The Heights April 30, 2018

Heights

The

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

EST. 1919 www.bcheights.com

Monday, April 30, 2018

Arts Fest 2018 ARTS

TITAN UP SPORTS

Boston College hosted its annual Arts Fest, a three-day event series of music, dance, song, theatre, and art, this weekend.

Taken by the Tennessee Titans in the second round, 41st overall, Harold Landry became the highest-picked BC player since 2012.

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BC Rescinds Cosby’s Honorary Degree Decision follows backlash over degreerevoking policy

By Cole Dady News Editor On Friday, Boston College rescinded the honorary degree it awarded to Bill Cosby in 1996, according to University Spokesman Jack Dunn. This marks the first time the University has revoked an honorary degree.

“In light of his conviction, Boston College has made the decision to rescind the honorary degree it awarded to Bill Cosby in 1996,” Dunn said in an email.

The decision follows a Boston Globe story Thursday in which Dunn said that, in light of a BC policy against rescinding honorary degrees, the University would not revoke Cosby’s.

Although the University announced that it had reversed this decision a day later, the BC community was outraged that the University had originally said it would not change its policy.

On Thursday, a jury found Cosby guilty of drugging and molesting a woman in 2004, as reported by The New York Times. Dozens of women have accused him of sexual assault.

Before this verdict was announced, more than 20 schools, including Johns Hopkins University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Notre Dame, and Wesleyan University, revoked honorary degrees awarded to Cosby.

Other universities that have rescinded honorary degrees awarded to Cosby since his conviction include Johns Hopkins University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Notre Dame, and Wesleyan University, in addition to over a dozen schools that rescinded their degrees to Cosby in 2015

in the wake of allegations of sexual assault against Cosby. His alma mater, Temple University, pulled its honorary degree to Cosby before BC did.

Yale University, which, like BC, has a long-standing practice of not revoking degrees, is said to be considering rescinding honorary degrees, a spokesman told the Yale Daily News on Friday.

In the midst of the #MeToo movement, other institutions have revoked honorary degrees awarded to high profile individuals, including the University of Pennsylvania, which stripped an honorary degree awarded to billionaire Steve Wynn in February.

Harvey Weinstein and newscaster Charlie Rose also had honorary degrees revoked.

Cosby was given the degree in 1996 to honor his work as an actor and comedian, as well as his contributions to education. n

Faculty Hiring Adapts to Popular Majors Highly demanded departments face balancing act

By Charlie Power

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Asst. News Editor This story is the second in a series about hiring and retaining faculty at Boston College.

In searching for faculty to hire for tenure-track positions, Boston College administrators must balance short-term student demands with long-term commitments. Sometimes a major spikes in popularity, necessitating the need for more faculty members, only to fall significantly in demand shortly after. Tackling that problem is an inherent balancing act.

In recent years, certain majors offered at BC have become significantly more popular.

From 2008 to 2017, the number of students enrolled in majors such as computer science, international studies, economics, and political science has grown dramatically, as demonstrated via the most recent statistics available through the BC Fact Book.

The University has sought to hire faculty to meet the increased student demand in these areas. In aggregate, since the launching of the 2007 strategic plan, BC’s faculty size has expanded from 679 to 833. But more often than not, it is still challenging for individual departments to adapt to the changing academic composition of the student body.

Part of this is due to the nature of the market for high-powered faculty. It is a competitive space, with multiple institutions vying for the same candidates. In addition, due to the involved nature of search com-

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mittees, many departments cannot expect to field interviews for more than two or three positions per year.

“Generally, even if the departments say, ‘I need five more faculty,’ the truth is that even if you told them, ‘Ok, go, find five faculty,’ they’re going to say, ‘Woah, we can’t interview 15 people in a year,’” said Vice Provost for Faculties Billy Soo. “In a year, if you can hire two, that’s a great year.”

Soo explained that economics is one area of the University, among others, that would benefit from adding more faculty. The total number of students majoring in economics has increased by over 500 the past 10 years, a 67 percent increase. Economics minors have fluctuated between 46 and 92 students during the same period. Even though the department has added 10 faculty over this stretch, in addition to numerous teaching assistants and part-time faculty, recruiting is still a perennial challenge.

“What they’re facing, and what I’ve discovered in the last few years, as I’ve men-

B.o.B to Headline 2018 Modstock The rapper’s song “Flatline” suggests anti-Semitic views.

By Cole Dady News Editor

TOP 5 UNDERGRADUATE MAJOR ENROLLMENT BY % INCREASE 359

Mark Guim / Wikimedia Commons

American rapper B.o.B will headline this year’s Modstock festival, the Campus Activities Board (CAB) announced on April 24. The annual event, which will take place on May 3, marks the end of classes this semester and has previously featured artists such as Louis the Child, T-Pain, and Ludacris.

Shady Lady won Battle of the Bands at this year’s “BC’s Best,” and will be opening at Modstock on Thursday.

Bobby Ray Simmons Jr., known professionally as B.o.B, quickly rose to fame after releasing his single “Noth-

tioned, is that the kind of faculty that they are giving offers to are also being recruited

by Johns Hopkins and Harvard Kennedy— it’s just hard to compete,” Soo said.

Robert Murphy, assistant chair of the economics department, echoed that point.

“We’ve had years where we’re searching for positions that we’d like to fill, and we have lots of good candidates, and we make offers to those candidates, but they may have other options. And so we end up not filling the slot,” Murphy said.

Given that departments such as economics, political science, and computer science—all of which are currently dealing with unprecedented student demand—aim to hire the highest-quality faculty and that talent acquisition is often a departmental effort, the process can become time-consuming.

“If you’re trying to bring in three or four people in a year, you’re probably

in’ on You” in 2009. He later released the chart-topping song “Airplanes” and collaborated with English singer Jessie J on “Price Tag.” The artist is also an outspoken conspiracy theorist, known for spouting anti-establishment views. Notably, his January 2016 song “Flatline” suggested anti-Semitic views, which gained the attention of the AntiDefamation League (ADL). In an open letter that was published shortly after B.o.B released the song, the ADL explained that it was “troubled” by multiple lyrics in the song, which invoke the conspiracy theory of Jewish control over the United States government and appear to support British historian David Irving, who is a known Holocaust denier.

