consultant, Allen intends to translate his previous research into actionable public health solutions that are accessible to shareholders who don’t come from hard science backgrounds.

“I think the real danger within the scientific community can be that we talk just amongst ourselves,” Allen said in discussing his interdisciplinary approach.

“We can always fall into that trap. But I think that’s the beauty of the field of public health .... We’re encouraged to not just do the science but get that all the way to implementation.”

For this reason, the ethos of the Healthy Buildings program centers around reducing the collaborative fric-

tion that exists between urban planning designers and environmental health scientists. The integration of insights from the natural environment into the construction of indoor environments will, according to Allen, usher in an important paradigm shift in the commercial real estate space. By translating its research into the 9 Foundations of a Healthy Building, the Healthy Buildings team hopes to redefine the way we treat space and emphasize the design decisions that can ultimately improve the health of those who occupy it.

“The facilities manager in a building has as much influence on your health as your primary care physician ... They’re all in the health care space,” Allen said.

“Once we change that conversation to be all about health, these people will have the ability to drive [Healthy Buildings principles] into practice globally.”

In 2015, Allen and his team set out to reveal how ventilation, temperature, lighting, and noise affect cognitive performance in the workplace through a

double-blind, highly controlled clinical study. Over six days, 24 test subjects were observed in a simulated office while researchers adjusted the concentrations of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, that circulate in the air from carpets and surface cleaners. In addition, they modulated ventilation rates and carbon dioxide levels to imitate green and green+ certified office space standards.

The results of the study offer striking evidence of the correlation between a number of air quality metrics and the cognitive performance of exposed individuals. Performance areas such as focused-activity levels, information usage, and strategy were all higher in the subjects exposed to green and green+ building environments in contrast to control subjects. To a certain extent, Allen’s work highlights the social and productivity benefits that optimized indoor conditions can produce at the individual and organizational levels.

“When we’re not comfortable, we’re not functioning properly,” Allen said.

“That includes the way we think and handle information ... All we’ve done here, quite honestly, is just quantify that.”

With the growing proliferation of low-cost sensors available to consumers, physiological data collected from users’ activities in the physical world has become an important tool for urban designers of the future. Allen acknowledges their place in the 21st century “smart city,” where connectivity and open-access data will allow public resources and services to be allocated more efficiently. There is an unequivocally human element to this future, and the boundaries between innovation and privacy must be clearly defined moving forward.

Allen has a long-term vision in mind.

After being asked by one of the deans at Harvard about how he thinks his work will impact the future, the answer has become clearer with time.

“We are being intentional about the audiences we’re working with in terms of answering questions that are relevant to move the market,” Allen said. n

The Heights

A6

EDITORIAL

Thursday, April 19, 2018

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Dedication of Brighton Complex Milestone for BC Athletics

“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it, or offer your own reason in return.”

- Salman Rushdie

Boston College Athletics re- through constant involvement to which he attributes so much cently dedicated its new athletic and contributions, it is respect- of his academic and spiritual facilities on Brighton Campus to able of BC to repay by naming growth. In the past, Harrington donor and alumnus John Har- these new facilities after him. has ser ve d on the B oard of rington, BC ’57, GCSOM ’66.

After he graduated from the Trustees, received the Alumni The newly named Harrington University, Harrington was an Association’s highest award, the Athletics Village houses the officer in the U.S. Navy, em- William V. McKenney Award, baseball and softball fields as well ployed by NASA, and obtained and donated to the construction as a small building for indoor his MBA from BC to become a efforts of Conte Forum. Currestrooms and concessions. At CPA. Having spent too much rently, he is a trustee associate the ceremony on April and continues to provide 14, both BC Director of scholarships for studentAthletics Martin Jarmond athletes as well as Pops on “...BC graciously shows its and University President the Heights scholars. Many appreciation for Harrington by times over, he has proven Re v. William P. Leahy, S .J., commende d Harnaming the athletic complex...” his love for the University, rington for his continual and BC graciously shows dedication and generosits appreciation for Harity toward the University ring ton by naming the and celebrated a man who has time away from the University, athletic complex, to which he and long supported BC and its ath- he soon returned to BC as an many other donors graciously letics. During his own speech, assistant professor of accounting contributed, after him.

Harrington graciously reflected and eventually progressed from The dedication of the Brighon the formative time that BC treasurer to CEO and general ton complex also represents the provided to him, which inspired partner of the Boston Red Sox, opening of the first student-orihis continued dedication to its which he remained for over 15 ented space on Brighton Camimprovement. As he expresses years. All the while, however, he pus, an important benchmark for his gratefulness to the University never cut ties from the University the University.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR In Response to: “Two Students Accused of Property Damage For Chalking”

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EDITORIAL RESOURCES News Tips Have a news tip or a good idea for a story? Call Cole Dady, News Editor, at (617) 552-0172, or email news@bcheights.com. For future events, email a detailed description of the event and contact information to the News Desk.

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Have an event that BC students might be interested in? Contact Alessandro Zenati, Metro Editor, at (617) 552-0515, or email metro@ bcheights.com.

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The state of free speech on college campuses has been in the news a lot lately. The narrative goes something like this: Today’s college students are snowflakes. They’re hostile to free speech because it reinforces inequality. Because it creates hostile environments. Because it allows horrible people to say horrible things. But Boston College challenges this narrative. This is because the snowflakes at BC aren’t college students. They’re administrators.

BC’s Jesuit, Catholic heritage and concerns about “safety” and “campus disruption,” administrators require students to get permission before demonstrating on campus. Before posting a flier on campus. Before protesting silently on campus. And, as The Gavel and The Heights recently reported, before chalking on campus.

The administration’s fear that letting a few students distribute condoms and information about healthy sex practices on campus could bring down a nearly 2,000-year-old religion would be laughable if it weren’t a pretext for controlling students’ speech. And the administration’s latest decision to charge students with “property damage” for chalking heretical messages like “What would Jesus do?” and “Be better BC” and—you guessed it—“Black lives matter” wouldn’t ordinarily merit more than an eye roll. But this isn’t about condoms or chalk. It’s about free speech.

In 1996, BC’s Board of Trustees adopted a new mission statement that pays lip service to “free intellectual inquiry,” the “important contribution a diverse student body … can offer,” and “academic freedom.” Perhaps my four years at BC failed me—or perhaps

I just didn’t have room in my schedule to register for Not Practicing What You Preach 101—but I don’t see how that mission statement translates into disciplining students for trying to engage the campus community on topics ranging from investments in fossil fuel companies to police shootings.

Condoms are controversial. Fine.

Chestnut Hill could experience a severe drought that leaves non-administration-approved messages caked on well-traveled sidewalks for days—even weeks. Sure. Those issues aside, how do you reconcile BC’s requirement that students get administrators’ approval before they share their views on campus—without latex, without chalk—and BC’s claim that its students are bright and committed to making the world more just? It appears the University trusts its students enough to accept them, charge them a guaranteed-to-go-up-4-percent-annually-regardless-of-inflation tuition rate of $54,600 per year, and promote their talents and achievements in publicity materials. But not enough to let them express their opinions without the administration’s consent.

Just what exactly are aministrators so afraid students will say? Or, rather, just what exactly are administrators so afraid they’ll hear? Could it be that, in the name of BC’s Jesuit, Catholic heritage and in the name of safety and preventing campus disruption (read: in the name of making their jobs easier), administrators are actually trying to create their own safe space?

What say you, snowf lakes: What Would Jesus Do?

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April 19, 2018

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The Voluntourist’s Dilemma 69

69

Marta Seitz

Zac Efron at the Marathon - Dylan Efron, 26, ran the Boston Marathon in 2:57:50. Brother of film star Zac Efron (High School Musical, 17 Again, and many more classics of the 21st century), Dylan was greeted by family and friends at the finish line. In a video Zac posted on Instagram with really funky background music, you can see Dylan, drenched and panting, make his way over to hug his supporters. I’m greatly impressed that he ran the marathon, and even more impressed that he ran it in under three hours (rumor has it that he trained in high altitude—strategery), but I’m almost more taken aback by the fact that Zac Efron was at the marathon. I was also at the marathon. Thus, by means of the associative property, I was in the same place as Zac Efron (give or take five miles). He’s no longer the type of celebrity that people frantically follow around, so I think I’m in a state of shock about the fact that he still, you know, does things.

Still, I’ll probably never again be able to say that I was in such close proximity to Zac Efron, so I think I’ll settle with feeling a lot of contentment because he was in Boston.

Plus, his brother ran the marathon, which is pretty cool. They belong to an extraordinary family.

69

While scrolling through my Facebook feed as a welcome distraction from the midweek workload, I stumbled upon pictures from my friend’s service trip to Guatemala over Easter Break. The photos from her five-day trip featured members of her group holding babies, smiling while young girls braided their hair, and taking selfies with kids from the local village. In every picture, both the volunteers and the children had big smiles on their faces, yet I couldn’t help but feel a mixed reaction to the message the album implied. On one hand, I found it admirable that she devoted time otherwise spent relaxing at home to serve others. On the other hand, the posed pictures made me question whether the volunteers were there to truly serve the locals or simply offer a philanthropic tone to their social media profiles.

The trip seemed less about volunteerism and more about sightseeing, photo-taking “voluntourism.”

I first learned about voluntourism in a high school ethics class. Some classmates argued that the hybrid of tourist vacation and volunteer service enables participants to enjoy the best of both trips—to explore a new part of the world while giving a positive contribution to the communities they visit. Most people, however, believed that voluntourism exploits the lives of people in need to collect college essay topics and Instagram photos under an altruistic façade. They suggested that one week’s worth of projects in rural towns is just half-hearted, feel-good busywork that blindly ignores the greater issues that can’t be fixed in a week’s work: poverty, education and health care inequalities, and underdeveloped infrastructure and economies. One student argued that a much more effective strategy would be to spare the money otherwise spent flying volunteers to in-need countries and instead donate it directly to the locals so they can dictate the allocation of funds as they see fit.

Later that summer, I felt the guilty pangs of voluntourism firsthand. During a mission trip to Birmingham, Ala., it seemed that people always rolled out the red carpet to serve us. We were given airconditioned sleeping rooms, on-site showers, and homemade meals every night at our work sites. We enjoyed day trips to Birmingham’s beautiful botanical gardens and walked the historic paths of national leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. While I was so grateful for their hospitable treatment, I found myself struggling to reconcile the feeling that they had done more to serve me than I had done to serve them. I quickly realized just how easy it is to fall into the spiral of cynicism surrounding volunteer trips.

I found myself wondering if we should have saved the travel expenses and offered people money instead. Certainly my conversations up to this point seemed to suggest so. But in an effort to play devil’s advocate, I’d like to offer an alternative perspective.

In June 2016, I had the opportunity to travel to Port-au-Prince, Haiti for 10 days with my parish. In many ways, my experiences largely mirrored those in Birmingham: Women cooked feasts of homemade Creole food and even the children—despite what little they had—tried to offer us their pencils, bottle can soccer balls, and hair scrunchies as gifts. At first I resisted their generosity. I felt bad for taking advantage of the people that I was supposed to be serving. As the week progressed, however, the Haitian sisters with whom we worked encouraged us to embrace the kindness they offered to us. We allowed the locals to show us their homes and schools with pride. We offered our undivided attention as they shared their stories with us. When our lunchtime chats with locals extended beyond our meal breaks, the sisters encouraged us to stay and continue talking, allowing the conversation to develop organically. We spent our days playing with the children, sometimes long after we were supposed to return back to our site for dinner that night.

We were asked to leave our phones and cameras at home while we visited our work sites. We still engaged with the people, played with the children, witnessed firsthand the conditions that were so strik-

ingly different from ours—we just didn’t photograph them. We were forced to take mental pictures and store the memories in our minds, to lose ourselves so fully in the moment that we often failed to realize when it was time to go back to work because we weren’t constantly interrupting the moment to take photos or check the time.

Admittedly, this total absorption occasionally tapped into our productivity as our pickup soccer games and leisurely conversations cut into designated work time. Were we as successful or efficient as if we had simply given the people money to complete the projects themselves?

Well, that depends on how you define success—earlier I would have argued no.

This trip, however, taught me that the true measure of a project’s success is not in terms of financial or physical performance results. You are not there to build wells or paint houses or tutor students because the people living there can’t or don’t know how. On the contrary, your mere presence demonstrates that you are there because you care about them. You appreciate their humanity beyond the simple project at which you throw your funds or the photo that you post to your Instagram.

Furthermore, I realized that yes, you are there to serve others, but also to allow others to serve you. They take pride in offering their homes, sharing their meals, partaking in a simple game of soccer with you. Though you may go with the intention of serving them, respect their dignity enough to realize that you can learn just as much, if not more, from them than you could ever offer. It is not a giving competition. And it does not devalue your service when you simultaneously receive valuable lessons and establish powerful human connection. Most importantly, exercise discretion in photographing the communities that you serve. They are not our charity cases, and their stories are often best shared in their own words. Allow your experiences to live vibrantly in your memory, but honor the integrity of the moment enough to know when the story is better told by those who live it every day.

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

Letting Cornell Go Not Seeing Zac Efron at the Marathon - Self-explanatory, but sad nonetheless. If you were blissfully unaware, as most of us were, you likely did not see Zac Efron at the marathon. Because why would you go all the way to the finish line other than to see him? And that would be creepy. So that was probably a good call. lack of Chase ATMs in Boston My apologies. There are two. But no actual Chase banks that one could physically walk into. One of them—the only one that I’ve ever seen (so we can’t really know if the other one even exists)—is at Boston Logan International Airport in terminal A, around gate 20. You see, I know this precise information because every time I fly home from Logan, I depart from a gate around there, which also happens to be exceptionally far from security. The other, apparently (i.e. according to Google), is in the North End somewhere. I think I go to Logan more than I go to the North End. When there is a possibility that I may need to withdraw money for some potential future purchase somewhere that only accepts cash, I end up entirely too paranoid as I carry wads of cash from the airport to my room, where I stash it in a “safe” place and feel like a pimp, or a drug dealer, or some other thug profiting from illicit cash-only deals.

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Mahima Menghani When applying to colleges my senior year of high school, I was determined to attend Cornell University the following year despite my relatively average GPA and SAT scores in comparison to the credentials of the typical Ivy League student. I had high hopes I would receive an acceptance from the school of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), but felt disillusioned when my earlydecision application was initially deferred.

My hopes were finally crushed when I received what I thought was a rejection letter in late March. A few paragraphs below the “I regret to inform you…” and countless euphemisms, however, was an unusual statement informing me that I would soon receive an email regarding a “transfer option” to Cornell. Confused and already in tears, I shut my laptop and attempted to ignore what I thought was a trap that would only lead to further disappointment. A few weeks later, though, once I had already sent in my deposit to Boston College, I responded to an email from the ILR School and hesitantly accepted the prospect of transferring out of BC after one year as long as I maintained the minimum GPA and enrolled in the required courses.

The Cornell Transfer Option is offered to a group of first-year applicants who are allowed to enter Cornell’s Class of 2021 once they have completed one year of study at another four-year institution. Admission is guaranteed if students meet first-year course requirements and keep their GPA above a 3.3. During the BC freshmen orientation, I found that aligning my schedule with Cornell’s requirements proved simple, and I even met a few other students in the same situation. As a result of my far-fetched dream of attending Cornell, I was ultimately grateful for having any opportunity to attend

the University, even if the circumstances were not ideal. I rationalized my acceptance of the situation by telling myself that staying close to home during my first year would allow for a smoother transition to college life.

I also convinced myself that I would remain detached from all lasting relationships and commitments outside of the classroom so that leaving campus in the spring would be much easier. Still, no matter how hard I’ve tried throughout the past year, I have not succeeded in distancing myself from BC life as I originally intended.

Immediately upon arriving at my dorm on Newton Campus and meeting my roommates, I recognized that, if I stayed here, I would spend the next four years surrounded by many intelligent students who would create the competitive academic environment that I previously believed could only be experienced at an Ivy League school. At the Fall Student Involvement Fair, I witnessed no dearth of opportunities to pursue my interests and couldn’t resist the compulsion to get involved at BC beyond my coursework. Far from consisting solely of mundane introductory classes, my schedule this year was filled with relevant, unique courses like Global Implications of Climate Change, Sociological Research Methods, and The History and Politics of Terrorism. Professor Peter Krause’s project team has provided me with the opportunity to delve into research in the political science department and to make tangible connections with my coursework. My first-semester topic seminar entitled The Role of Law in Society allowed me to view current political issues from all perspectives by engaging in necessary weekly discussions with my classmates. I participated in the Compass mentoring program, which gives AHANA+ students upperclassmen mentors to help adjust to the seemingly alienating BC campus. The South Asian Student Association has similarly enabled me to connect with students who can easily empathize with one another’s backgrounds.

Throughout my tumultuous yet motivating freshman year, my personal experiences

consistently dispelled the many stereotypes that I held before coming to BC. Regardless of its flaws, the community and curriculum that I have grown to love here have prompted me to reject the option to transfer.

Faced with pressures from my parents, peers, and articles all trying to convince me to accept the transfer option, finalizing this decision has involved months of panic and ambivalence. My satisfaction with BC’s academic program as well as its range of co-curricular and networking opportunities, however, has overpowered my previous wish to switch schools due to misguided perception that an Ivy League school is “superior” to all others. Ultimately, no one can decide for me where I belong. Maybe I’m making a mistake, and my parents likely believe that I am, but easing their doubts requires that I continue to take full advantage of the possibilities at BC, most of which I have yet to explore.

No university is perfect, and I now understand that my expectations of Cornell as a prestigious, picture-perfect utopia were always unrealistic. Cornell is an amazing school, and I’ve faced many students and professors alike who criticized my decision to stay at BC, but ultimately I believe that I’ve found the challenging, engaging environment that I demand for my education.

Transferring simply because of the status of the Ivy League and senseless obsessions over the rankings of my university would only lead to unhappiness. As cliché as it sounds, BC is my home, and although freshman year can be challenging, transferring to a different university will not solve the normal trials and tribulations that every student must overcome in his or her first year in college. What’s important to me is that I have discovered how I can take full advantage of my education, study what I love through a prospective international studies major, and pursue a secure career path all while developing strong relationships along the way.

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

The opinions and commentaries of the op-ed columnists appearing on this page represent the views of the author or artist 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 at opinions@bcheights.com.

Leftist, Not Liberal Josh Behrens I’m not a liberal. I’m a leftist. Within this seemingly small linguistic shift is a world of difference whose nuances are obscured by the false American dichotomy of liberal vs. conservative.

In order to understand the differences between “leftist” and “liberal,” let’s look at Boston College’s most popular political ideology. You guessed it: being “economically conservative” but “socially liberal.”

Whenever I hear this phrase, it feels like a cheese grater is slowly being pulled down my face. The term “liberal” obfuscates the truth behind this buzz-phrase, the truth that both Democrats and Republicans are liberal, albeit different shades.

Liberalism promotes free markets, private enterprise, political democracy, and minimal government interference.

Over the past 300 years, liberalism has evolved, but it retains the central tenants of capitalist individualism combined with political democracy. In the United States, liberalism takes on two forms: neoclassical liberalism and neoliberalism.

Neoclassical liberalism is more commonly called libertarianism and is more or less what people refer to when they call themselves “economically conservative.”

Neoclassical liberals believe the government should take as little of a role in the economy as possible, just like those early liberal thinkers. So yes, Paul Ryan is a liberal. Mitch McConnell is a liberal too.

Mitt Romney? Total liberal. They might be “economically conservative” in American terminology, but their ideology harkens back to the heart of liberalism.

Now for those “socially liberal” folks.

What we conceive as “liberalism” in America—a.k.a. the Democratic Party—is the other strand of liberalism called “neoliberalism” (note: I’m sorry, I know your eyes are glazing over every time you read the word “liberal”). Neoliberalism is like neoclassical liberalism’s younger brother: It believes the government should have a place in correcting market failures and free markets are not the end-all-be-all of capitalist economics. Even though they disagree on the role government should play within capitalism, both shades of liberalism are capitalist systems.

Being a leftist, however, is about rejecting the false dichotomy between shades of liberalism that only disagree on how to manage capitalism. Being a leftist means that you are anti-capitalist.

Just like liberalism, leftism has tons of shades. They all agree on one thing, though: The capitalist system is fundamentally broken and cannot be reformed.

Leftists believe in true democracy that doesn’t just include political democracy but also includes economic democracy.

This is why I hate being called a liberal.

Liberals in the Democratic Party still fuel economic inequality and uphold the economic system that makes 50 million Americans hungry (including 17 million children). I will have no part in that.

Let’s return to the BC catchphrase “economically conservative but socially liberal.” We’ve covered the economics pretty well, but what about the social aspects of politics? Isn’t the Democratic Party progressive on social issues?

This is another place where liberals and leftists differ. Let’s take the issue of police brutality. Liberals within the Democratic Party call for tepid reforms such as body cameras. But as history has shown, body cameras can be turned off and/or muted to protect the police from being brought to justice for killing black and brown people. Leftists call for radical reforms so that the police cannot possibly inhabit a power structure that would allow them to kill and maim innocent citizens.

Leftists point out that prisons and the death penalty are not forms of restorative justice and that any society that practices imprisoning and killing large portions of its population will never be a just society.

Yes, the Democratic Party advocates for government support of programs such as Medicare and Social Security, but it is only to ensure that the capitalist system keeps humming along. Leftists see the necessity for systemic change. So if anyone asks me what my political identity is, I’ll respond, “I’m economically leftist and socially radical.” You should too.

Josh Behrens is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

The Heights

A8

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Learning Their Language: Building Trust Through Music Nicholas Rocchio-Giordano spent his time abroad in Ecuador building a music program for the kids of Quito.

By Catherine McLaughlin For The Heights Most people study abroad in the hope that they will be changed by the places that they temporarily inhabit, rather than the other way around. But for Nicholas Rocchio-Giordano, MCAS ’18, the experience of studying in Ecuador led to a relationship of mutual change: He tasted the fruits of sharing his passion for music and left behind an ongoing musical partnership, joining abroad students and children’s organizations in Quito.

Growing up in Providence, R.I., Rocchio-Giordano experimented with music, learning piano and guitar, but had yet to “take it seriously” until his senior year of high school. A close friend, Ben, who had played the drums for a while, helped spark Rocchio-Giordano’s interest in the technical side of music.

“We were just hanging out one day and he pointed out the bass part to a song we were listening to: ‘Around the World’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers,” Rocchio-Giordano said. “I’d never listened to just the bass part of any song … And so it was cool that there was this whole other instrument that I had never even been aware of.”

He picked up the bass six months later and has not put it down since. Though he had found a passion in music, RocchioGiordano did not come to college expressly seeking to pursue it. Once he arrived at Boston College, however, Rocchio-Giordano’s classes in music deepened his passion and connection with the subject. He points to a three part class called Harmony with Professor Ralph Golleck, one of the first classes he took at BC, as getting him hooked on the study.

“To learn that there is a language to music, a grammar to how you could understand how it works that goes beyond intuition—it showed me that you can be taught how to make stuff that I am interested in listening to and pursuing,”Rocchio-Giordano said.

Rocchio-Giordano knew he wanted to study English, but the passion he found for music led him to keep taking classes in the music department.

By the end of his Harmony classes, Nick already had the credits for a minor in music but thought it would be shameful

to end his education in music there. So he continued on to major in music and minor in English. When it came time to study abroad, Rocchio-Giordano had an idea of what he wanted out of an abroad experience but did not have one destination set in his mind—he chose Ecuador on a whim.

“I knew I wanted to go somewhere really far outside my comfort zone, as far out as I was capable of going,” Rocchio-Giordano said.

The school that best fit those parameters was in Ecuador. Rocchio-Giordano chose to study at La Universidad de San Francisco Quito (USFQ).

“It was an internal program with a service component, which was a key part of it,” Rocchio-Giordano said. “All the classes were in another language, which made me very uncomfortable but very much drew me in.”

Though music was not a decisive factor in where Rocchio-Giordano wanted to study, in what could only be called fate, he ended up at a school with a great music program.

The prospect of taking music classes entirely in Spanish excited him and drew him in. The program was also smaller than he expected, with only about five students. His few peers were accomplished in their own passions, and this made Rocchio-Giordano feel a bit of pressure.

“Being around people like that constantly kind of forces you to ask yourself the question, ‘What am I gonna do, what do I have to offer?’” Rocchio-Giordano said.

At first, his involvement with service was helping teach English at an elementary school, but he started pondering other options and opportunities, especially given the musical resources of his abroad program.

“I wanted a way that I could share something that would enable me to enable others to grow—something that would allow me to share what I was passionate about but also to experience the lives of others in a way that I hadn’t before,” Rocchio-Giordano said.

Rocchio-Giordano is a vice-president of the Music Guild on campus, which is the goto music organization for students both in and out of the music department. The club runs a weekly service program in partnership with Unit 1 of the Franciscan Children’s Hospital in Brighton. BC musicians visit the unit, play music, and sing along with

Sam Zhai / Heights staff

Ricchio-Giordano studied abroad at Ecuador’s La Universidad de San Francisco Quito.

the children there. Knowing the benefits that both the children at the hospital and the BC students take from that program, Rocchio-Giordano was inspired to adapt it to his own opportunities in Ecuador.

Rocchio-Giordano pioneered a music program called “El Estilo Salesiano,” or “The Salesian Style,” after a song written by the program’s participants. It functions as a partnership between abroad students studying at La Pontificia Universidad Católica de Ecuador and two after school, YMCA-style shelters for children in Quito named Mi Caleta and GolASO. The name GolASO is a pun of the popular soccer celebratory chant “Golazo,” and it ties together the joy found in popular sports with personal development—GolASO’s two major focuses.

The “Gol” is attached to the acronym ASO, which stands for Autoestima (self-esteem), Solidaridad (solidarity), and Organización (organization).

The Mi Caleta shelter, along with others within its the network of the NGO El Proyecto Salesiano Ecuador (PSE), functions as anything from an afterschool study and tutor spaces to a homeless shelters for those in need. PSE shelters have anywhere 50-300 young Quitoans, servicing a range of ages.

The purpose of Mi Caleta is to give a safe, social, healthy environment for young students in difficult situations and to help prevent them from falling into more dangerous lifestyles. In Rocchio-Giordano’s program, the abroad students go between Mi Caleta, where they help the kids practice learning and performing, and GolASO, where they assist a children’s choir directed

by Carlo Emanuel Cuenta Llena.

The way the program looks now, however, was not what Rocchio-Giordano had originally envisioned. He had hoped to install a music school at Mi Caleta, a more traditional musical education setup, but the resulting program is a product of what fits best for the children of Quito.

He began his engagement at Mi Caleta establishing the trust of the children. Because of the economic situations of many of these students’ families, their lives are assured of little constancy. Rocchio-Giordano’s first two weeks at Mi Caleta were spent showing the young Quitoans that his presence was a long-term one that they could trust. Rocchio-Giordano then began trying to implement the musical education program he had envisioned, teaching formal lesson plans and giving private lessons. It did not go quite as expected. “[The kids] hated it,” Rocchio-Giordano said. “It was not fun for them and they were not getting anything out of it.”

With Rocchio-Giordano’s initial roadblocks, his program coordinator Benjamín Pinto suggested he try working at GolASO, a larger, sport-oriented PSE shelter that had a small choir and could use his help. This was disheartening for Rocchio-Giordano: He did not want to give up at Mi Caleta.

But he found that he worked well with the choir at GolASO and was able to take that success back to Mi Caleta, adjusting his approach to what would get the students most passionate about music.

“What ended up being most effective was to take my guitar and learn how to play any song they knew—a lot of ‘Despacito,’ a lot of Daddy Yankee,” Rocchio-Giordano said.

He learned songs the kids requested, and they would sing along. On Fridays the kids would pick an array of songs that they were interested in, and Rocchio-Giordano would learn them over the weekend.

On Mondays and Tuesdays, they would focus on one or two of those songs and practice them for a performance the next Friday. Other students in the USFQ music program would bring their instruments and add them to the songs of the students, and at the Friday performances they would all play and sing together.

All the while, Rocchio-Giordano worked with the choir at GolASO twice a week. Rocchio-Giordano also received the Advanced Study Grant for Thesis Research, which, along with money that he independently raised, allowed the program to buy some new instruments and a proper PA system.

Though Rocchio-Giordano’s program was dropped by USFQ partway through the summer, it began and still has a partnership with La Pontificia Universidad Católica de Ecuador that follows this same system.

Volunteers who work in the program today come from three sources: BC, La Católica, and the NGO PSE. For Rocchio-Giordano, the redirection of the program also changed how he saw the benefits students gained from it. The initial trajectory of a structured school of music became a two-way street of learning, passion, and understanding between the kids of Quito and the students of El Estilo Salesiano.

“I came to see the importance of giving the kids a stage. It was less about teaching them about music. The thing that I love about music was to learn that language and that practice,” Rocchio-Giordano said. “But more importantly for these kids was to give them a way to be heard by the people around them, and to be heard by themselves, in a totally different way.”

By the time the kids at Mi Caleta had reached their big performance at the end of the summer, Nick saw how the program had benefited them, providing an emotional safe space in addition to the physical safe space furnished by the shelter itself.

“You have someone who isn’t talking, who has lived much of their life alone or with people that they cannot trust,” Rocchio-Giordano said. “You give someone like that simply a microphone, they’re not going to do much. You give them a microphone and provide them with a platform, a background to speak over, that’s different.”

He saw this change specifically in a young boy named Alex. Alex went from being the quietest kid in class to the big rapper of the group. He performed in front of hundreds of people, which was exciting for Rocchio-Giordano to see.

“He got to learn how his own voice sounded,” Rocchio-Giordano said.

Another student that stood out was a young teen named Kelly. Although Kelly

had a naturally beautiful voice, she was extremely shy throughout the program.

But she was also incredibly dedicated outside of practice, rehearsing on her own and rising as a leading figure in the group.

Kelly’s commitment influenced her peers to take the program more seriously.

“While the other kids enjoyed the musical aspect of the program, I think what really drew them in was the degree of engagement that kids like Kelly and Alex brought to the table,” Rocchio-Giordano said. “Kelly and Alex succeeded in sharing with their peers what it looks like to be passionate about something.”

Kelly and Alex’s natural talent and passion, he said, displayed that “the capacity for dedication and enjoyment of music is something that anyone is capable of feeling and often arises from one’s social commitment to their peers.” The impact of these few passionate students on the group impressed Rocchio-Giordano with “the power of pursued interest.”

In sharing his passion for music, if not his technical knowledge, with the children of Mi Caleta, Rocchio-Giordano came to see music as a powerful emotional medium.

“It doesn’t take much skill to sing along to whatever song is playing, but it does take a lot of confidence,” he said.