CAB expressed to The Heights that it does not associate itself with the

See Modstock, A3

Keith Carroll / Heights Editor

On Saturday, a driver with an outstanding warrant crashed into a fence near Stayer Hall and was taken into custody.

See Faculty Hiring, A3

BC Trustees Fight Yawkey Way Name Change, to No Avail Famous Fenway street will revert to original name, Jersey Street

By Cole Dady News Editor The city of Boston will change the name of Yawkey Way, the street outside Fenway Park, to its former name, Jersey Street, following a petition that the Red Sox filed with the city’s Public Improvement Commission

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

in February and multiple public hearings.

Former Sox owner Tom Yawkey, who has been plagued posthumously by allegations of racism, is also the namesake of Boston College’s Yawkey Athletics Center.

BC said in February that it will not change the name of the center, citing an agreement with the Yawkey Foundation II that requires recipients of grants from the foundation to bear the Yawkey name.

Thursday’s hearing, where officials voted unanimously in favor of the name change, follows months of debate over the issue.

SPORTS: NBA Bound

Shooting guard Jerome Robinson will stay in the 2018 NBA draft, ending BC career..........B8

John Henry, the Red Sox majority owner and owner of The Boston Globe; Tanisha Sullivan, president of the Boston branch of the NAACP; and other prominent activists have been vocal in their support for the name change. But a number of Boston power brokers were against the decision. Some of them are closely associated with BC, including Jack Connors, a longtime trustee and BC ’63; John Fish, chair of the Board of Regents and a trustee; and John Harrington, BC ’57, the namesake of a new athletic complex recently opened on Brighton Campus and

METRO: Tender Greens

the chairman of the Yawkey Foundation.

Charles Clough Jr., trustee and BC ’64, is a trustee of the Yawkey Foundation II. Connors, a founder of advertising firm Hill Holliday, is a philanthropist who has championed initiatives to make Boston more inclusive. At a public hearing on March 29, he acknowledged that Boston has a race problem and expressed a desire to combat racism, but argued that changing the name of the street was not a substantive way to combat the issue. He also pointed out that the Yawkey family, regardless of

Tender Greens, a California-based restaurant, has opened in Chestnut Hill.................................A3

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the allegations of racism surrounding Tom Yawkey, has “helped generations of the least fortunate in this city.”

“What ever happened to common sense?” Connors asked. “We have important issues to address in this city, and we’re talking about street signs?”

Harrington, a former CEO of the Red Sox and the chairman of the Yawkey Foundations, testified at the public hearing after Connors, and has been vocal about

See Yawkey, A3

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

Vol. XCIX, No. 15 MAGAZINE..................A4 ARTS........................... B1 © 2018, The Heights, Inc. METRO........................ A5 SPORTS......................B8 www.bchelghts.com 69

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things to do on campus this week

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On Tuesday from 12 to 1 p.m. in Devlin 201, the earth and environmental sciences department will be hosting a seminar. The featured speaker is Roberta Rudnick, from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her lecture is entitled, “Glacial diamictites and the evolving composition of the upper continental

Monday, April 30, 2018

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Laura Buttitta from the University of Michigan will be lecturing on Tuesday at 3 p.m. in Higgins 355.

Buttitta will be presenting her work, “Unveiling Metamorphosis: Examining the Coordination of Cell Cycle and Chromatin Changes in the Developing Drosophila Wing.”

The event is part of the biology department’s seminar

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The latest Agape Latte, featuring John Walsh, BC ’17; Megan Krakowiak, BC ’12; and Brendan Carey, BC ’12; will be held on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. in Hillside. The event is open to all students, and is sponsored by The Church in the 21st Century Center, Campus Ministry, and BC Alumni.

NEWS Siri Touts Potential Of Blockchain To Transform Elections BRIEFS

By Abby Hunt

Beckman Scholars

Enric Adillon, MCAS ’20, and Eric Snow, MCAS ’20, have been awarded the Beckman scholarship, a fellowship that supports undergraduates studying the sciences.

Adillon and Snow, and Beckman Scholars, will receive grants for research over two summers and their junior year. They will also attend the annual Beckman Scholars Symposium and professional conferences in their fields. Adillon is a chemistry major, and Snow is studying biochemistry.

“Enric and Eric were selected from a pool of the top students in biology and chemistry here at Boston College who applied for the Beckman Scholars program in early March,” Jeff Byers, a chemistry professor, said to BC News.

“I am elated to have the opportunity to continue my scientific research here at BC under the title of a Beckman Scholar,” Snow said to BC News. “It is an amazing opportunity, and the funding will support my research project through my junior year. I have enjoyed my time here learning science in the lecture halls, but I am looking forward to creating my own research project in the lab.”

“This is really exciting because it will allow me to continue to do the kind of research I’ve been doing at BC and in professor Byers’ lab for the last yearand-a-half,” Adillon said to BC News.

“It’s going to provide a structure and a network of peers to communicate with and relate to in a direct way. I really hope I can learn a lot about the best way to do research and ways I can improve as a scientist.”

“Although we had many great candidates, Enric and Eric’s applications and interviews really blew us away. They both demonstrated a passion for science and a desire to use what they discover in the lab for the betterment of society,” Byers added.

Braun Criticizes ISLAs In an effort to compare different nations’ education systems, international large-scale education assessments (ILSAs) are used to provide data on student performance across a variety of disciplines, including math and reading.

The comparative rankings that result from these tests usually receive media coverage. In the United States, attention tends to focus on the fact that American children lag behind many of their peers in other countries.

In an article in Science, however, Henry I. Braun of the Lynch School of Education, along with Judith D. Singer of Harvard, argues that due to overlapping margins of error, there may not be statistically significant differences in the ranked averages of different countries’ education systems.

According to Braun and Singer, performance of the exams may be more determined by cultural factors that impact exam scores, not the nature of educational systems.

The exams, however, can still provide insight for policymakers. One example is the relationship between socioeconomic status and student performance. These two variables exhibit a weaker correlation in Canada than the United States. Setting aside that Canadians as a whole outperform Americans, policymakers can look at aspects of the Canadian system to see how the United States could possibly benefit in fostering more equitable outcomes.