He thinks a lot of people want to have the confidence to stand up and sing, but just don’t know that they can. RocchioGiordano values that he has found a way to give kids the opportunity to do so.

Rocchio-Giordano’s program, El Estilo Salesiano, is open to anyone studying abroad in Ecuador through BC—there is a junior now who is following RocchioGiordano’s system.Rocchio-Giordano stresses the two-way street of personal growth and change that participating and developing this program has had on him as a person and as a musician. He encourages people excited about music to consider partaking in it, or others like it, such as the one through the Music Guild.

Professor Barbara Gawlick of the music department, who has helped initiate similar music programs through BC in the past and has offered support and inspiration to Rocchio-Giordano throughout his process, lauded his ability to carry his passion beyond music to service. She says that he not only “possesses exceptional skills and knowledge” of music but is “a dynamic and highly motivated student with excellent communication skills and a strong work ethic,” and she notes that both have been essential to the success of the program.

She characterizes his endeavor as a noble and important pursuit to serve the underprivileged.

Rocchio-Giordano modestly says that the program “could have been done better,” but stresses that it is tailored to the situation, perfectly marrying the service needs of students abroad with the needs of the kids at Mi Caleta.

“It showed what could be done,” Rocchio-Giordano said, as he excitedly watches its progress from afar. n

Fresh From the Garden: Eataly Pop-Up Showcases Seasonal Herbs

La Cucina has adopted a rotating concept kitchen to combat the generalization that Italian dishes lack variety.

By Mary Wilkie Opinions Editor Every Eataly aims to bring a taste of Italian culinary culture to cities around the world, but this month, only Boston’s branch is highlighting the subtlest of ingredients that diners often overlook: herbs.

The simplicity of Italian dishes at times leads people to think that the cuisine lacks variety, but the chefs at Eataly Boston combat this generalization with their rotating concept kitchen, La Cucina, located in the central La Piazza dining area. Every few months, the restaurant presents fresh culinary concepts to its visitors that draw from Italian culture. These concepts are completely unique to Eataly Boston. The restaurant’s chefs develop each menu over a month or two, combining seasonal ingredients to creates dishes that represent the flavors they intend to showcase.

L’Orto, the current pop-up, launched this month and will be open through June.

L’Orto in La Cucina translates to “Herb Garden in the Kitchen,” emphasizing the menu’s focus on the versatility of various seasonal herbs. Chefs Sam de lo Santos and Rob Wing created this concept to highlight the use of herbs—including rosemary, parsley, ramps, and thyme—in simple dishes made with local and seasonal ingredients. The menu features

many options to complement these subtle flavors, from shareable items to personal plates—including pasta and meat dishes, as well as cocktails that gracefully incorporate the herbs.

Most if not all of the dishes on L’Orto’s menu showcase ingredients produced during springtime in New England. With each concept, Eataly hopes to strengthen its connection to the Boston community.

The chefs prepare fresh and seasonal local ingredients in their genuine Italian dishes that really showcase the culture and highlight their natural flavors, from a steak grilled to perfection accompanied by a charred lemon, octopus skewered with potatoes in a spicy Calabrian anchovy sauce spice called neonata, or triangoli— identical to ravioli but in the shape of a triangle—that are filled with ricotta in a light lemon butter sauce.

The simplicity of these dishes is not to be overlooked—if anything, one ought to admire the talent these chefs’ display in the mouthwatering dishes that combine the subtle flavors of incredibly fresh ingredients. L’Orto’s menu includes simple plates of vegetables, fried artichokes with fresh parsley and Pecorino Romano, and lemon ricotta on toasted bread with spring peas and prosciutto that provide the light flavors characteristic of springtime dishes as the season quickly approaches.

Not only is the food representative of spring, but the small decorations are reminiscent of the season too, as rays of sunlight beam around fake potted plants hanging upside down from the ceiling of Eataly’s La Piazza. La Piazza is set up in a way that the four counters—La Cucina, Crudo Di Mare, Enoteca, and Salumeria—are stationed in the corners of the room around a hightable seating area. Its design is inspired by the plazas in Italy, with various markets offering different products encompassing a lively and personal setting.

The pops of color in the decoration for this concept add additional liveliness to the already vibrant atmosphere in the monochromatic interior of La Piazza—with skylights allowing sunlight to naturally brighten the space, the bright green “herbs” hanging from the ceiling summoning spring and creating anticipation for this season of warmth and growth. Plus, the natural brightness creates optimal lighting for photos of the elegant plates.

The rotating menu in La Cucina aims to accentuate seasonal products from local distributors. Past concepts have engaged similarly seasonal ideas: Le Alpi served wintery dishes inspired comfort of the Alps, Campo de’ Fiori presented dishes inspired by a floral festival Rome, and Il Tartufo offered dishes that nearly all incorporated truffle. They reflect specific

Mary Wilkie / Heights Editor

The current pop-up, L’Orto in La Cucina, launched this month, and will end in June. culinary staples from Italian culture—like herb gardens, Rome, and the Alps—in order to show the “breadth of Italian cuisine,” said Maya Vaidya, PR & communications associate for Eataly.

Since these pop-ups in La Cucina are unique to Eataly Boston and created by the Boston chefs independently from the restaurant’s other locations, they design menus that truly highlight local and seasonal ingredients. For months in advance

of the pop-up launch, de lo Santos and Wing had been testing combinations of flavors in simple dishes that would show the versatility of herbs that one could grow in their own home garden. These chefs showcase their own culinary talent in the rotating concepts at La Cucina. Every few months, they hope to deepen their connection to the community by using local ingredients to expose Boston to the variety in Italian cuisine. n

SPORTS

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018

B1

@HEIGHTSSPORTS

LACROSSE

Do it for Frates

BEN THOMAS Four years ago, Pete Frates, BC ’07, took the nation by storm. The former Boston College baseball star, who had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) back in March of 2012, had become a viral sensation. Along with his friends Pat Quinn—who was also stricken with ALS—and Corey Griffin, Frates began what is known as the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge”.

Since the implementation of the challenge, Frates has helped generate over $220 million towards organizations that fight ALS and is credited with raising awareness towards a deadly disease that is still without a cure.

Frates is a BC legend. The impact he has had both on and off the field is unprecedented among other historic Eagles’ athletes. The focus now turns to what more BC can do to preserve his legacy.

The University recently devoted its new Brighton athletics complex to University associate trustee John L. Harrington. With Shea now covered by construction, the next step is to dedicate Birdball’s new field.

Pete Frates deserves the honor.

Now the director of operations for BC baseball, Frates has been making an impact on Birdball since arriving on the Heights back in 2003. The Beverly, Mass.

See Frates Field, B2

BRADLEY SMART / HEIGHTS EDITOR

BC clinched its first ACC regular season title in program history on Saturday with a victory over No. 13 Virginia Tech and is now just one win away from perfection.

BY MIKE MALLEY Heights Staff For the first time all season, Boston College lacrosse failed to eclipse the 12-goal mark, on Saturday Virginia Tech 7 afternoon Boston College 9 against Virginia Tech. In fact, head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein’s team

didn’t even reach double digits.

But, just like they have every game this year, the Eagles found a way to win. Sam Apuzzo scored three second-half goals , and Lauren Daly held down the fort on the other end, securing the program’s 16th-straight victory— a 9-7 decision—and, at the bare minimum, a share of its first-ever ACC regular season title.

Coming into the game, the No. 2 Eagles (16-0, 6-0 Atlantic Coast) boasted the second-best scoring offense in the nation, averaging 16.67 goals per contest. But the No. 13 Hokies (11-5, 4-2) held BC in check, from start to finish, forcing the Eagles to lean on their defense more so than usual.

Even so, the first half was controlled by BC, which converted

three of its five free-position opportunities. That said, VTech scored the first goal of the game, capitalizing on an effective clear and fastbreak opportunity. The Hokies passed the ball effortlessly up the field, setting up a free shot in front of the goal for midfielder Marissa Davey. The scoring play

See Lax vs. VTech, B3

ATHLETICS

Brighton Athletics Village Dedicated in John Harrington’s Name

BY BRADLEY SMART Assoc. Sports Editor John Harrington, positioned at the podium underneath an overfilled white tent, paused midway through his speech as tears began to well in his eyes. The son of Irish immigrants was speaking of his arrival at Boston College, some 60-odd years ago, and how he didn’t hit the campus with a running start, “truly a lost soul.”

Now, as he looked back on his impressive career, with jobs ranging from NASA to the CEO of the Boston Red Sox, Harrington heaped gratitude on the school for putting him in position where he was.

“I’m immensely thankful for everybody here at Boston College,” he said.

“I owe a great deal to this university and everybody here.”

So it was only fitting that BC Director of Athletics Martin Jarmond

and University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., named the new softball and baseball complex after him—recognizing the longtime donor and supporter for his continued support of both Eagles athletics and academics.

The event itself, staged before both baseball and softball played games, was a rousing affirmation of Harrington’s character and contributions. Jarmond, Leahy, and James P.

Healey, Yawkey Foundations President, all spoke in the 20-minute event, capped off by Harrington throwing the ceremonial first pitch before both softball and baseball’s respective matchups.

It started with Jarmond exciting the crowd, featuring diginitries such as Baltimore Orioles general manager Dan Duquette, with a “We are BC” chant. The AD then said thanks to many people before describing the

honor it was to share this day with Harrington.

“From this day forth,” Jarmond proclaimed before a steady round of applause, “this complex will honor the legacy of the Harrington family at Boston College and will forever be known as the Harrington Athletics Village.”

Next, Leahy spoke of his abiding

See Harrington Dedication, B3

FOOTBALL

McDonald, Robinson Star in Jay McGillis Memorial Spring Game

BY ANDY BACKSTROM Sports Editor

TIGER TAO / HEIGHTS STAFF

Elijah Robinson (right) hauled in a 44-yard touchdown pass from Matt Mcdonald.

Ever since Darius Wade transferred to Delaware this offseason, all eyes have been on E.J. Perry—the sophomore gunslinger who took limited snaps in relief of Wade during Boston College football’s blowout win over Connecticut at Fenway Park this past November. Due to the fact that starting quarterback Anthony Brown is still recovering from his season-ending knee injury, Perry has assumed the role of QB1, at least for the moment.

On the first drive of Saturday afternoon’s Jay McGillis Memorial Spring Game, the Everett, Mass. native—quarterbacking Team White—caught the ball out of the shotgun, backpedaled, and fired a 15-yard

pass to Korab Idrizi. The ball never made it to the junior tight end, though. Jahmin Muse jumped the route, intercepted the pass, and returned it 22 yards to the 12, setting up Team Maroon for the game’s opening touchdown.

“I felt bad, we had Jahmin Muse in a white jersey with the mesh [pinny], and [Perry] didn’t see him,” head coach Steve Addazio told reporters after the game. “But there was nothing we could do—we were trying to rotate jerseys fast out here because of depth.”

Regardless, the play was simply a reminder of just how inexperienced Perry is.

While the sophomore eventually bounced back, the turnover ended up costing Team White. In the waning seconds of regulation, Team Maroon scored the game-winning

touchdown, stealing a 26-21 victory in the annual exhibition contest.

Perry’s interception was just the culmination of Team White’s mistake-ridden, game-opening series. On first down, the sophomore signal caller was pressured up the gut. Instinctively, Perry weaseled his way out of the traffic, but was soon “brought down” at the line of scrimmage. One play later, the quarterback botched the handoff exchange with Travis Levy, resulting in a loose ball that the sophomore tailback quickly recovered. Faced with a 3rd-andlong, Perry tried to drive the ball downfield, but instead was picked off.

Muse’s interception catapulted Team Maroon into the red zone. In a matter of

See Spring Game, B3

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Joanna Bernabei-McNamee Introduced as New Head Coach

BY BEN THOMAS Asst. Sports Editor On Wednesday afternoon, you could find football’s Steve Addazio, men’s hockey’s Jerry York, and lacrosse’s Acacia Walker-Weinstein all in the same room of the Yawkey Athletics Center. Why? Each wanted to get their first look at their latest co-worker, as Director of Athletics Martin Jarmond officially announced Joanna Bernabei-McNamee as the new head coach of Boston College women’s basketball.

Jarmond—who spoke in front of a

INSIDE SPORTS

large crowd that included an assortment of BC Athletics staff and the entire returning basketball team from last season—first thanked his boss, University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J. “He was instrumental in trusting me,” Jarmond said. “We didn’t hire a search firm—he trusted me, and we got it done.”

This is the first time Jarmond has gone through the process of a new coaching hire since moving to the Heights, and it’s clear that the freedom given to him by Leahy will be something to keep track of going

forward.

The first-year AD also revealed he had spoken with the women’s team himself throughout the search process.

“You have my word that we are going to go out and find a coach that is gonna push you, help you grow on and off the court, and reach your potential,” Jarmond said. “I can tell you 100 percent that we found that person in Joanna.”

As for Bernabei-McNamee, the newly hired coached expressed tremendous

See Bernabei-McNamee, B3

BRADLEY SMART / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Joanna Bernabei-McNamee spent the last two years at Albany, going 45-19.

SOFTBALL: BC Splits With No. 13 FSU BASEBALL: Eagles Swept By Wake Forest

SPORTS IN SHORT................................... B2

For the first time in 28 games, the Eagles came away with BC managed just one run on nine hits during the three- SOFTBALL............................................ B3 a win against the Seminoles behind Allyson Frei..........B3 game set, falling in the series finale, 6-1............................B4 BASEBALL........................................... B4

The Heights

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Thursday, April 19, 2018

SOFTBALL

Dreswick Ties Program Wins Record, Eagles Shut Out Minutewomen

By Andy Backstrom Sports Editor

This past weekend, Allyson Frei shut down No. 10 Florida State—a team that had won 37 of its past 38 ACC games Boston College 5 a n d h a d n’t Massachusetts 0 lost to Boston College softball since 2008—not only recording eight strikeouts, but also allowing just two hits over the course of her fourth shutout of the year. The redshirt junior single-handedly delivered the Eagles their biggest win of the season, extending the program’s historic 13-game win streak. But on Wednesday evening, it was Jessica Dreswick’s time to shine.

Having dropped the final two games of its series with the Seminoles, BC found itself in dire need of a victory in order to keep pace with Notre Dame and FSU at the top of the Atlantic Division standings. Naturally,

Dreswick—the only Eagle to ever pitch a perfect game in school history and throw a no-hitter in ACC play—came through. Fanning nine Massachusetts batters, the right-hander tossed another a gem—a 5-0 shutout—logging her 55th career victory, a mark that ties Alexis Beckman, BC ’97, for the most wins in program history.

Just like the teams’ previous meeting, the Eagles struck first, offering Dreswick more insurance than she’d ever need. With one out in the opening frame, Annie Murphy ripped a double into the right-center gap. Building momentum, Emme Martinez reached on a Minutewomen error, thereby advancing Murphy to third. C.C. Cook had runners on the corners, and she made the most of the opportunity: The freshman lasered another two-bagger down the right field line, scoring Murphy for the first run of the game.

Lexi DiEmmanuele—the ensuing batter—laid down a perfect bunt, giving

Cook plenty of time to cross the plate and herself a few extra seconds to beat the throw to first.

In the bottom of the inning, Dreswick made quick work of UMass, stringing together the first of her many one-two-three frames. The immediate turnaround allowed the Eagles’ lineup to pick up right where it left off in the first. Cami Sellers and Chloe Sharabba recorded a pair of singles on either side of an Olivia Markopoulos strikeout. Moments later, Murphy stepped up to bat and hit her second double of the day—this time through the left side—pushing Sharabba to third and Sellers across the plate. In doing so, the senior chased Minutewomen ace Kiara Oliver. The pitching change didn’t exactly work, though. Soon after Meg Colleran took the circle, she gave up BC’s fourth run of the game, courtesy of a Martinez ground ball to shortstop.

Following the Eagles’ second-

consecutive scoring spurt, Dreswick resumed her dominant performance, punching out three of the next six batters she faced, conceding just one hit in the process. The run support just kept on coming too.

Already up 4-0, BC tacked on one final run in the fourth frame. All it took was one swing of the bat—Sharabba cleared the left field fence, blasting her team-leading sixth home run of the year. The soloshot was somewhat of a rarity, considering that the Eagles have hit the third-fewest long balls in the ACC throughout the 2018 campaign. Nonetheless, the dinger essentially served as the nail in the coffin for a UMass team that couldn’t seem to get on the board.

That’s not to say that the Minutewomen didn’t threaten. In fact, UMass stranded a combined five runners in the next two frames and logged five of its seven hits in the final three innings of the game. Still, with their back

against the wall, the Eagles buckled down and preserved the shutout.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Riley Gregoire singled up the middle with two men on, only to watch Kaitlyn Stavinoha get thrown out at the plate. In a similar fashion, the Minutewomen used a pair of singles and a walk to load the bases in the sixth—but when Madison Gimpl grounded to shortstop, Sharabba went home for the tag. Dreswick proceeded to strike out Amy Smith to escaped the jam. The senior tacked on two more Ks in the final frame to finish off the season sweep.

With the victory, BC moves to 6-38 all-time against UMass. It’s apparent that the Eagles have flipped the script this season, blowing out the Minutewomen—the best team in the A-10—by a combined 8-0 in the twogame set. That alone goes to show just how BC, winners of 14 of its last 16, is a different team from years past. n

BASEBALL

Palomaki’s Late Surge Helps BC Snap Skid Against Dartmouth

By Bradley Smart Assoc. Sports Editor

With losses piling up in every possible way—close games, blowouts on the road, and so on—Boston College baseball fans 3 would be forDartmouth Boston College 8 given to have switched the radio broadcast off in the seventh inning of Wednesday night’s game against Dartmouth.

After all, a woeful offense that had been held to just two runs in its last four games combined had staked the pitching out to an early 3-0 lead, only to watch the bullpen falter—conceding three runs to the visiting Big Green. This time, though, another frustrating loss wasn’t in the cards.

Eagles shortstop Jake Palomaki roped a tie-breaking, two-run double to right field in the bottom of the seventh and the offense poured it on late, snapping a four-game losing streak with an 8-3 win over Dartmouth (9-

17-1, 5-3-1 Ivy League) at home.

Starter Matt Gill worked into the sixth inning and after a hiccup in the middle innings, John Witkowski came on to work a pair of scoreless innings and secure the win. Backed up by a rare eight-run effort on offense, the Eagles (13-23, 5-13 Atlantic Coast) gained a much-needed win for momentum entering a pivotal conference series against Florida State.

Palomaki took leadership from the leadoff spot in the lineup, mashing his way to a 3-for-5 day with two runs, two doubles, and a triple. The senior scored a pair of runs, matched in part

by Joe Suozzi and Jake Goodreau, who both added two runs and multi-hit games. The Eagles finished with 12 hits and left just five runners on base, a welcome sight for fans of the team after the showing over the weekend.

Gill allowed the first two batters of the game to reach, but quickly settled down as his offense backed him up early. He struck out the last

two he faced in the first inning, then was promptly given a 1-0 lead. Palomaki opened the game with a triple to left field and was brought home on a full count groundout from Chris Galland.

In the second, Goodreau roped a leadoff double—then a costly error by Dartmouth’s Ubaldo Lopez brought in another run. An inning later, the Big Green quickly moved to a bullpen-by-committee approach, with mixed results—the relievers worked a scoreless pair of innings, but then they coughed up another run in the fifth.

In the fifth, Suozzi singled to left off of reliever Michael Parsons, and, an out later, Dartmouth opted for Patrick Peterson out of the pen. He was greeted rudely, as Palomaki kept up his impressive game with a double to right field to push the lead to 3-0.

Gill however, ran into trouble in the sixth. Despite getting a double play after the first two batters reached

via a hit batsmen and a single, he wasn’t able to finish off the inning.

Dustin Shirley singled to shortstop to bring in a run, then Blake Crossing lined a single up the middle to put two runners on—enough for BC manager Mike Gambino to pull the midweek starter.

Zach Stromberg just needed to get one more out, but wasn’t able to. He walked Oliver Campbell to load the bases, then hit Hayden Rappoport to allow Shirley to trot 90 feet home, pulling the Big Green within one.

He was able to induce a flyout, but control issues would haunt him in the next frame.

He walked Lopez and Sean Sullivan to start the inning, the former on just four pitches. After a sacrifice bunt, Kyle Holbrook looped a gametying sacrifice fly into left field, spoiling Gill’s chances at getting a win after his solid start. The Eagles evaded further damage when Palomaki—again exerting his will on the

game—threw a runner out at the plate after an infield single.

In the bottom of the seventh, it was the senior again. After Suozzi doubled and Brian Dempsey reached on a two-base error with one out against Dartmouth’s Max Hunter, Palomaki lined the go-ahead double. Jack Cunningham added a RBI single before two more insurance runs came across in the eighth, with Suozzi singling in a run and Dempsey bringing in another via a safety squeeze.

For a team held to just 11 hits in its previous four games, totaling 12 in eight innings alone was nothing short of a rapid turnaround. The problem has been one of consistency this season, as prolonged slumps have led to BC limping to a record firmly below .500. If the Eagles are to make a late run, now is most definitely the time—they have a big weekend series against the Seminoles that includes the ALS game at Fenway Park, one of great significance to the squad. n

Frates’ Name Belongs in the Harrington Athletics Village Frates Field, from B1 native manned the outfield all four years of his collegiate career, becoming the team’s captain in his senior season after leading the Eagles in home runs the previous spring.

His biggest game came on the biggest stage during his junior year. In the Beanpot Championship against Harvard, Frates went 4-for-4 at Boston’s own Fenway Park with a homerun, a double, and three RBIs, en route to a 10-2 win.

Five years after his baseball career came to an end, Frates was faced with an obstacle that few are able to overcome. Every day, 15 people across the United States receive the same news he did back in 2012. No one expected Frates to make it this far. The average life expectancy for ALS patients is close to two years.

Frates has beaten that and then some.

The former BC star decided to get involved in giving back to his community immediately. In the

same year as his diagnosis, Frates won the Stephen Haywood Patients Today Award for his advocacy work towards ALS, and months later, the Ice Bucket Challenge was born.

In the summer of 2013, over 1.2 million Facebook videos of an Ice Bucket challenge were posted online. Celebrities such as Justin Bieber, LeBron James, and even former president George Bush were all inspired to dump ice cold water onto their heads to raise awareness and donate to Frates’ cause.

While he amassed the most funding towards ALS research and awareness in the 2013 year, Frates’ message lives on today thanks to Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. A bill calling for the first week of August each year to be Ice Bucket Challenge Week was passed

by Baker, with the ALS Association declaring that the challenge would continue “until there’s a cure”.

On top of that, last summer Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, BC ’09, installed a new city-wide annual

holiday—Pete Frates Day—to take place Sept. 5.

In a statement from Walsh per BCEagles.com, the current mayor emphatically proclaimed, “Here in Boston and certainly in Massachusetts, we don’t need to point to heroes in movies or storybooks because we are lucky enough to have a reallife, hometown hero in our midst.”

With the city of Boston doing its part to maintain Frates’ continuing impact, it’s now BC’s turn to do the same.

Shea Field, named after Cmdr.

Jon Shea who served in World War II after playing for BC football in the early 20th century, is now just a memory. The decision from the administration to move to Brighton Campus likely means Shea’s 56-year reign is over. The former field itself has too much history in its own right to allow Director of Athletics Martin Jarmond to just slap the old name onto the new field in Brighton.

Meanwhile, the name Frates is much more current, and has mean-

ing to all residing in Chestnut Hill.

On Saturday afternoon, BC will host Florida State in the seventh annual ALS awareness game at Fenway Park. Over 2,000 fans have showed up to each game since the inaugural contest, with all ticket proceeds going towards the fight against ALS. And for what it’s worth, the Eagles have won the past three meetings at Fenway.

The number three was retired by BC in honor of Frates two years ago, so it’s clear that BC understands just how much the former captain still means to the program. Frates Field would be inspiring for its hosts —few figures embody the Jesuit tradition of “men and women for others” better than Frates. Every time the Eagles would take the field, they would have Frates name to look up to, literally.

For a team that constantly plays the role of an underdog, BC baseball would have the ultimate David vs. Goliath story at its side. Frates has overcome tremendous odds

throughout his journey for ALS advocacy, and has turned his fortune into a true difference-making fight.

Furthermore, BC could use a new name to help bring fans to baseball games. Frankly, with the new stadium hidden within the Brighton campus, the Eagles may find it hard to get the same kind of following that they had at Shea. A name change alone could be enough to warm up the BC student shuttles. If the name Frates can rally and inspire the entire city of Boston, it can certainly bring alumni and the student body together under stadium lights.

With a beautiful brand new stadium up and running, a deserving name is required. While I applaud this past weekend’s dedication, it’s safe to say “Harrington Athletics Village at Brighton Fields” is a mouthful on its own. Frates Field, on the other hand, has a nice ring to it.

Ben Thomas is the assistant sports editor for The Heights. He can be reached on Twitter @Ben_Heights.

SPORTS in SHORT ACC BASEBALL STANDINGS

Numbers to know

Conference

overall

NC State

13-5

29-7

Clemson

11-7

26-11

Wake Forest

10-8

18-20

Louisville

9-9

25-11

Florida State

8-9

26-12

Notre Dame

6-12

15-22

5-13

13-23

Boston College

26

Stolen bases for baseball’s Chris Galland this season, good for second in the program’s alltime record books.

16

Combined strikeouts for softball’s Allyson Frei and Jessica Dreswick during Friday’s doubleheader split with Florida State.

7.3

Scoring margin for lacrosse, over a full goal better than the second-highest mark in the ACC (North Carolina).

QUote of the week

“I envision that we will be the most in-shape team in the ACC.” — Joanna Bernabei-McNamee,

at her introductory press conference as the new women’s basketball head coach.

hursday,

The Heights

April 19, 2018

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ATHLETICS

Harrington Praised for Lifelong Commitment to BC Community Harrington Dedication, from B1

Bradley Smart / Heights Editor

For a number of years, John Harrington has financed scholarships for BC students.

loyalty and generosity, even singling out a moment when the Harrington family hosted him at Spring Training.

The praise for getting these fields to happen was nothing short of high.

“These fields and facilities simply wouldn’t of happened without them,” the president also said. “Not only will varsity softball and baseball benefit, but so will intramural programs and students for years to come.

When Harrington eventually took the podium, he not only touched on how BC had “lit a fire under [him]” but focused on his time with his wife of 60

years, Maureen, as well as mixing in a touch of flair. A particular memorable moment of his remarks came when he focused on his first pitch.

“Coach [Mike] Gambino has assured me that I’ll be able to throw the ball over the plate,” he said with a cool delivery. “Because he has arranged to have the catcher standing there with the glove in one hand and the plate in the other.”

The event, overall, generated a particular buzz on the Brighton Campus.

Kids perched on fathers’ shoulders as they walked down the sidewalk toward the entrance, others raced around from station to station, getting face

paint or jumping in bouncy houses.

Once the games began, very few seats were empty—the overflow at the softball game spread out on the grass behind the visiting dugout, others standing from afar, even walking back and forth to split time at both games.

It was a more than positive debut of the newly christened village, despite the losing outcomes for both teams. As a member of the ACC, it’s about time that Boston College upgraded to be more on par with the rest of the conference—and it’s easy to look at the pristine turf fields or well-tended dirt infield and see the progress made. n

SOFTBALL

Eagles Split Doubleheader, Beat FSU for First Time in Decade

By Bradley Smart Assoc. Sports Editor Things were going beautifully for Boston College softball. The Eagles had snapped a 28-game losing streak against No. 13 Florida State in the first game of the doubleheader, winning 1-0 behind Allyson Frei’s masterpiece, and held a 4-0 lead entering the sixth frame of the second game.

Jessica Dreswick seemed determined to match her counterpart’s performance, as she had a no-hit bid going. Then, the wheels came off. The Seminoles erupted for five-straight runs to escape with the 5-4 win in the nightcap.

It was a tough pill to swallow for the Eagles (22-16, 9-4 Atlantic Coast), who were in firm position to win their first-ever series against a historically dominant opponent.

Still, it was a more than adequate showing against FSU (35-8, 12-2), as they saw their win streak peak at 13 games.

The loss in the second game was both a product of a meltdown sixth inning and the inability to finish off chances—BC outhit

the visitors by a factor of four but left 11 runners on base.

Trailing 4-0 in the sixth, the Seminoles loaded the bases with one out. Seminoles outfielder Zoe Casas grounded one back to Dreswick, who came home with it—but the ball got away from catcher Jordan Chimento and two runners crossed the plate. FSU’s Elizabeth Mason grounded one to Emme Martinez at third, and she too would come home with it, but to no avail—Chimento was called for obstruction, an infraction that frustrated Eagles head coach Ashley Obrest and prompted boos.

Now with a slim one-run lead and two in scoring position, Dreswick struck out a batter to get down to the final out. A win wasn’t in the cards, though, as Leslie Farris looped a sinking line drive into left field, bringing in two runs to hand the Seminoles their first lead of the series.

BC would get two chances to tie it up, but couldn’t. Chloe Sharabba roped a oneout triple in the bottom of the frame but was stranded, then two runners were left on base in the bottom of the seventh. It was a rough

sequence for the Eagles, as they had plenty to root for in the early going: Sharabba and Annie Murphy doubled back-to-back for the game’s first run, then Murphy added a tworun home run in the next inning. C.C. Cook also chipped in with an RBI single.

In the first game of the doubleheader, BC pulled out a slim 1-0 win despite the Seminoles being the odds-on favorites, especially in terms of history—FSU arrived in Brighton having won 37 of its last 38 conference games. The history didn’t matter, though. Frei spun a gem, allowing just two hits and working around four walks while striking out eight in a complete game shutout, winning 1-0.

She was equally matched by Seminoles starter Meghan King for much of the game, who entered with a slight edge in ERA. King kept the Eagles on their heels throughout, allowing just four hits and a walk while striking out nine. Yet, the decisive run, one that proved to be all Frei would need, came in the fourth inning.

After Martinez drew a walk and moved to second on a wild pitch, Carly Severini

grounded a ball to third base. It kicked off Jessie Warren’s glove, then skipped off shortstop Cali Harrod’s as well. In the confusion, Martinez hesitated, then attempted to break for third—where she was promptly thrown out. The few groans emitted from the assembled crowd were well warranted, as the game had been one of inches and it seemed like the Eagles had just spoiled one of their first real chances at getting a runner 60 feet from home.

On King’s very next pitch, though, Lexi DiEmmanuele sent a fly ball to left field.

FSU’s Casas appeared to be caught off guard, and stabbed at it as it floated over her head.