“Our hope is that the report and the Science article will bring renewed attention to the policy uses of ILSAs,” Braun, the Boisi professor of education and public policy, said to BC News.

“We all bear responsibility in seeing that ILSA data and analyses are used responsibly to inform education policy around the globe.”

Copy Editor

On Tuesday evening, Argentinian entrepreneur and founder of the Democracy Earth foundation Santiago Siri spoke to students about the future of cryptocurrency and democracy in a talk, titled “Crypto-Politics: Beyond the Nation-State,” organized by the Cryptocurrency Club of Boston College.

As he began the event, Siri explained that today, we have a perfect way of measuring the United States economy on not only political or financial terms, but also a scientific one: the use of energy.

“The fact that the name of the game is being able to be good at accounting energy is actually very good news for Bitcoin,” he said. “We had last year all these headlines that ... blockchains are consuming an increasing amount of energy, and they’re a risk for our natural resources. ... The news about that is we have that resolution: For the first time, we have an economic system that lets us have perfect understanding on how energy is being spent on the planet.

The U.S. dollar is unable to have that kind of precise resolution.”

Siri explained that in recent years the U.S. dollar has begun to lose some of its historical dominance as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis and the world’s changing energy markets—Russia and China, for example, have begun using renminbi in their energy deals.

Other governments, he said, have begun using cryptocurrencies as a means of evading sanctions imposed by the U.S. dollar: The Venezuelan government,

led by—in Siri’s words—the “tyrannical” President Nicolás Maduro, has just this year created its own cryptocurrency called the “petro,” which is purportedly backed by the country’s oil reserves.

According to Siri, in the year before announcing the petro, the Venezuelan government launched a war against Bitcoin—sending the secret police after Bitcoin miners across the country, violently attacking them and confiscating their mining hardware.

“Venezuela is the first state to actually fight a war with violent means against Bitcoiners, against people like us, against just nerds using technology to empower themselves, their society, their community through the means of innovation,” he said.

“This is a very sad reality that we need to face and that we need to address if we are really up to the task of making a world that is able to bring a better future for everyone.”

According to Siri, Democracy Earth— the foundation he founded in 2015—intends to fight back.

“This is a big battle, and this is not an easy battle, but at Democracy Earth, we are in the middle of these two worlds—in the middle of the universe related to all things crypto and in the middle of the universe of politics and digital politics and civic tech—and we try to look at this as our call to action,” he said.

The origins of Democracy Earth can be traced back to 2012, when Siri and a group of his friends and colleagues started a political party in Argentina—the “Partido de la Red”—whose representatives would vote according to what citizens decided online. Although the party couldn’t garner enough votes in the 2013 elections to get a

Abby Hunt / Heights Editor

Santiago Siri touts the potential of bitcoin to transform the voting process. candidate elected to Congress, the group’s efforts nevertheless allowed it to connect with like-minded “hacktivists,” as well as begin spreading these types of political ideas through Latin America.

“There’s no millennials and Generation Y, X, Z—it’s really the online generation and the offline generation, and we’re in the middle of those two worlds,” he said. “But we were able to meet the new generation in Latin American politics.”

After receiving a grant from Y Combinator in 2015, Siri founded the Democracy Earth foundation. Ever since, the group has been researching and developing means to create crypto networks that will allow “personal sovereignty” among their participants.

“The actual main interaction that happens on the web on a daily basis is voting—we call it likes on Facebook, we call it retweets on Twitter or upvotes on Reddit or

hearts on Instagram,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is to tokenize the kind of voting that happens.”

Democracy Earth seeks to create a type of token-based, or “liquid,” democracy that allows participants to vote directly on the issues they care about or delegate that vote to someone they know and trust. Today, Democracy Earth is working with dissidents in Venezuela to try to “replace the State with Bitcoin.”

“If we are able to turn the ‘like’ into a like that actually triggers cryptocurrency transactions, into a like that is actually owned in a sovereign way by the user … we will effectively be turning a like, which means nothing, into an actual vote ... that can actually trigger institutional change, that can actually push human behavior to new outcomes,” Siri said. “I really think that these technologies can have a very profound impact [on] the nature of democracy.” n

More Students Enter On-Campus Housing Selection Process

By Cole Dady News Editor This year, 111 more students participated and went through the room selection process than last year, according to Greg Jones, director of Housing Operations.

Rising sophomores and rising juniors witnessed increases in applications for oncampus housing, whereas rising seniors saw a slight decrease in comparison to last year’s numbers.

The Office of Residential Life has to play with many variables to determine the need for on-campus housing each year, including the number of incoming transfer students, the number of students in each class, and whether students decide to study abroad.

“There are a bunch of different factors we’re always looking at to try to figure out how we can offer housing to the greatest number of students without offering too many people housing and not having enough beds,” Jones said.

The Class of 2021 is larger than the Class of 2020 by about 100 students, and more rising juniors applied to live on campus than in previous years. In the

event that there is not enough room in residence halls traditionally designated to sophomores for all of the students signed up for housing on the last group selection day, Gonzaga Hall, a traditionally freshman-year housing space, would be opened for rising sophomores—an unlikely, but not impossible occurrence.

Amid the housing selection process in March, The Heights published an article about this possibility, with the headline “Due to Limited Housing Availability, Gonzaga May House Rising Sophomores,” which Jones thinks misled some students to believe that they were more likely to be placed in Gonzaga than they were in reality.

No rising sophomores were placed in Gonzaga, as there was plenty of available space between dorms on College Road and in Greycliff Hall in addition to the residence halls on Lower Campus to accommodate the needs of students who signed up for housing.

“To be clear, when we open Gonzaga, it’s as a temporary assignment until we can move people down,” Jones said. “We have never opened in September with sophomores in Gonzaga in recent years,

since it’s a first-year building.”

With the increased freshman class size this year, two floors of Williams Hall, a dorm traditionally designated for sophomores, were offered to freshmen to alleviate the need for forced triples. But for next year, projections are demonstrating that there will only be one floor in Williams opened to freshmen.