It nicked her glove but she couldn’t pull it in, sending Severini off to the races. She scored from first without a throw, while DiEmmanuele slid into third, emphatically leaping up after.

Meanwhile, Frei was dealing. Each time she faced trouble, either she or her battery-mate in Chimento would get BC out of it. The first real chance for FSU came in the sixth, as Frei struggled with her command. She issued a one-out walk to Carsyn

Gordon, and after her next pitch was a ball, the pitching coach emerged. Frei stayed in, though, and Chimento had her back.

Despite a pitch that one-hopped in the dirt, Chimento came up firing and got Gordon with a perfectly placed throw. After Frei got an inning-ending groundout, she looked at Chimento when the duo got into the huddle and her eyes widened, laughing at the quality of the throw.

In the seventh, with the crowd tense, Frei returned to the circle. With two outs, everybody was ready to erupt, and Anna Shelnutt floated a fly ball to straightaway center field.

Frei turned and watched as it slowly fell into DiEmmanuele’s glove, sparking a gleeful celebration to the left of the circle, where the star of the hour was wrapped up firmly in an embrace by Sharabba.

Sure, they squandered a four-run lead in the second game, but the fact remains: The Eagles opened a weekend series against one of the countries best teams with a split, impressed both on the mound and at the plate, and are solidifying their position as contenders to make a late-season run. n

LACROSSE

Apuzzo Guides BC to Share of ACC Title With Four Goals Lax vs. VTech, from B1 marked the senior’s 21st goal of the season, but was the only lead the Hokies had in the half.

After the goal, BC responded with a three-goal flurry in a span of only eight minutes. Kaileen Hart scored the first two, while Tess Chandler added the third. VTech star Paige Petty then decreased the lead by scoring her teamleading 41st goal of the season. Before the half ended, however, BC tacked on two more. Dempsey Arsenault found the back of the net on a free-position shot, while Apuzzo scored only a minute prior to intermission with her first shot of the game. The Eagles took the 52 lead into the break with confidence.

The second half was as thrilling as it gets. It started aggressively with BC players picking up two yellow cards in the first five minutes, setting the tone for the period. VTech’s Mary Claire

Byrne and Julia Bolte responded by scoring two-consecutive goals to cut its deficit to one. That’s when the backand-forth affair truly began.

The teams traded goals, starting with BC. The Eagles went up two, only to see the Hokies climb back within one. Apuzzo—the nation’s leading scorer—tied off a hat trick, while Davey and Petty added to their tallies for the Hokies. This seesaw exchange peaked when Taylor Caskey knotted it all up at seven, midway through the frame.

In the end though, the team with the best player typically wins, and this was proved true when Apuzzo scored her 63rd goal of the season on a beautiful feed from Tess Chandler right in front of the VTech goal. Fittingly, senior Emma Schurr iced the game after controlling a ground ball on a mad scramble in front of the opposing net and ripping twine to put the game out of reach. With the victory, the Eagles preserved their

perfect season, all while reaching a new milestone.

After the game, head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein praised her team’s season accomplishment, even though she wasn’t entirely happy with their performance on the day.

“We weren’t moving the ball, we were a little bit stumped by the zone,” she said. “We just had to keep moving the ball and be selfless, and we found our way to the back of the cage.”

Although BC has yet to reach the promised land, it’s already met one of its preseason aspirations, and it’s well on its way to breaking a few other program records.

“I think last year was a building block, getting a little bit further, and I think it helped us target other goals along the way, not just a National Championship, but an ACC championship and going undefeated,” WalkerWeinstein said. n

9 goals scored, a season low

12:26 time of game-winning goal

7 consecutive conference victories

FOOTBALL

Spring Game Indication of Eagles’ Depth and Experience Spring Game, from B1

TIGER TAO / HEIGHTS STAFF

E.J. Perry and the first-team offense struggled on Saturday, losing to Team Maroon, 26-21.

seconds, Matt McDonald snapped the ball and handed it off to Andrew Strader. With a ton of room to run, the 5-foot-7 running back/wide receiver scampered 12 yards for six. But that’s all Team Maroon would get: Colton Lichtenberg, who shanked three extra points last season, missed another chip shot, jeopardizing the one-score lead.

Soon enough, Perry retaliated, in large part thanks to wide receiver-turned-running back Ben Glines. The sophomore dissected Team Maroon’s defense with a couple of chunk plays, moving Team White into scoring position. From there, Perry tossed his first and only touchdown pass of the game.

The sophomore hit a wide-open Kobay White on a drag route to give Team White a one-point advantage.

Calm and collected, McDonald methodically moved the sticks on the ensuing possession, hitting his receivers in the flat and the middle of the field. The redshirt freshman, who completed 10 of his 13 passes for 129 yards and three touchdowns, capped off the drive with a nine-yard throw to Noah Jordan-Williams in the back of the end zone.

Running clock and all, both sides continued to run up-tempo offenses into the second quarter. Team White eventually stalled at midfield, forcing Grant Carlson to punt for the first time in his BC career.

The sophomore made the most of the op-

portunity, pinning the opposition inside its own 10-yard line. Unfortunately for Team Maroon, Carlson didn’t have the same luck the second time around.

After McDonald was sacked at the one-yard line, Addazio called on the punt team. With his back against the end zone sideline, Carlson caught the snap and booted the ball less than 30 yards, gifting Team White fabulous field position. The firstteamers capitalized—most notably Levy.

The sophomore extended the drive with a reception out of the backfield on 4th-and-2 and promptly trotted into the end zone on the very next play.

Trailing for the first time all day, McDonald and Team Maroon battled back to take the lead before the half. A swing pass to John Fadule shortened the field, but Elijah Robinson did the dirty work. Near midfield, McDonald rifled a 25-yard pass to the senior wideout, who jumped up, caught the ball over defensive back Tate Haynes, and sprinted 19 yards into the end zone.

Playing shortened third and fourth quarters, the teams continued to swap jerseys. Perry and McDonald flipped sides, and redshirt freshman Dennis Grosel made his collegiate debut in the exhibition’s final stages.

It didn’t take long for McDonald to string together a scoring drive with the ones. Following a handful of short completions and a defensive pass interference call, the redshirt freshman hit White

streaking across the left side of the field for a fourth-down conversion and touchdown—White’s second of the day—cutting Team White’s deficit to one.

Grosel replaced Perry for a series, but the sophomore soon returned to throw his best pass of the game. After looking off the safety, he fired a 30-yard bullet to Robinson. Diving, the senior came down with the catch.

But Perry and Team White stalled and quickly turned the ball over on downs.

Team Maroon didn’t fare much better—in fact, neither unit scored until the final seconds of the game.

In what was the unlikeliest of combinations, Grosel connected with ex-quarterback John Fadule for a two-yard touchdown as the clock struck zero. Coaches rejoiced, and kids trickled onto the field to see their favorite players.

As far as BC is concerned, there is more optimism surrounding the program than there has been in quite some time. A deep offensive line, coupled with an improved wide receiver corps and a defense primarily made up of returning starters, is poised to build off the team’s 6-2 finish in 2017.

When asked to compare this spring to offseasons of year’s past, Addazio confidently answered with a six-word response before ultimately elaborating.

“We’re ahead of where we’ve been,” the sixth-year coach said. n

The Heights

B4

Thursday, April 19, 2018

BASEBALL

Despite Nelson’s Career Outing, BC Loses Third Straight to URI

By Andy Backstrom Sports Editor Facing a three-game losing streak, Boston College baseball’s Jack Nelson turned in the best performance of his collegiate career. The junior 3 Rhode Island pitcher threw a Boston College 1 career-high six innings, striking out five batters, while allowing just four hits and, most importantly, zero runs, in Tuesday evening’s game against Rhode Island. But, in just an hour and a half, his shutdown outing went to waste.

Following the sixth, Nelson took a seat and Joey Walsh—who, entering the midweek matchup, had given up nine runs in his last 11.2 innings of work—approached the mound. The redshirt freshman lasted all of five pitches before conceding a triple to Xavier Vargas. The freshman lasered the ball into the right center gap and, without skipping a beat, rounded second. Luckily for the Rams, Jack Cunningham’s throw to Brian Dempsey was a tad late, meaning that Vargas had ample time to slide into third safely. The leadoff extra-base hit was just the start of a late-game scoring spurt that’d ultimately spell doom for the Eagles.

It was only a matter of time before URI

pushed Vargas across the plate. From there, the Rams tacked on two more runs, thanks to a pair of singles and a timely Mitch Bigras error. Even though URI didn’t reach base in the final two frames, its three-run lead was more than enough to hold off a BC lineup that has recorded just 11 hits and two runs in the past four games. Three days removed from clinching their first A-10 series victory of the season with a doubleheader sweep of Massachusetts, the Rams (11-25, 3-9 Atlantic 10) defeated the Eagles (12-23, 513 Atlantic Coast)—another New England rival—3-1.

Nelson opened the game with two Ks and fanned three of the first six batters he faced, pitching a couple of hitless innings to start the day.

“I felt good,” the junior said with a smile on his face. “When I was throwing in the bullpen, I definitely knew that I had good stuff today.”

For a minute, it looked as if he and the rest of the staff were finally going to get some run support too. After Nelson retired the side in the top of the first, BC immediately plated a run. With two outs, Gian Martellini took a 3-1 pitch to right center for a double, setting up Cunningham for an RBI single to right field. Unfortunately for head coach

Mike Gambino and Co., those were the only two hits the Eagles logged all game.

Soon enough, Jake Walker settled into a groove. Clearly leaving the first frame in the rear-view mirror, the left-handed pitcher strung together two-consecutive one-two-three innings before issuing his first walk in the fourth. The sophomore’s command was really the only thing holding him back. Although the Eagles couldn’t seem to figure him out over the course of the next few innings, they were able to book a few free trips to first base—one too many according to head coach Raphael Cerrato.

In the bottom of the sixth, Walker pitched four-straight balls to Chris Galland to kick off the inning, prompting the fourth-year coach to call on Mark Silvestri to finish off the frame. Before he could even retire Martellini, the ensuing batter, Galland took off, stealing second. One stolen base shy of tying the single-season program record, the freshman was yearning to advance to third. Moments later, Gambino sent him, only to watch Galland get thrown out for the first time all year.

“Chris Galland is a base stealer,” Gambino said. “The basketball term is shooters shoot—I want him running, and I want

him making aggressive mistakes. It means sometimes he’s going to get thrown out.

But this is the first time he’s gotten thrown out all year … I want him going, and I want him going every chance he gets.”

Two-consecutive groundouts, and Silvestri escaped the inning unscathed.

He’d have about a half an hour before he’d have to do it all again—without Nelson on the bump, URI’s bats finally came alive.

The Rams gave Walsh fits as soon as he stepped onto the field, starting with Vargas’ leadoff triple. Perhaps attempting to set up a double play, Walsh walked Matt Daller. Despite going down 0-2, the next batter—Mike Foley—got the barrel on a sacrifice fly that scored Vargas from third, knotting the game up at one run apiece.

URI wasn’t stopping there either.

Laurence Hill roped a single through the left side, getting the best of an outstretched Jake Alu. Galland’s throw from left field wasn’t even close, and Daller trotted home. Doing his best Galland impression, Hill swiped second, moving into scoring position. Despite the fact that Walsh proceed to strike out Austin White, Gambino had seen enough—he walked out to the mound and handed the ball to Thomas Lane.

Two pitches in, Jordan Powell ripped a pitch directly toward the right side of the field. Without hesitation, Eagles first baseman Mitch Bigras dove to make the stop. While he got a piece of the ball, he fumbled on his way back up and not only missed the throw to first, but also botched the delivery to home. As a result, Hill scored, recording the Rams’ third and final run of the evening. Lane quickly found his footing and got out of the inning, but Walsh’s blunders left a mark. “[Walsh’s] gotta be a guy for us, and we believe he’s going to be a guy,” Gambino said. “He just didn’t get it done today, but that wasn’t the reason why we lost—we had two hits today. We’ve got to do a better job offensively” Aside from a trio of walks, the Eagles’ lineup was absolutely helpless in the last three innings of play. Gambino, who is renowned for his go-getter attitude, was far from pleased.

“If we’re going to get beat, I want to get beat aggressively, beat going after people,” he said. “I kind of thought we were feeling around for stuff today. And that’s part of what happens when you go 11 hits in four games—you stop letting yourself go. We need to get back to that.” n

Lineup, Bullpen Blunders Pave Way for Wake Forest Sweep

By Andy Backstrom Sports Editor Entering this weekend’s three-game series against Wake Forest, Boston College baseball had won three games in a row—not by the Wake Forest 6 skin of its teeth, Boston College 1 but in dominant fashion. Snapping their season-worst, eight-game losing streak, the Eagles poured on eight or more runs in all three of the aforementioned contests, conceding just seven during the four-day span. The pitching carried over to the weekend—the bats, on the other hand, did not. Over the course of the three-game set, BC mustered just nine hits and, more importantly, one run.

Sunday’s series finale was simply the icing on the cake. Following the Harrington Athletics Village dedication ceremony, Brian Rapp fanned six batters and gave up just one earned run in six innings of work.

The bullpen—consisting of four arms—had its first real hiccup of the series toward the end of the game, but those guys weren’t the problem. The Eagles didn’t record a single hit for the first four innings of play, at which point the Demon Deacons were already up two. Once BC finally reached base, it had a hard time piecing together any sort of rally, logging one multi-hit frame all day.

The Eagles’ pitching staff could only keep the game competitive for so long—in the seventh and eighth innings, Wake Forest tacked on four runs, effectively sealing a 6-1 victory and the Demon Deacons’ first ACC road sweep since 2014.

Right from the get-go, it was apparent that Rapp—who has shaved 1.07 points off his ERA this season—had his stuff. The senior struck out the side with just 11 pitches.

Wake Forest’s (17-20, 10-8 Atlantic Coast) Colin Peluse didn’t have quite the same luck.

After retiring the first two Eagles batters, the sophomore walked Jack Cunningham, prolonging the opening frame. Capitalizing on a dropped foul ball, Cunningham sprinted to second, moving into scoring position.

Just like his teammate, Gian Martellini also worked a full count and booked a free trip to first base. But, with two men on, Jake Goodreau went down swinging, extinguishing BC’s (12-22, 5-13) early scoring threat.

Rapp needed a mere two pitches to record the first out of the second inning.

After that, though, the Mendham, N.J. native ran into some trouble. Shane Muntz kicked things off by drawing Wake Forest’s first walk of the game—it wouldn’t be the Demon Deacons’ last either. The ensuing batter, Michael Ludowig, reached on a fielder’s choice as Muntz was forced out on his way to second. With two outs, the freshman swiped second, providing Chris Lanzilli the perfect opportunity to drive in the first run of the game. He did just that—Lanzilli ripped a double down the left field line, easily scoring Ludowig. Right on cue, Rapp settled down and tallied his fourth punchout of the contest to wrap up the inning.

The next two frames mirrored that of a pitcher’s duel. Rapp and Peluse allowed a total of two hits, moving the game along with great command of their respective pitches.

It wasn’t until the fifth inning that Wake Forest got back on the board. Following a Lanzilli groundout, Logan Harvey singled to right field. Next up, D.J. Poteet laid down a sacrifice bunt and reached base, courtesy of a Rapp fielding error. The senior pitcher was on the verge of slipping—literally.

One batter later, Rapp faced Patrick Frick. He wound up and began to deliver a pitch to the plate, but before he could even release the ball, he lost his footing on the mound and fell to the ground. After discussion, the umpires ruled the embarrassing

gaffe as a balk, and the runners advanced.

Frick ended up squeezing, giving Harvey just enough time to bee-line to home plate and extend the Demon Deacons’ lead to two.

Starting with Dante Baldelli, BC looked poised to retaliate in the back half of the frame. Down 0-2 in the count, the freshman center fielder shot a single right up the middle, recording BC’s first hit of the game.

Although Brian Dempsey flied out to right field, Jake Alu was quick to log a single of his own. A Joe Suozzi groundout pushed the runners over, leaving Jake Palomaki the honors the clear the bases and knot the game up at two. Yet even the team’s leading hitter couldn’t right the ship.

After 24-straight scoreless innings, the Eagles finally plated a run in sixth. It all started with Chris Galland, who drew a four-pitch, leadoff walk. Almost expectedly, the speedy freshman stole second with relative ease. Now with a runner in scoring position, Jack Cunningham roped a single to right field, sending Galland all the way home. Because of a fielding error, Cunningham also advanced to second on the play—that’s as far as he’d get though.

Peluse retired three of the next four batters to close out the inning.

In a one-run game, BC head coach Mike Gambino was confronted with a difficult decision. Rapp was wheeling and dealing, but, after the senior’s 127-pitch outing against Pittsburgh last week, the eighth-year coach was hesitant to let him go any deeper.

“He wanted one more inning—he was at 96 [pitches] I think—and I just wasn’t going to let him go,” Gambino said. “He was awesome, but there was no talking me into another inning with short rest and coming off more pitches than I was comfortable with last week.”

So Joey Walsh came in, immediately

KAITLIN MEEKS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

The Eagles only managed one run over three games, totaling just 11 hits. gave up a single to Lanzilli, and issued a walk to Harvey. The back half of the Demon Deacons’ lineup was back at it again. Poteet proceeded to lay down a sacrifice bunt, moving the runners to second and third.

Gambino pulled the trigger and called for Thomas Lane to clean up Walsh’s mess.

Yet all it took was a Frick fly ball to score Lanzilli.

Lane lasted a few more batters in the eighth frame, but his three hits allowed were far too many for Gambino’s liking.

Sean Hughes and Zach Stromberg—two of BC’s best relievers—finished off the inning, but hardly escaped the jam. When all was said and done, Wake Forest tacked on three runs, in large part thanks to a pair of Eagles walks, as well as a wild pitch.

Wake Forest capped off the dominant series with a pair of no-hit innings, dropping BC to a meager 12-22 on the year.

Oddly enough, the Eagles have been here before—in fact, just last year, they started

9-22 and then rattled off 16 wins in their final 22 games to make the ACC Tournament for the second-consecutive year.

“We know what we have to do,” Gambino said. “We’re really probably in a better spot than we were last year.

I just say to the boys right now, they’re unsure, I think, how good they can be, as group—and that’s my fault.”

BC has the lineup to compete with the best of the ACC, and at times—like this weekend—the pitching staff looks as good as any in the conference. The problem is, the Eagles are nowhere near consistent.

“This is a club that was second in the conference in hitting like four weeks ago,” Gambino said. “Our lineup has shown that it can be good and dangerous and score a bunch of runs, and our arms have shown that they can be really good and hold good lineups at bay. The crazy thing with this year is we haven’t done it together.” n

SOFTBALL

Eagles Fall Flat in Sunday Finale, Drop Weekend Series to FSU

By Bradley Smart Assoc. Sports Editor With a chance to lock up its first series victor y over No. 13 Florida State in program history and to win as many games in Florida State 5 two days as it Boston College 0 had against the Seminoles in the previous 37 matchups, Boston College softball was outplayed by the visitors in the rubber match and handed a disappointing 5-0 loss.

The Eagles (22-17, 9-5 Atlantic Coast) scraped together just three hits on the day, failing to put any pressure on FSU (36-8, 13-2) starter Kylee Hanson, who retired eight in a row in the middle innings and finished off the

complete game shutout allowing just six baserunners.

She outdueled BC’s Allyson Frei, who couldn’t replicate her complete game shutout from the day prior. Frei gave up five runs on six hits, issuing a trio of walks and hitting two batters while managing just four strikeouts.

Without any offensive support, the Eagles were out of it from the beginning.

It was a tough reality check for BC, a team that hadn’t lost two games in a row since March 18. Still, playing close in the Friday doubleheader against one of the ACC’s best was a positive sign.

“We didn’t really show up today,” head coach Ashley Obrest said after.

“That first win against a top-25 team and an ACC win was pretty impressive,

though.”

“I think it was a great streak, no matter what teams we played. When you put together the amount of wins we did in a row, I think it’s pretty special.”

On Saturday, FSU jumped out to a 2-0 lead, tallying in each of the first two innings. In the first, Carsyn Gordon was hit with one out, stole second, and moved to third on a groundout. That set up Zoe Casas, who grounded a ball to the right side. BC first baseman Cami Sellers dove for it, but it slipped by into the glove of second baseman Olivia Markopoulos—who didn’t have anywhere to go with it as Gordon raced home.

In the second, it was a similar route—Elizabeth Mason walked, stole

second, moved to third on a groundout, then raced home on a wild pitch.

Eventually, Frei settled down, scattering a pair of hits over the next three innings. In the sixth, things started to break down for the Eagles. Jessie Warren drew a walk to open the frame, prompting a visit to the pitching circle, but it didn’t do much to settle her down.

She gave up back-to-back singles to load the bases, where Mason brought in a run with a sacrifice fly to left. Sabrina Stutsman followed with a single to right center, chasing two more runs across— and even though she was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double, she still provided insurance.

Hanson skirted around trouble in

the seventh, giving up a leadoff single to Carly Severini and walking Jordan Chimento with one out, but beared down and induced a groundout and a flyout to finish off her 21st win of the season—one shy of the conference lead.

She retired 13 of the final 16 batters she faced, showcasing the stuff and control that has her leading the ACC with a sub-1.00 ERA. The loss was a hard one for the Eagles, who found themselves with a chance to take the series from the team directly ahead of them in the conference standings. Instead, it’s just an expected series loss against an FSU team that they’ll have to go through if they eventually aim to make a deep run in the ACC Tournament. n

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Bernabei-McNamee Expects Up-Tempo, Aggressive Approach Bernabei-McNamee, from B1 gratitude and outlined the ways in which she would rebuild a successful program at BC. “Our style is gonna be up-tempo,” she said. “Some things I envision are that we will be the most in-shape team in the ACC, we’re gonna be relentless

rebounders, and we’ll have a positive perseverance. Those are all things we have control over right now—we don’t have to wait.”

BC’s fourth women’s basketball coach in 11 years has a tough task ahead of her. For a team that finished second to last in points per game in the ACC, as well as dead last in re-

bounding totals, Bernabei-McNamee has already acknowledged her team’s two biggest weaknesses.

Still, for a team that has not had a winning conference record since the 2004-05 season, Bernabei-McNamee’s history of excellence is refreshing, as far as BC is concerned.

“I wanted to find someone that

has won and find someone that has been able to turn things around,” Jarmond said.

He will need Bernabei-McNamee to do both. In her two years at Albany, the head coach led her team to the NCAA Tournament and the WNIT, with a combined record of 45-20. It remains to be seen whether Bernabei-

McNamee will be able to do the same in Chestnut Hill, but she is optimistic about having the ability to run a program at a renowned university with a chance to rebuild.

“We all want BC women’s basketball to be where women’s basketball fans migrate,” Bernabei-McNamee said. n

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THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018

‘Rampage’ Disappoints With Humdrum Plot, Acting

BY JACOB SCHICK Arts Editor In space, no one can hear you scream.

As evidenced by the opening scene of Rampage, it’s also apparently a great place to develop aggressive gene-editing agents that can turn a lab rat into a vicious killing machine. A scientist tries her best to make it off the ship before the prenaturally enlarged and mutated rat kills her. She manages to get the precious research—a case full of gene-editing agent. After her escape pod blows up, three of these capsules crash into earth, infecting and mutating an albino gorilla, a wolf, and an alligator.

Meanwhile, Rampage has introduced the audience to Davis Okoye (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and his friend, George, the aforementioned albino gorilla. Okoye works with George in a wildlife preserve in San Diego. He and George have become fast friends, communicating through sign language.

After George begins to be mutated by the CRISPR gene editing agent, Okoye meets Dr. Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris). Caldwell was the one who helped develop this mutagen for the evil corporation, headed by siblings Claire and Brett Wyden (Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy). Okoye and Caldwell join forces after George is captured by the govern-

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ment to be taken for testing.

The crux of the plot can be summed as such. The evil company has incorporated bat DNA into the mutagen, which allows the mutated creatures to be summoned by an ultra low frequency (sure).

The company has also developed a serum for neutralizing the aggression of these creatures, which they will then sell to the government. Profit? What really matters in Rampage is that a giant gorilla, a giant wolf with wings, and an even giant-er alligator (no wings) are duking it out with the military (and eventually with each other) in Chicago.

Much like a Pacific Rim movie, anyone who has ever seen any movie knows whether they want to see Rampage.

Is this movie good? Not in the slightest. Should you go see it? You already know the answer. If you wanted to see this movie, you likely already have. If you didn’t want to see this movie, you probably never will. Is The Rock the most charismatic actor who has ever lived? Perhaps.

The acting in Rampage, such as it may be, ranges from decent (The Rock and Naomie Harris) to terrible (Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy) to Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Yes, Morgan essentially reprises his swaggering, over-confident, snide role as The Walk-

ing Dead’s Negan. This time, however, he wears a suit and works for the government instead of carrying a baseball bat named after his dead wife. He isn’t really acting, so much as he is imitating himself.

While Morgan does well with this character in the much-too-popular AMC television series, it appears that he has begun to be typecast with his role in Rampage.

The plot of Rampage is a poor excuse for a movie starring The Rock in which giant monsters destroy cities and fight the military—loosely based on an ’80s video game in which giant monsters destroy cities and fight the military. There’s really nothing else to this movie.

There are some nice or funny moments, most of which are comedic beats from George, the giant albino gorilla.

Other than that, Rampage is a great chance to see The Rock save the day from yet another city-flattening disaster (San Andreas) through sheer charisma and muscles alone.

This isn’t necessarily a bad formula for movies, but it’s a bad formula for good movies. Rampage might be able to crush cars and topple buildings through the strength of its CGI monsters, but it doesn’t have the power to stay in theaters more than a few weeks. 

‘The Searcher’ Documents Wild Life of The King

BY CALEB GRIEGO

Heights Senior Staff When anyone is made a sovereign of anything, a great weight is likely to fall on his shoulders. The King of Rock ’n’ Roll, Elvis Presley, was no different during his reign. The HBO documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher takes a different approach in its analysis of the long and tumultuous career of the man whose hips thrust Rock ’n’ Roll into the mainstream. Some may see this as yet another documentary on the King and think there is little more to learn about the humble country-boy from Tupelo, Miss. And yet, this documentary digs deeper as it attempts to unveil more about the philosophy of the man and the way that philosophy made him a legend of music.

The most pervasive message of the two part series is Presley’s unwavering openness to change, an openness that may have done him in in the end. In the early days of his career, he was an adaptive, eclectic dreamer, taking in all musical influence he could get his hands on. He listened to the blues, bluegrass, soul, gospel, and country. From each, he took morsels of inspiration and, without a hint of inauthenticity, crafted about himself his own style from this smattering of Southern styles and black music. As a progenitor of more modern forms of rock ’n’ roll, Presley set the stage

from those who would come before him, mimicking not his style, but his method of creation and ingenuity in the artform.

Walking down the street, Presley once stopped a friend and motioned to a man across the way. Remarking on the man’s particular gait, Presley expressed a desire to use that walk, to make it his own. A peculiar notion for the time, Presley was unabashed in taking and remodeling the everyday.

For him, life was much more about using the outside world to reflect what he always knew was inside of himself.

Touching on the latter half of Presley’s career, specifically his oft dismissed film forays, marriage, and military service, there is a certain level of solemnity given to these subjects.

The youthful tone of self-discovery of Presley’s older work is seen to atrophy slightly.

In no way, as many in the documentary point out, did this diminish the impact of his voice, but the level of vivacity was less polished. Marked no doubt by time, but also by experience, the man who once was on the cutting edge of sound and swagger was getting on in years, and others were taking his place (namely those of the British Invasion). Could he become something else, on the big screen or elsewhere, without losing himself in the process? The question does not seem to be answered by Presley him-

self, or by anyone sifting through the volumes of his life.

The documentary itself is rife with monolithic rock and blues performers and producers, as well as people graced at various times to be in the presence of the King.

The great Bruce Springsteen, and the late Tom Petty are among the most prolific analyzers of the impact and psychology of Presley, no doubt using their own careers as tangential connections to the life and legacy of their ancestral rocker.

Priscilla Presley plays an integral role in the more intimate personal ideas of the King. Her commentary often feels like the words of the man himself, coming out of the ether of

time to tells us just what was happening during the plain summer of 1958 or the troubling thought of 1972.

What is abundantly clear is that the story of Elvis Presley: The Searcher is about the man as he was, not as the media presented him. There is little in terms of what the media said he was doing on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Instead, there is more in terms of his vision for that day. It treats Presley as a musical fanatic with expansive tastes rather than a merger of cultures.

In his career, Presley was searching for something out in the world and in himself. His noble pursuit of self-discovery is emblematic not only of the man he was, but of the man many of us aspire to be. 

FILM

Arts Editor

Truth or dare? Dare. I dare you not to see this movie. Truth. What shouldn’t you see? This movie.

Truth or Dare is the newest abomination from Blumhouse Productions: The studio that brought you great movies like Get Out, The Gift, and Whiplash and also brought you terrible movies like Ouija, Paranormal Activity (2, 3, 4, and The Marked Ones) and Benji (yes, the one about the cute dog).

Can you guess which of these binary categories Truth or Dare falls into? Hint: it’s the second one.

Truth or Dare is the next in a series without apparent beginning or end of bad horror

slasher movies. The conceit of Truth or Dare is that a demon begins to possess a game of truth or dare played by college students.

There are rules to this game, on penalty of death. When your turn comes, you must choose truth or dare. If you do not, the demon possesses you, and you die in some horrific or grotesque way. If you choose truth and lie, you die. If you choose dare and do not complete the dare, you die.

Our hapless college students—whose characters matter about as much as any character in a horror movie—are sufficiently attractive, stereotypical, and stupid as the movie needs them to be at any given time.

They are tricked into playing the game by a certainly creepy guy in a certainly creepy monastery in Mexico. Even the characters

FILM

TRUTH OR DARE JEFF WADLOW PRODUCED BY BLUMHOUSE PRODUCTIONS RELEASE APR. 13, 2018

BLUMHOUSE PRODUCTIONS

TRISTAN ST. GERMAIN

‘THE RAGE’ KID CUDI

Kid Cudi is back with his first single since his 2016 album Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin’. “The Rage” is another one of Cudi’s typical simultaneously ominous and uplifting anthems, featuring a couple verses, a sampled chorus from a Smashing Pumpkins song, and plenty of the iconic Cudi hums layered throughout the track. “The Rage” was released as a feature in the soundtrack for the movie Rampage (the one with Dwayne Johnson and a mutated gorilla).

And, although there are many elements reminiscent of Cudi’s glory days with the Man on the Moon series, the verses in “The Rage” ultimately come off as forced, with lyrics ambiguous enough to lack any real substance.