“With the number of incoming transfer students and the projected number of returning students, we wouldn’t have enough space to do two floors of freshmen,” Jones said.

Coupled with the large freshman class, more rising sophomores also happened to attend information sessions for housing this year than ever before, with over 800 students—approximately one-third of the freshman class—attending.

More rising juniors were offered four years of housing than usual, but the percentage of students opting to live on campus was “basically the same,” according to Jones. The number of students who say they will live on campus from the class of rising juniors affects how many housing appeals Res Life is able to approve, as well as how many students can be moved off

the housing waitlist.

“If we know that there will be more students living on campus who are guaranteed housing, it means we have to approve fewer appeals because we won’t have enough space for everyone,” Jones said.

The Class of 2019 saw a drop of about 2 percent in students who opted to live on campus compared to last year. Jones said Res Life is unsure why the decrease appeared, but he suggested this could be due to more students living off campus or more students pursuing “other opportunities.”

He also said it is too early to say that this is something worth being concerned over.

“We did see a slight decrease in the number of rising seniors signing up for housing,” he said. “We’re hoping this is an anomaly and not a long-term trend.”

Regardless of the decrease, 90 percent of rising seniors are still opting to live on campus, which Jones said is “unheard of” at most schools. He suggested that students are attracted to the amenities that the residential experience offers.

“Most of the time, if you go off campus, you stay off campus,” Jones said. “The fact that our students want to come back means we’re doing something right.” n

POLICE BLOTTER: 4/24/18 – 4/26/18 Tuesday, April 24

10:55 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a larceny at O’Neill Library.

7:45 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Corcoran Commons.

Wednesday, April 25

7:45 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Corcoran Commons.

9:14 a.m. - A report was filed regarding assistance provided to another department.

1:05 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Corcoran Commons.

6:12 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious circumstance at Boston College Police Headquarters.

Thursday, April 26 7:59 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Alumni Stadium.

11:50 p.m. - A report was filed regarding assistance provided to another department off campus.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

CORRECTIONS What’s your favorite BC tradition?

“Arts Fest. The dancing groups were pretty cool.”

—Alexander Nave, CSOM ’20

“Probably in the fall when people tailgate at the football games.”

—Amalia Riegelhuth, MCAS ’21

“The football games in the fall. It’s very exciting and gives a sense of community.”

—Nelly Matos, CSON ’21

“Marathon Monday. People wake up so early and it’s so fun.”

—Kiran Butte, MCAS ’21

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

The Heights

Monday, April 30, 2018

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For Individual Departments, Faculty Turnover is ‘Double-Edged’ Faculty Demand, from A1 moving down toward the middle level,” Soo said. “Whereas if you’re saying ‘I’m going to hire one or two of the best people,’ well, you’ve got a lot of choices there. So you have to sort of manage these things, you can’t just say ‘Go fill five people.’”

If departments are unable to find a faculty member to fill a desired slot, they would rather leave it open for the remainder of that year and relaunch the search to find the right fit the following year.

“It’s probably a good way to operate, because you want to make sure that you are getting high-quality faculty, and so it’s generally been the case that two-thirds of the time we’re able to hire someone when we’re doing a search, and the other times it doesn’t work out, and so next year we look again,” Murphy said.

Hideo Konishi, chair of the economics department, said that the department brought in 14 candidates, made seven of-

fers, and hired three (one is still pending) in its recruitment efforts this year.

“The problem is we lost two people, one retired, and one person, actually two people are leaving,” Konishi said. “So what is going to happen is that we will have 39, or if we are lucky 40, faculty members next year. This is an increase by one or two, after making this much effort.”

The departure of faculty, either due to family reasons or being hired by a higher-ranked institution is another force that counteracts the University’s efforts to hire more faculty members. But Soo estimated that BC probably loses fewer than five faculty per year for the latter reason.

“There’s a widely quoted saying by the Provost and by other people, and that is that we are sort of competing at a weight class above what we’re in,” Soo said. “But the schools we’re competing with are really schools that are above us, that have bigger endowments and therefore more resources, to certainly try to pirate our

faculty and compete in terms of hiring faculty.”

Soo sees BC’s Jesuit, Catholic identity as a strength that helps with recruitment efforts, even if a candidate might have a better offer from a more highly ranked institution.

“Now, having said all of that, the bottom line is that some faculty will expect more resources. We try to match those within limits. But sometimes they get an offer that they cannot refuse.”

Even if a department were able to rapidly expand, there is a risk that student preferences could fluctuate, spiking and then dropping. The University wants to be sure that changes in student preferences reflect a permanent shift before they significantly expand the faculty.

Soo expressed that BC tries to “patch up” this situation with solutions designed to bridge both long- and short-term needs. Some more immediate solutions that he mentioned included increasing the number of visiting and part-time

Nicole Chan / Heights Editor

faculty while the University continues to hire more full-time positions. For example, the computer science department had three visiting faculty members last year, and political science had two, filling in the gap that tenured-track faculty traditionally do, according to Soo. “Turnover is just very slow, and it’s

really double-edged,” he said. “On the one hand, you don’t want to have faculty leave, unless it’s a situation where it’s not just working out. But at the same time, you have to be careful in bringing in new faculty, because once you commit to them, they could be here 30, 40 years.” n

B.o.B’s ‘Flatline’ Raises Concern Over Lyrics Suggesting Anti-Semitism Modstock, from A1 artist’s views.

“The Campus Activities Board invited B.o.B to perform music at our Modstock concert for his talent and popularity,” CAB said in an email to The Heights. “That invitation is not an endorsement of his personal views. We are happy to meet with and listen to the concerns of those students who may be offended by our selection, as we would do for any of our events. We look forward to celebrating the end of classes next Thursday.”

Rachel Putterman, the Rabbinic advisor to BC Hillel and the Hillel Council of New England, issued a statement on April 27 expressing disappointment that CAB selected B.o.B due to the lyrics of “Flatline.”