Cudi ends the first verse, “Pack ’em up and just hittin’, aimin’ and never missin’ / Servin’ up the prescription, no time for intermission / rippin’,” unfortunately like a SoundCloud rapper with a rhyming dictionary. The beat itself has some appeal, and the hook’s repurposing of Billy Corgan’s vocals works to a degree.

VBut “The Rage” really falls flat in its cinematic size, perhaps a product of it being on the soundtrack of a movie that wallows in cinematic size. The biggest highlight on the song is Cudi’s neverfailing hums, specifically at the ending bridge section. Cudi has mastered using his hums as their own instrument and utilizes them for a really cool layering of sounds at the end. Hopefully some more music is coming from the Cleveland native, and hopefully it won’t be made for a movie. 

MUSIC VIDEO AUSTIN HORD

‘ESSKEETIT’ LIL PUMP

THE SEARCHER THOM ZIMNY DISTRIBUTED BY HBO RELEASE MARCH14, 2018 OUR RATING

HBO

‘Truth or Dare’ Depends on Dangerous Decisions

BY JACOB SCHICK

SINGLE REVIEW

of the movie object to this situation, but are convinced to sit in this dilapidated and spooky church through the unsatisfactory writing that serves as dialogue in this movie.

Here we have our movie. These young friends begin to realize what’s going on, just as they begin to be picked off, one by one, each death more jarring and ridiculous than the last.

Essentially, this movie plays out pretty much exactly how you would expect. People die, secrets are revealed, vain attempts at twists are made, and stupid decisions abound.

“I can’t trust you ever again!” one character shouts for what seems like the fifth time before storming out of the room only to be drawn back into the movie through “heartfelt” pleading or by the sudden realization that people are dying—a realization that this character has already had more than once.

One thing Truth or Dare has mastered, however, is the entirely original and ceaselessly refreshing “turn jumpscare.” In such a scene, a character will find themselves alone—in a room, an alley, or some other third place. The music will go quiet and the character will stop in their tracks. They will turn around, in search of some noise or movement they’ve sensed behind them.

Gasp! There’s nothing there! Reassured, the character will turn back aro—Oh no!

It’s the scary demon, possessing someone!

Cue loud violin notes and flinches from the audience.

As such, Truth or Dare is a horror movie, in some loose definition of the word. The movie isn’t scary through the nature of fear, or the idea of something like this really happening, or even through true fear. Instead, Truth or Dare is a horror movie of jump scares and scary results of a dumb gimmick.

It’s perfectly all right to enjoy a movie like this—jump scares are a source of interesting adrenaline in a fairly controlled environment, and most people enjoy countless bad movies (Titanic, Love Actually, American Sniper). But, it must be stated that Truth or Dare is certainly a bad movie.

The movie contains very few redeeming qualities, aside from the entirely serviceable acting by the characters. These actors do a fine job—there aren’t noticeably bad linereadings or excessive chewing-of-scenery.

This is an impressive feat for a bad horror movie, but it does not save Truth or Dare from itself.

Ultimately, Truth or Dare appears and feels like an idea for a cheap horror movie that was conjured up at some 11th hour of a production company meeting. “What can we turn into a horror movie that hasn’t already been done in some noticeable way?”

Dolls (Child’s Play), mirrors (Ouija), video chat (Unfriended), and party games (Would You Rather?) had already been done. “Party games, you say? How about a game of truth or dare that kills people?” 

Catapulting off his “Gucci Gang” success, Lil Pump recently released “ESSKEETIT,” whose title is a play on words for the phrase “Let’s get it.”

In the music video, Lil Pump’s first and foremost goal is to show off his money.

While his blatant display of wealth is slightly motivating through the jealousy it evokes, it’s primarily childish.

In two separate takes, he destroys the rear windshield of his RollsRoyce Wraith by stomping on it and smashing it with a golf club, and he jumps around on top of an armored truck full of cash, only to have machines create wind vortexes of $100 bills. Other more subdued but still obvious flaunts of money appear, like how he has his own armored truck with the term “ESSKEETIT” painted on the side, as well as when he sits on an ice-sculpture throne while holding a wolf on a leash.

But that’s not all. He brags about drug use—ecstasy in particular—in the barely understandable lyrics, and his video depicts women as disposable extras.

Now, while he may not abuse drugs in reality, his music heavily promotes drug use to his audience.

He dehumanizes the women in the video toward the end by replacing their eyes with X’s, and their bodies are objectified throughout.

Overall, the video has no moral value, as it objectifies women and glorifies hard drugs.

Although rap music is not known for promoting good values, this particular song is rather startling in this regard. The world of music could easily do without “ESSKEETIT” and the message that comes with it.

Despite interesting video and prop effects, this grandiose but cringe worthy video leaves little hope for the current bearing of mainstream “mumble rap” music. 

The Heights

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Dance Teams Step Up for ALC Showdown 2018 Showdown Revisited Showdown, from B8

by Michael Jackson to “Ready For It” by Taylor Swift. The group exhibited excellent coordination, exemplified throughout the performancewhen the music occasionally stopped so that the audience could hear the dancers’ stomps.

Presenting Africa To You Category: Culture Presenting Africa to You (PATU) presented a performance that ultimately garnered the team first place in the Culture category.

Eseosa Osagie, PATU’s captain and MCAS ’18, discussed what it felt like to win the first place prize in the Culture category.

“Winning first place was so amazing,” Osagie said in an email. “Since there was only first place this year I felt really nervous about placing but it all worked out. Hearing our name made all the late night practices worth it!”

BC’s African dance troupe chose The Lion King as its theme this year. The dancers were garbed in African-style skirts and dresses as they recreated the classic tale. PATU incorporated astounding contemporary and traditional African dance into its choreography, especially as the dancers surrounded the various scenes of the story—Scar’s murder of Mufasa, the fight between Simba and Scar, and the “Circle of Life.”

Osagie explained the way that PATU chose its theme this year.

“We wanted a theme that would be familiar to the Boston college [sic] community but also had a connection to the African continent,” Osagie said in an email. “We couldn’t do Black Panther since it was gonna [sic] be too late before we knew the plot. Instead we chose The Lion King because it’s very popular and everyone knows the basic storyline so we would only need to do a few scenes in order to convey the story succinctly.”

PATU’s performance was clearly a crowd favorite, earning cheers, applause, and screams of encouragement and adoration by thousands of people in the audience.

The team certainly earned this praise—and the award—with its refreshing and welldone Showdown performance. PATU will be donating its prize money to the charity CameroonOne, whose mission is to place orphaned children in Cameroon into the households of surviving relatives.

Boston College Dance Ensemble Category: Competition The Boston College Dance Ensemble (BCDE) pledged to donate to the Campus School if it won Showdown. BCDE’s performance was Alice in Wonderlandthemed and incorporated colorful costumes and whimsical dancing. All the favorite characters were included—from the Cheshire Cat to the Mad Hatter. The dancers mastered the art of acrobatics, which were

featured throughout the performance. The set featured audio excerpts from the Alice in Wonderland movie, as well as unexpected songs such as “Don’t Wake Me Up” by Chris Brown and “Wonderland” by Taylor Swift.

Although the performance was extremely busy, BCDE was able to pull it off through perfect coordination and an all-around lovable theme.

Sexual Chocolate Category: Competition Sexual Chocolate won over the crowd and judges with its signature sensual steps to take second place in the competition category. The members of the all-male group described their theme as family and brotherhood, but they opted to let their moves speak for themselves, doing very little to convey the theme during the dance. Dressed in black t-shirts and wearing Timberlands, Sexual Chocolate flowed across the stage to sultry tracks with sexually suggestive lyrics like Lil Dicky’s “Freaky Friday.” While the group was impeccably clean and in sync from beginning to end, one flip went awry during the middle of the performance—a member of the allmale step team ran from the back of the stage and used another member’s back as a springboard for a front flip that landed him on his butt rather than his feet. The group recovered well, however, and finished strong with perfectly timed dolphin dives to Chris Brown’s “To My Bed,” earning thunderous cheers from the massive Conte crowd.

UPrising Category: Competition UPrising ’s dance was the final performance of the evening, closing out the nearly three hour event. Founded in 2011, UPrising is a dance team with a background in urban hip-hop. For its theme in Showdown, UPrising presented its take on the 1985 John Hughes classic The Breakfast Club. The team was divided into groups, each dressed as one of the characters of the movie, representing different social groups from high school. Throughout its performance, UPrising ’s music greatly assisted the team. Bruno Mars’s “Finesse” gave the group’s members a great opportunity to showcase their skill with an interplay of fast and slow dance moves.

The team’s performance culminated with an affirmation of unity, like the final note from The Breakfast Club, that each group has become closer through their shared experience at the hands of the principal.

UPrising’s final send-off served to finish off the event in a fitting and uniting way.

In summary, ALC Showdown 2018 was an incredible event, packed tight with enormous talent by the dance groups involved. There is a reason that Showdown is always one of the biggest BC events every year, and that reason was very apparent on Saturday night. The crowd filed out of Conte Forum into the brisk air cognizant of the fact that they had witnessed something incredible. n

Rouhana Shows Oud Prowess Alongside Ensemble

By Jacob Schick Arts Editor

Standing outside Gasson Hall, it would be difficult to tell how popular an event like this would be. The weather outside was cold and dreary, as freezing rain misted and gusted through the air. The only hints at any sort of event inside the building were a few chatting friends and a small children’s choir, practicing their line up. Entering the room, however, showed something else entirely.

Gasson 100 was packed with close to 200 people—filling the multitude of available chairs and spilling onto the walls and balcony space. The energy in the room was tangible. Families and friends had come together for this evening’s event, and their excitement and anticipation electrified the air. Rapid and eager applause signalled the entrance of the the children’s and adult’s choir, along with Boston College’s Astaza Middle Eastern Ensemble.

The event was introduced by assistant professor Ann Lucas. The performance by the Astaza Ensemble and choirs under musical direction of professor Nizar Fares and, later, the performance by Charbel Rouhana, was made possible through the generosity of the Lebanese and greater Arabic community here in the Boston area.

After this brief introduction, it was time for the music to begin. The program was divided in two. The first half was called Mashreqiyat, Part 1: Music of the Levant.

During this section, the ensemble and choirs performed various pieces coming straight from a historical geographical area in the Middle East called the Levant. This first part was composed of various arranged pieces and improvisations, featuring solo performances by musicians and by singers.

It began with a taqtūqa—a genre of music which is focused most heavily on light singing in Arabic—called “Habāyebnā.” The

song began with a hollow beating percussive sound, complemented by plucking strings on the focal instrument of the night: the oud.

An oud is a pear-shaped guitar-like stringed instrument with a short neck. As the instrumentation took shape, the sound was filled in by vocals from the children and adult choirs. Violins and cellos rushed in as the music swelled, and Alma Richeh, a singer from the adult choir and the director of the children’s choir, began to sing. The words of this song, and of every song performed over the course of the evening, were in Arabic. But, even without an understanding of the language, the music and vocals were stunningly beautiful. The first song set the mood for this beautiful and moving event right from the start. The name, “Habāyebnā,” translates to “Surrounded by Beloved Ones.”

The lyrics, which are transliterated into phonetic Arabic and translated into written English on the program, read like heartfelt poetry. “Surrounded by the loved ones - oh a breeze is upon us / Love has swayed us into paths, over which we are joined together.”

The rest of this first act only got better and better. Solo performances by master oud players in the Ensemble garnered cheers from the audience and even rounds of applause from their fellow musicians.

Finally, the time came for the performances by Rouhana. Rouhana is a masterlevel Lebanese oud player. Fares, the director of the ensemble, studied under Rouhana when learning the oud.

Rouhana arose from the crowd and walked to the front of the room. Garbed in a black suit, the eyes of a master musician poked out from behind his glasses, framed by salt-and-pepper hair and beard. As he took his seat in a raised chair at the center of the performance space, he picked up his oud as he had no doubt done thousands upon thousands of times before.

He began with a song called a sama’i. A

Celine lim / Heights STAFF

Nizar Fares conducts the Astaza Middle Eastern ensemble while Alma Richeh sings. sama’i is a vocal piece of music of Turkish Ottoman origin. This sama’i was composed

by Rouhana himself, and featured a section of oud improvisation nestled in the middle.

As he began to play, making up the notes as he went along, it dawned on the audience that this improvisation, made up on the spot, rivaled the quality of the composed pieces that had been played for an hour previously.

In Rouhana’s hands, the oud came alive in a way it never had before. The plucking notes on the strings began to sound like they were coming from two instruments at once— a classical Spanish guitar and a piano. The fine notes like guitar strings complemented the deep bassy notes like piano tones. As Rouhana drew the piece to a close, the audience erupted in applause.

But this was only the beginning. Over the remainder of the event, Rouhana managed to amaze the crowd time and time again—but the best had been saved for last.

Often, at the end of a large or long meal, people will take coffee as a final course of sorts. In the same way that one might finish an enjoyable event with a cup of coffee,

Rouhana, along with Fares’s direction of the ensemble, finished off the lovely event with a performance of another taqtūqa called “‘Ahwi,” or “Coffee.” This coffee however, was anything but bitter.

Featuring a lovely vocal performance by Nano Raies, a member of the adult choir, the audience joined in on the choruses to send off the night together. A fast and lively song, “Coffee”’s lyrics are wry but hopeful and fun.

“You said, you’re coming to visit / So I put the kettle on the stove / And I waited until my nosy neighbor knew all my secrets.”

The woman waiting for her love to return to her has revealed her actions to the nosy neighbor watching the coffee being made.

The song continues “The coffee got cold, the neighbors fell asleep, and so did the night / Over the pillows of stars my eyes see horses crossing over / Bringing me news from you.”

As Raies voice sent these lyrics soaring over the heads of the audience, the members of the crowd who knew the words added their voices to the swelling music provided by the ensemble. Rouhana’s oud managed to retain its place as star of the show, right alongside Raies’ voice, resulting in an incredible piece that finished off an incredible evening. n

ASA Brings Middle Eastern Culture to Campus

By Kaylie Ramirez Assoc. Arts Editor

Members of the Boston College community gathered in Gasson 100 on Friday to celebrate Arab culture. Sponsored by the Arab Students Association (ASA), the Slavic and Eastern languages department, and the Islamic civilization and societies program, Arab Culture Night featured authentic Arab cuisine, fashion, literature, music, and dance.

The culture show was intended to showcase the skills of students studying various elements of Arab culture.

Students, faculty, and friends poured into the room for a buffet-style serving of Arab food from Garlic ’n Lemons prior to the event’s commencement. Guests were treated to heaps of shawarma, hummus, baba ganoush, tabbouleh, and baklava.

The hosts—Mike Salib, MCAS ’18, and Ribhi El-Zaru, MCAS ’18—introduced the night’s theme: harmony. ASA chose the theme of harmony to set a tone of peace for the evening in spite of the international conflicts that ravage the Middle East. ASA

then provided the audience with a taste of Middle Eastern fashion, including seasonal abayas—traditional Arab dresses donned by both women and men. The models graced the stage while the hosts read fictional backstories created by the students to provide information about how Arab Americans might find a place for Arab culture in their everyday lives. Hugh McMahon, MCAS ’20, portrayed an Arabic man who works in Chestnut Hill.

Next, students took the stage with an acoustic guitar and handheld candles to perform a song in Arabic. The religious song focused on the comfort of the Muslim faith and ended with the lyric with “You’re the one who never forgets me,” a token of appreciation for Allah. The lyrics of the song were translated in English on the screen at the back of the stage for the non-Arabic speakers in the audience.