“To date, B.o.B has yet to recant the offensive messages contained in this song,” Putterman said. “These lyrics are justifiably painful to segments of the Boston College Jewish community as well as to the larger Boston Jewish community. While I’m aware that CAB extended the invitation to B.o.B without knowledge of the offensive lyrics, the fact that Boston College is hosting him is

deeply troubling nevertheless. I highly doubt that BC would host a performer with racist or bigoted lyrics about any other group. It is unfortunate that BC is not keeping to its stated mission of embracing diversity and exhibiting deep concern for all members of the BC community.”

B.o.B wrote “Flatline” in response to astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who criticized his belief that the earth is flat on Twitter. The song includes conspiratorial lyrics such as, “but before you try to curve it, do your research on David Irving / Stalin was way worse than Hitler, That’s why the

POTUS gotta wear a Kippa.”

Irving has written books that argue the Holocaust is a myth, characterize Adolf Hitler as a victim of World War II, and claim that there were not gas chambers at Auschwitz. “Kippa” refers to a Jewish cap, or yarmulke, which is known as “kippah” in Hebrew, and is typical for men in traditional Jewish communities to wear.

“While it is unclear whether these lyrics are meant to be taken seriously, it is nonetheless troubling that B.o.B seems to have given new life to the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory of Jewish control of the U.S.

government while handing a free publicity gift to the notorious Holocaust denier, David Irving,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL. “His lyrics are irresponsible and could potentially promote anti-Semitic beliefs, especially in those people who might already be infected by such notions.”

The ADL requested that B.o.B tell his fans that Holocaust denial is unacceptable and to apologize for invoking the theory about Jewish control of the U.S. government.

He never did so, but he removed “Flatline” from his SoundCloud account amid backlash from the song in 2016. n

March Continues Calls for Recognition, Despite BC’s Unwillingness

By Anthony Rein Assoc. News Editor The Boston College Graduate Employees Union organized a “March Against Injustice” Friday afternoon intended to urge the University to recognize the union and enter voluntarily into a bargaining process.

Beginning in Lower Campus and culminating on the Quad, the march was silent and included approximately 100 graduate students, undergraduates, and professors.

Union leaders gave out maroon unionthemed t-shirts, creating a long line of

Katie Genirs / Heights Editor

maroon through campus. Signs were passed out with slogans such as “Where is Leahy?” and “Working together for a just BC.” Once the march had reached the Quad, Bryn Spielvogel, LGSOE ’20, addressed the crowd and talked about the efforts that the graduate employees have made to gain recognition from the University.

According to Spielvogel, members of the union have visited the offices of University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., and Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley every day to speak about the union vote and graduate student issues, and both have

been unable to meet with union members.

The only responses, Spielvogel said, have been requests to stop visiting their offices as they were no longer legally required to recognize the union.

“So the evidence suggests to me that Boston College does not respect graduate student voices, regardless of legal proceedings, that they are relying only on a legal requirement to recognize the union, when really they have an ethical requirement to do so as well,” she said.

The march comes after months staging “work-ins” and demonstrations, in addition to making daily visits to the offices of Leahy and Quigley—all of which has garnered no public intention from the University to bargain. In September, the union won its bid with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to establish collective bargaining rights with the University, but BC filed an appeal with the NLRB to invalidate the election. Later in February, the union decided to drop its petition with the NLRB, demanding direct bargaining with the University—BC said shortly after that it wouldn’t voluntarily bargain, closing the door, from the University’s perspective, on recognizing the union.

Prior to the filing of the University’s appeal, the NLRB had a longstanding position that private university graduate students are not employees, but students, rendering them ineligible for union representation under federal law. This changed with a 2016 decision in a case involving Columbia University in which the NLRB reversed its position.

The University believes that no unionization action should be taking place and that the Columbia case was wrongly decided, Vice President for Human Resources David Trainor said in a letter written in January. He said that BC values the work and contributions that graduate students make to the University, citing tax-free tuition remission, competitive stipends, and health insurance coverage fully paid for by BC as examples of the University’s appreciation.

“The United Auto Workers’ (UAW) withdrawal of its petition to the [National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)] means that the UAW is no longer the exclusive bargaining agent for graduate students at Boston College and there is no action pending before the NLRB,” Trainor said in an email in February. “Because of this

decision, the election held in September is moot. As a result, there is no legal basis to require the University to grant the graduate students’ request to bargain and, given our firm position on the matter, no intention on the University’s behalf to do so voluntarily.”

In March, the Graduate Employees Union, as part of the United Auto Workers, joined a national organization aimed at gaining collective bargaining rights for graduate student workers.

Friday’s march occurred in the midst of a number of notable events for other unions across the country.

Locally, Harvard University’s teaching and research assistants voted to form a union in an election held April 18 and 19 through the NLRB. As a result of the election, they gained the ability to collectively bargain with Harvard. At Columbia, hundreds of teaching and research assistants went on strike on Tuesday following more than a year of attempting to get the university to negotiate. The university announced in January that it would not negotiate with the union, instead moving to plead its case to a federal court of appeals. n

BCPD Chief John King to Retire After 8 Years at University

By Cole Dady News Editor John King, executive director for public safety and chief of the Boston College Police Department, has announced that he will retire on Aug. 31, after working for the BC community for eight years, according to a University release.

His retirement marks the end of a 45-year career in collegiate policing at universities such as Tufts, Bentley, and Northeastern. At BC, he has led successful accreditation and reaccreditation efforts, which have helped BCPD embrace prac-

tices that guide conduct, processes, and systems within the department. King also led implementation of a campus security upgrade in residence halls and academic and administrative buildings. He also led the effort to merge BCPD and the offices of Environmental Health and Safety and Emergency Management into one public safety organization, a key enhancement to campus safety and security.

“It was an outstanding privilege to be part of the Boston College community, working with the great staff in BCPD and folks within the BC administration in an atmosphere of mutual friendship and col-

laboration,” King said to BC News. “We were able to work together to problem-solve and keep the community safe. It has been a wonderful experience.”

He told BC News that he was proud of the efforts he has led to improve outreach to the BC community, enhance relationships with students, faculty, and staff, and professionalize operations through extensive training and quality staffing.

King has received praise from both the BC community and beyond it for his service.

Financial Vice President and Treasurer John Burke thanked him for his service, saying that he built a police department that

is looked at as one of “the best in higher education.”

David J. Bousquet, president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement (IACLEA), called King “a legend” within campus policing, according to BC News.

“During his four decades of service he has been a mentor to many current chiefs and directors, including me,” Bousquet said to BC News. “I would not be the current President of IACLEA if it weren’t for the guidance and support that I have received from this extraordinary leader. I wish John all the best in his well-deserved retirement,

but am hopeful he will stay close by as a permanent advisor to the IACLEA association.”

King said that he will continue to provide consultation with police departments and other associations that need his assistance.

“I am looking forward to the future, though I know I will miss coming to this beautiful campus every day,” he said to BC News. “When you work with a great group of people as I have at BC, you establish relationships that are not just professional.

You care about them and their families. I will miss those relationships and being a part of this welcoming Jesuit community.” n

The Heights

A4

Monday, April 30, 2018

Investing in Music: CSOM Singer Croons the Classics

By Jack Goldman Copy Editor The main room at Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge is long and narrow, with a bar on one side of the room and windows looking out onto a busy street on the other. Each table displays images of famous musicians who played sets at the legendary spot—Pat Metheny, Robben Ford, Grover Washington Jr., Maynard Ferguson—but on this night, a Boston College student was the main attraction.

Mike Mastellone, CSOM ’18, got to live his dream.

“It’s always been a dream of mine to have a solo show with my very own big band,” Mastellone said.

He’s had quite the young musical career, playing gigs up and down the East Coast with his high school a cappella group, The Whiptones, including a chance to sing the national anthem as a group at the Mets’ opening day game.

He’s been a part of a PBS Special called Doo Wop Generations, where he sang the ’50s pop hits of Bobby Rydell on national television. He’s also enjoyed tremendous success singing with The Heightsmen and the BC bOp! Jazz Ensemble during his time at BC. He’s had quite the journey through music, but after the television special, he only had one challenge he wanted to conquer before leaving the comfy confines of BC for good.

“I’d never done an entirely solo show,” Mastellone said. “I’ve had solos at other people’s shows, and I’ve had solos at my group’s shows, and I’ve had solos with my high school groups, but it’s never been The Mike Mastellone Show, and I’ve always wanted to know that I could do that. That I could put asses in seats and bring people to see me and fill up a venue and have a show and sing three hours by myself.”

At Ryles, Mastellone sang three hours of Frank Sinatra—one of the artists from whom Mastellone’s nickname “Frankie” derives—and he sold out the old venue.

His voice carried throughout the club, soaring through classics like “Luck be a Lady,” as well as arrangements popularized by artists like Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, and Michael Bublé. After the second set came to an end, the crowd rose to its feet to show its appreciation for Mastellone and the Compaq Big Band.

“I got to be Sinatra for a night,” Mastellone said. “I wasn’t a college kid who was doing some singing, I wasn’t a member of a group who was singing. For once in my life, I was the star, and it was surreal.”

“It made me know that not only that I could do this, but that I want to do this.

For life.”

But music doesn’t define his entire

existence.

Music is just one of the things he loves the most, and Mastellone doesn’t do anything he isn’t passionate about. He makes sure to consider every aspect of his musical life—his motivations, inspirations, and methods as carefully as he can.

When Mastellone begins to talk about investment banking, an audience might initially believe his passion for art may not equal his passion for Wall Street.

That audience would quickly be proven wrong.

“From day one at Boston College, I’ve loved music, but I’ve taken my grades very seriously, and I’ve worked very hard to attain the grades and internships that I’ve had, and make no mistake—when I get to New York, my business is going to be first and foremost, my career will be my utmost goal,” Mastellone said. “But if I can keep singing and keep my passion alive while I do the absolute best I can in my career, then that would be something that would make me incredibly happy.”

He credits the balancing act he’s learned as a CSOM student and a performer as the reason he’s ready to balance life as an investment banker with life as an occasional performer.

“People tell me, ‘You’re going into banking? You’re not going to get any sleep,’” Mastellone said. “I already don’t sleep! … I love it! I love being busy, I’m the type of guy—I’m neurotic. I can’t be bored.

I can’t go to the beach—it just bores me.”

He’s interned at two investment banks, including Marlin and Associates, during his time in CSOM, and it didn’t take long for Mastellone to realize investment banking was his path.

David Goebel, BC ’16, the former music director of The Heightsmen and Mastellone’s mentor, pushed him in the direction of investment banking early on in Mastellone’s CSOM career.

“It fits my personality as a performer,” he said. “People think, ‘You’re a singer and a banker? How does that work?’

But they’re both just high energy things.

When I’m performing, I’m just bouncing off the walls on the stage having a good time. I feel like banking is the same thing: I’m good with numbers, I really enjoy it, I love dealing with people, and that’s the kind of industry where I think I can use my social skills and the analytical skill set I’ve developed here at BC to succeed.”

So in a sense, Mastellone’s musical career has been building to this point— where he’s ended up linking the way he approaches music to the way he approaches investment banking—since high school.

He got his start with The Whiptones, an a cappella quartet specializing in oldies.

Mastellone’s father introduced him to the oldies when he was a kid, and the younger

Mastellone instantly fell in love with everything to do with the genre.

The Ryles show is the ultimate showcase for that. Figures like Sinatra and Martin are artists Mastellone has tried to master for years. While with The Whiptones, he—and the group—concentrated more on doo-wop than the jazz Mastellone often works with now.

“I grew up with Elvis, Roy Orbison, Jackie Wilson, all the greats, Frankie Valli,” he said.

Next came BC, where his music sense seriously expanded. He joined The Heightsmen and bOp! his freshman year.

The Heightsmen, which Mastellone refers to as “BC’s only and by default best male a cappella group,” were attractive to him.

The all-guys sound has an old-school nature that appealed to Mastellone’s own old-school appreciation.

Mastellone’s time with the group has spanned seven generations of Heightsmen—starting in his freshman year with the three classes above him all the way through the freshmen he mentors now from his post as a senior. He points to the group’s performance of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” as his favorite Heightsmen-related memory.

“Every single day that we have a practice is just the new best day ever,” Mastellone said.