A second musical performance featured separate groups of men and women facing each other from opposite sides of the stage while singing a traditional Arabic song. The crowd clapped along and perfectly punctu-

ated the lyrics with jovial “hey”s before the two groups came together in the center of the stage and engaged in a partner dance.

Rayan Habbab, treasure of ASA and MCAS ’20, took the stage to remind people of the struggle of people of Arabic heritage around the globe. Habbab cited the current plight of the Palestinians and asked the audience to partake in a moment of silence for the struggling people.

Harry Hoy, MCAS ’19, and Matt Aboukhater, MCAS ’20, next read a Mahmoud Darwish poem for the audience.

Titled “Think of Others,” the poem urges those who are privileged to think of those who must go without—those with no access to clean water, those with nowhere to sleep, and those who have lost the right to speak.

The poem reading was accompanied by a dramatic musical score to underscore the seriousness of the poem’s subject matter.

ASA next projected a video produced by the organization’s e-board to advertise some of the events the club organizes on campus.

The video depicted members running and dancing around Gasson to traditional Arabic

music. Students in colorful garb performed a belly dance routine, which consisted of jubilant clapping and slow body rolls. The female and male dancers took turns on the stage before pairing up to perform in partners for the crowd.

The final performance of the night was a dabke dance featuring students dressed in all black. The dancers crossed the stage in lines before forming one line at the back of the stage to perform synchronized kicks. The students left the stage and ventured into the crowd to invite audience members on stage to participate in the simple dance. Forming rotating circles on the stage, the audience members who chose to participate were immersed in Arab culture. Habbab talked about his goal for the show.

“My goal for Culture Show is that someone who maybe has never been exposed to Arab culture before to come to something like this and really feel at home and then in their average day-to-day life to be more open to seeking out and experiencing Arab culture through food in Boston, events on campus, media, and movies.” n

B7

Jacob Schick

It’s that time of year again. After my second Showdown experience, there are a few things I would like to discuss. Last week I made mention of a few things that I think Showdown should do differently.

This time, I’ll be discussing the show itself, based on what I saw on Saturday night.

ALC Showdown 2018 was, in my opinion, a resounding success. The evening went off without a hitch—technical difficulties at the start of Masti’s performance notwithstanding. (That team deserves better by the way: They do an amazing job every year and deserve recognition for it.) The crowd and the dancers seemed to really enjoy the experience. I know I did.

Taraun Frontis, CSOM ’19, and Michael Osaghae, MCAS ’20, did great hosting it, the dancers did great performing, and the crowd did a great crowding(?).

There is one thing about the structure of the show that I think should be changed. I’m know this sounds like me complaining, but I really do love Showdown and recognize the hard work and countless hours that ALC and others put into this event. They always do a great job.

I just want Showdown to be the best event it can be, and I’m sure they would agree.

Showdown is divided into the Competition and Culture categories (and Showcase, but put that aside for now). Over the last two years, the already small Culture category has gotten even smaller, moving from four teams to only three. I know the teams decide what they will be competing for, and I think that the Culture category is a very good idea in theory. Yet, when teams like Fuego del Corazon and Boston College Irish Dance (BCID) compete in the Competition category, it seems that the categories delineate between groups less and less. It’s certainly not true that the teams in the Culture category are not as good as the others. PATU, Masti, and VIP are all fantastic. AeroK (Culture category in 2016 and 2017) is also incredible.

What I think would be best is getting rid of the distinction. When the Competition category has twice the number of teams as the Culture category, the delineation seems less important. To make up for the decreased number of categories, I would advocate for first, second, third, and fourth place prizes. This year, the number of teams in the Culture category was too small to warrant awarding a first and second place prize. This results in less recognition for high-quality performances by teams and less money going to charity.

No one wants either of those things. With a new system like the one I have described, the usual four teams could be recognized, and the same money could go to charity.

One thing I think this Showdown did better than last year was the selection of the guest performance at “halftime.” Lil Phunk was absolutely incredible. The style of dance was different from the BC dance teams so as to not steal thunder from them, but they were refreshing and amazing. I was also heartened by the lack of mention about the student center and its construction. Enough has been said about this in my last column, but I’m glad that there were no allusions or illusions about Showdown 2018 profits paying for a building that could cost well over $100 million.

Finally, I was impressed by quality of so many of the teams. These dance performances were absolutely incredible— better than last year in my opinion.

I think that some of the themes were also much more interesting. BCID’s Batman was superbly done, especially in its recreation of the opening scene of The Dark Knight. VIP’s dance focusing on the affirmation of Puerto Rican culture in the wake of the devastating hurricane was phenomenal, especially during the ascendant choreography to “Aguanile.”

DE’s Alice In Wonderland was amazing, and I especially enjoyed its employment of its large team in the telling of the classic story. I think PATU was a great choice for the winner of the Culture category, with its incredible Lion King performance, and it sounded like the crowd thought so too.

And even while I mention these groups, I am reminded of all of the dance teams that I don’t have space in my column to discuss, who also deserve the applause of a Conte Forum packed with fans.

Jacob Schick is the arts editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@ bcheights.com.

ARTS

B8

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018

@BCHEIGHTSARTS

The Right Steps

ALC Showdown 2018 featured performances by 14 Boston College dance teams.

BY JACOB SCHICK - Arts Editor AND KAYLIE RAMIREZ AND EMILY HIMES Assoc. and Asst. Arts Editors As the start of the show approached, the crowd extended into the second row of Conte Forum, packing the space with people and anticipation. The AHANA+ Leadership Council (ALC) Showdown 2018 was ramping up to be a night to remember.

Fourteen of Boston College’s dance teams would be performing in front of a crowd of thousands.

The event was divided into various categories, into which certain dance teams were placed based on their organization mission or style of dance. The largest category, Competition, was comprised of eight dance groups. These teams were Females Incorporating Sisterhood Through Step (F.I.S.T.S.), Fuego del Corazón, Synergy, UPrising, BC Irish Dance, Sexual Chocolate, Dance Organization of BC (DOBC), and BC Dance Ensemble (BCDE). The second category is Culture. This category was comprised of three culture-based teams: Masti, Vida de Intensa Pasión (VIP), and Presenting Africa to You (PATU). The Culture and Competition categories each had a monetary award for first place, along with Competition’s additional monetary prize for second place. Each team in these categories chose a charity to which they would donate the money. Three additional teams performed at Showdown, but were not eligible for any prize money. They were placed in the Showcase category: Phaymus, On Tap, and AEROdynamiK (AeroK).

ALC Showdown 2018 also featured a

awareness for hurricane relief efforts.

Females Incorporating Sisterhood Through Step Category: Competition Females Incorporating Sisterhood Through Step (F.I.S.T.S.) employed an Amazonian woman theme to spread their message about female empowerment. The all female step team stomped across the stage with perfect precision and passion throughout the grueling number. The group integrated a crowd-pleasing “God’s Plan” number when Hercules ordered the strong women to drop their feminist agenda. The team wowed the crowd with flips and viral dance moves during the performance.

Warrior-like precision during the group’s synchronized stepping and loud slaps made for an impeccable performance by F.I.S.T.S. Masti Category: Culture At first, there were a few technological complications with Masti’s performance— the wrong song was played twice before the correct one came on. The colorful performance followed a student’s journey going home for Holi, the Indian and Nepali festival of color. At first, the team wore sweatshirts and black pants. Once they “arrived” in India, the dancers removed them to reveal sparkly pink crop tops on the women and vests on the men. When the group employed sapps, it was visually interesting but difficult to hear. The loud nature of the sapps is one of the most intriguing parts of traditional Punjab dance, but it was drowned out by the music and cheering. Otherwise, Masti’s performance was energetic and vibrant, bringing the

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Synergy took home first place in the Competition category of Showdown for their “Synchella”-themed performance. throughout, the team finished strong with a high energy full team number that earned loud applause from the crowd.

On Tap Category: Showcase On Tap, BC’s only tap-focused dance group, was the second dance group featured in the Showcase category. This was the third year that the team competed in Showdown since its inception in 2016. This year, the team chose The Wizard of Oz as its Showdown theme: The plot of the dance followed the adventures of a tap-dancing Dorothy—replete with a stuffed Toto in a basket on her arm—through the land of Oz. Throughout the performance, the group made use of various music, including cuts from the classic movie. The music was

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Sexual Chocolate stepped their way to second place in the Competition category with their emphasis on brotherhood and family. guest performance halfway through the show by Lil Phunk. This youth dance team is the official junior dance team of the Boston Celtics.

The end of the night featured the awards ceremony: The Competition category first prize went to Synergy, while second place was awarded to Sexual Chocolate. The Culture category first prize went to PATU. ALC also gave an award called the People’s Choice Award to a team they believed “embodies the spirit of ALC.” This award was presented to DOBC. Representing ALC as the co-hosts of Showdown were Taraun Frontis, CSOM ’19, and Michael Osaghae, MCAS ’20. As they introduced the show, they reminded the audience that the event used to be hosted by the Black Student Forum (BSF) and was staged in The Rat. Since its inception, it has grown in popularity and size to its current placement in Conte Forum under ALC. Vida de Intensa Pasión Category: Culture Vida de Intensa Pasión (V.I.P.) opened up the night by bringing awareness to the destruction in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Clearly, the team’s members were greatly affected by the natural disaster—they pledged to donate to hurricane relief efforts if they won Showdown. The energetic group took the stage in front of a colorful background and a sign that read “Welcome to San Juan.” The women donned floral dresses while the men wore t-shirts and shorts. The crowd erupted in cheers when they danced to Marc Anthony’s “Aguanile.”

Halfway through the set, the background screens displayed newscasters reporting on the destruction in Puerto Rico. Ultimately, V.I.P. transported the audience into a colorful and vibrant world, all while raising

INSIDE SCENE

concept of the Holi festival alive.

Phaymus Category: Showcase Phaymus brought the heat for its firefighter inspired performance. The crowd broke out in laughter when the group opened its performance with a caller informing the 911 operator, “The Mods are on fire—this party is too lit.” The group kept up the deafening cheers with popular Migos songs like “Stir Fry” and “Slippery,” as well as sexually suggestive floorwork.

The all-female hip-hop group formed a line on stage and excited the crowd with energetic twerking. Toward the end of the performance, Phaymus “sprayed” the crowd and put out the fire with blue streamers.

Dance Organization of Boston College Category: Competition Dance Organization of Boston College (DOBC) shined throughout its roboticthemed performance to win the People’s Choice Award. The all-female team started with a round-off-to-tuck combination that spanned the stage to awaken both the mechanic members and the crowd. The girl group impressed with synchronized turns and handstands in the first half of the performance, which also featured sultry steps to Beyoncé’s “Video Phone.” While most of the moves had a robotic stiffness to them, the group returned to its usually fluid style of dance for “Runaway” by Galantis.

The team heightened the energy of the room with crowd-pleasing lifts, including one in which the team formed a human wall on which a member executed a clean back walkover. Following the stunt, the group members struggled to get in sync for the landing of their jumps, making for a sloppy transition. Despite timing issues

certainly an important part of On Tap’s performance, but the group truly thrives when it dances to no music at all. This allows the hard taps of the group—like rolling thunder through Conte Forum—to be heard by the crowd, instead of being drowned out by the loud music. On Tap has a relatively unique ability to create its own music and beats with the sound of their shoes. Regardless, it was a strong

Category: Competition True to its New York City theme, Fuego del Corazón delivered a fast-paced, high energy performance at Showdown. A Statue of Liberty, naked cowboy, and other Times Square characters took center stage for the opening, which featured a Latino narrating his first few moments in the big city. The Latin dance team excelled in its signature partner work, and the female members of the team glowed under the bright lights during a Wall Street-themed number set to Beyoncé’s “Ring the Alarm.” The dance team nearly dropped a female flyer during a standard basket toss, but won the crowd’s approval with an ambitious stunt that involved the male members forming a circle and rotating on the stage while the ladies of Fuego were perched on their locked arms.

AEROdynamiK Category: Showcase AEROdynamiK (AeroK) was the final team performing in the Showcase category.

AeroK is a contemporary hip-hop dance group that also employed The Wizard of Oz as its theme for Showdown. The team presented an altered take on the classic story, however, as it translated the story into an Asian variation. Many dancers wore Asian conical hats made of straw—a take on the Scarecrow. The Tin Man was a samurai dressed in shiny and reflective armor. AeroK’s dance shined among other themed dances due to its contemporary style and technical skill. AeroK excels at extremely current and well-choreographed dance formations, and it did not disappoint at Showdown.

Synergy Category: Competition Synergy won first place at Showdown by using a creative theme and masterfully coordinated dancing. The team pledged to donate to Hip Hop 4 Hope. The co-directors of Synergy, Luis Cardenas and Jinee Lee, MCAS ’18 and MCAS ’19, spoke about the experience of winning the Competition category at Showdown.

“Winning 1st place was an incredibly humbling experience and we are

artistry and making constant improvements to our set in order to showcase the best version possible. All we wanted was for people to enjoy the journey of our set and we hope we were able to accomplish that. We are also excited to be donating our winnings to Hip Hop for Hope, which is a cause that holds a special place in the greater Boston dance community.”

The group’s theme, Synchella, was bright and unique. Synergy is a diverse group of dancers, and each dancer wore a different outfit that you could expect to find at Coachella. At one point, some of the dancers comedically donned security vests and kicked the others out, resulting in laughs and cheers from the audience.

Eventually, they threw their security vests off and into the crowd as the other dancers returned to the stage. Synergy had excellent coordination, especially when it danced in a triangle formation. Toward the end of the performance, the team danced to Bob Marley’s “One Love,” which was sweet and fun. At the end of the song, the featured couples kissed, evoking applause from the crowd.

Cardenas and Lee explained the way in which the team came up with its theme for this year’s Showdown.

“Every year, our E-Board has a meeting before the start of the season where we list out all of the ideas we could possible come up with for a Showdown set. We always narrow it down to a top few and, naturally, we end up developing the one we feel very strongly about,” Cardenas and Lee said in an email. “This year in particular, we wanted to do something that embodied our passion for dance and pushed our artistic direction and Synchella did that for us. Luckily, it also fell on the same weekend as Coachella!”

Boston College Irish Dance Category: Competition Boston College Irish Dance commanded the stage in an intense and engrossing manner, both with its creative theme and its mastery of dance. The dancers wore all black with capes for the Batman theme. One dancer wore a mask as she played Batman, and

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Presenting Africa to You won first place in the Culture category through their dance recreation of the classic story in ‘The Lion King.’ performance met with the thunderous applause of the audience—the strongest crowd reaction came after Dorothy threw water on the Wicked Witch, thwarting her evil designs.

Fuego del Corazón

overwhelmed by the support of our friends, family, and alumni, and the overall general audience,” Cardenas and Lee said in an email.

“We could not have gotten this far without our Synfam walking into every practice with an open mind about being critical of our

Charbel Rouhana and Astaza Ensemble ‘Arab Culture Show’ The Astaza Middle Eastern Ensemble played alongside Charbel Rouhana, a master Lebanese oud player.................B7

The Arab Students Association hosted its annual culture show on Friday, featuring dance, music, and more.............B7

another dancer, who played the Joker, wore a purple suit. Other dancers, playing citizens of Gotham, wore sparkly ties. The music played ranged from “Smooth Criminal”

See Showdown, B7

‘Rampage’................................................ B6 ‘Elvis Presley: The Searcher’......................... B6 ‘Truth or Dare’.................................................. B6