His nickname, Frankie, comes from two of his music idols: Frankie Valli and Frank Sinatra. As he’s gotten older, the nickname has begun to turn to Frank as he has become one of the elder statesmen of The Heightsmen.

“It’s been an honor working with this musical genius during our time with The Heightsmen,” Pat Fei, fellow senior member of the group and MCAS ’18, wrote in an email. “I know I can always count on him to whip up the most impressive song arrangements, effortlessly and can get a group of 15 guys to sound the best you’ve ever heard. I will truly miss working with him and wish him the best for his future endeavors.”

Mastellone cites bOp! as the place he fell in love with jazz.

“That totally changed my life,” he said.

“If Heightsmen is about the brotherhood and the best time of my life, bOp! is about the highest caliber that I’ve been able to achieve for my own self.”

Although ’50s and oldies music is Mastellone’s wheelhouse, bOp! added swing to his arsenal. That’s how he started singing Sinatra, Bublé, and Bobby Darin.

He credits Karen Sayward, vocal director for bOp!, as being a primary reason why he’s been able to reach the level of musician and singer he is in 2018.

“From his freshman year evolving as a vocal jazz musician to his last soulful

Photo courtesy of mike mastellone

There are few BC stages that haven’t seen Heightsmen and bOp! member Mastellone. performance of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You’ at the recent Arts Festival, Mike has engaged his audiences like a pro with consummate musical expression and energy,” Sayward said in an email. “Additionally, he is an ‘old soul’ with a depth of understanding and appreciation for music of earlier eras. I was particularly enlightened when Mike would enter the rehearsal room chiming out random 70’s pop tunes to which I’d find myself harmonizing or finishing the lyrics he started, and will always cherish these simple, nevertheless joyful daily interactions! We are grateful for his enormous musical contributions to the ensemble, while setting his own high personal standards as a jazz artist and encouraging others to do the same.”

Mastellone believes he flat out sounds better in the genre he only started really diving into after he came to BC—that’s what landed him at Ryles on April 5. In a way, that discovery frames his entire perspective on music and life.

“Being a good singer—and I’m not saying I’m a good singer—being a good singer is not about having a great voice,” he said. “It’s about knowing what to do in the setting and how to perform. It’s about song choice. I know people who are amazing singers, and I’ve seen them perform subpar just because the sound choice was off and the performance wasn’t there.”

Trial and error was the only way Mastellone was able to come to this conclusion, which could be painstaking. He’s never had private lessons, he’s had plenty of performances he isn’t satisfied with, but now he knows for sure what his strengths are. He can always go back to songs he thinks are his best: “Mack the Knife” by Darin, “Luck be a Lady” from Guys and Dolls, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”

by Bennett, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” by Valli, among others.

“I Left My Heart in San Francisco” is the piece that stands out to Mastellone

from the Ryles gig.

“When you do a ballad, 90 percent of the time it bombs, but when you get a ballad right, it’s beautiful,” he said. “I think for the first time, I’m getting to the point where I’m mature enough in my sound where I can do that kind of stuff.

In previous years, even very recently, I was more show than talent. I think I’m starting to get to the point where I’m still a showman and I have my fun but I think I’m starting to understand my voice where I can really make a beautiful song like ‘San Francisco’ beautiful.”

Ultimately, the thing Mastellone is most proud of, though, is the future of The Heightsmen.

“You worry, how is the next generation going to do?” he said. “When we leave, are they going to keep on the legacy? …

I couldn’t be more proud, and I couldn’t be more confident that not only will they be as good next year—in fact they won’t be as good, they’ll be better.”

Near the end of the second set at Ryles, Mastellone brought up Mike Lyons, MCAS ’21. He said that the passion he saw in Lyons as he sang—the passion in Lyons’s eyes—made him more confident than anything.

Mastellone has some gigs lined up after graduation around the New York area and plans to sing once or twice a month professionally once he gets started in the real world at Broadhaven Capital, a fintech and financial services firm.

“I still keep in contact with people like Goebel … and I see that they’re still involved in music and they’re still performing once in a while, and it gives me hope too,” he said. “Because I don’t want to lose it. I love investment banking, I’m incredibly excited, and I couldn’t be happier to join this company, but I’m a little afraid that I’m going to lose my music.”

“But as long as I can keep that, I’ll be happy.” n

Mandato Looks Back on Biopsies, Beanies, and Life Changes

By Simran Brar For The Heights When Ivelisse Mandato, MCAS ’20, thinks of her senior year of high school, she thinks of baseball caps and beanies, adding two more rounds of treatment, being mistaken for a boy, not participating in gym. Nausea. Biopsies. Blood transfusions. Six months.

For most teenagers, senior year is consumed with numerous obligations— courses for the last sitting of the ACT or SAT, college applications, sports, and social activities. But Mandato is not like most teenagers. For her, it was marked by her diagnosis of Hogdkin’s lymphoma.

That summer, Mandato started suffering from fatigue and blue discoloration in her extremities after exercise, and it became clear that something was wrong. The cancer isn’t always easily detectable in teenagers, since it is often masked as normal side effects of the stress and pressure that adolescents in

high school or college undergo.

Following her diagnosis, Mandato was sent to the emergency room and met with a cardiologist to deal with the mass in her chest that was blocking circulation, as well as to remove the fluid that had collected around her heart and lungs.

While most of these procedures are normally performed under anesthesia, Mandato remained awake for the entirety of the process due to complications the anesthesia posed with the mass in her chest and her weakened lungs.

While the thought of awake surgery would have overwhelmed most people, Mandato, who prior to her diagnosis had considered a career in pediatric oncology, felt that it gave her such a newfound appreciation for the patient experience.

“What ended up happening was the anesthesiologist stayed with me the whole time,” Mandato said. “She kind of just sat under the tent with me and showed me pictures of her trip to

Katie Genirs / Heights Editor

Once cured of cancer, Ivelisse Mandato turned to activism through Relay for Life.

Africa, and it was just so cool to get to know her.”

After these first few procedures, even when Mandato was no longer her patient, the anesthesiologist made it a point to check in with her every time she was in the hospital. Through these interactions, Mandato formed close connections with her doctors and nurses—even today, two years later, she continues to maintain these relationships.

As summer came to a close, senior year commenced, and Mandato was determined to maintain as much normalcy in her life as possible.

“I think I needed that sense of normalcy because obviously being sick isn’t a normal experience,” she said.

Two weeks in school, then one week off for treatment—this was the cycle that Mandato’s life followed for the beginning of her senior year. She went to class, filled out her college applications, and, for the most part, operated as close as she could to the way the rest of high schoolers do, despite simultaneously battling cancer.

“I think it was helpful for me because I pretended I wasn’t really sick,” she said.

“It was just nice to feel like my normal self and have my friends all around and have my teachers be as helpful as they possibly could.”

As an adolescent with numerous close ties, Mandato was always aware of not only the toll her health took on her family, but also the way in which her peers reacted.

“What I noticed was that people were really uncomfortable around me because they didn’t necessarily know what to say,” she said. “But I wanted to tell them no one’s changed, like I still like the same jokes, the same things.”

Despite this, Mandato recalls always

being able to sense the support of her friends as she understood their hesitation to address the cancer.

As a result, Mandato felt more inclined to reach out to people and start conversations in order to make sure others were comfortable and felt like they could talk to her unfiltered or uninfluenced by her condition. The greatest source of strength that Mandato found was her family and her friends.

While Mandato stayed positive so that her family wouldn’t freak out and while her family stayed positive so that she wouldn’t freak out, together they created a mutual positivity that Mandato held onto during her treatments.

Today, Mandato now reflects on her experience as she looks at her life both pre-cancer and post-cancer and sees how much she appreciates the life experiences she has immersed herself in—one of them being Relay for Life.

During Mandato’s treatments, a school liaison had invited her along with another patient to a Q&A-style panel for a hematology and oncology class at a local high school.

After a quick in-and-out, 30-minute session with the class, the liaison asked if Mandato would be interested in a similar style event one more time. Thinking she would be speaking to another small class at a local high school, Mandato quickly agreed.

“I remember walking into the school and seeing the security guard and telling him I was there for Relay for Life and he was like, ‘Oh are you here for the assembly?’” Mandato said. “I was like ‘Assembly?! Let me ask you something, is it a big assembly?’ and he goes ‘No’ and I was like, ‘Are you lying to make me feel better?’ and he goes, ‘Yes.’” Though Mandato was initially

stunned by the huge and unexpected crowd, she managed to get up on stage and give a seamless, honest, and thoughtful performance—though she laughs about how it was one of the worst speeches she has ever given and how to this day still doesn’t even remember what she said.

Despite her nerve-racking first experience with Relay for Life, Mandato increasingly became involved with more Relay for Life events at various local high schools, and it was through these experiences that her fascination with the organization was founded.

In her first year at BC, she participated in the campus’ section of Relay for Life passively, but as a sophomore, Mandato committed herself to get more involved by trying to raise more money and sharing more about her experience with cancer. On her fundraising page, she wrote a bulleted list of words she thought encompassed that time in her life. For Mandato, the first week of senior year was accompanied by unwanted pity and finishing a second round of treatments. Leaving school early was not accompanied by the feelings of rebellious freedom, but blood transfusions.

Mandato’s treatment went on for six months. In those six months, she underwent six rounds of treatment, 12 days of radiation, and a number of hours spent being poked, prodded and medicated.

“Going into it knowing that I had this really curable disease made me think ... there are so many people who have cancer and who are really unsure of their outcome,” she said. “I knew that I was going to be fine in a few months and just needed to get through those few months to that point.” n

The Heights

Monday, April 30, 2018

TOP

3

things to do in Boston this week

1

On May 5 and 6, Boston City Hall Plaza will hold its first Boston Taco Fest. The event will feature Mexican cuisine, live music from local artists, a taco eating contest, lucha libre wrestling, and a best taco competition. General admission and V.I.P. passes can be purchased online starting at $15.

A5

2

Through May 6, the Boch Center will host its annual ArtWeek. The festival features hundreds of interactive experiences across Massachussetts.

Many of the events are free and offer a behind-thescenes look at art. This year’s initiatives include Art of Food, Light Up the NIght, and ArtWeek on the Road.

3

Beginning on May 4, nine custom patios at Boston City Hall Plaza will open for the summer season. The patios will feature a beer garden, ice cream shop, food trucks, miniature golf, and special pop-up events. There will also be a “Puppy Wednesday” event series each week.

Annual Art in Bloom Celebrates Return of Spring METRO BRIEFS

By Isabel Fenoglio Asst. Metro Editor

To celebrate the long-anticipated return of sunny skies and spring breezes, the Museum of Fine Arts held its 42nd annual Art in Bloom festival this weekend. A longstanding tradition, the festival juxtaposes works of art from the museum’s most beloved collections with floral interpretations, arranged by local garden clubs.

This year, 50 New England garden clubs were represented, along with professional florists who made pieces for the museum’s entrances and walkways.

The event opened with a special preview for members on Friday night and runs through Monday.

Visitors entered to fresh smells and sensations, and, as they made their way through the galleries, looked at their favorite works with a new perspective.

Tour groups circulated through the halls throughout the day, offering insight on both the artwork featured and its floral counterpart. Live flower arranging demonstrations were also held throughout the day.

“Thank you so much for coming out today, we really do have a spectacular show,” said Susan O’Brien, chair of Art in Bloom, as she introduced a panel on the art of Japanese flower arranging.

“Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging,” she said. “While there are thousands of styles, here in Boston, Ikebana international is represented by the three schools here today: Ikenobo, Ohara, and Sogetsu.”

O’Brien went on to introduce the three floral designers who made arrangements showcasing the design principles of their respective schools.

Up first was Tomoko Tonaka, of the Ikenobo school. Ikenobo is the oldest school in Japan, and deeply rooted in tradition and spirituality.

“Beauty in Ikenobo means temperance,” Tonaka said.

Tonaka went on to make two arrangements, showcasing the traditional teachings of the school. Both were made out of the same materials, and were minimalist in design.

Next, Misumi, representing the Sogetsu school, took the stage. Sogetsu is the newest school of Ikebana and the most popular in Japan. Rather than stress adherence to tradition, Sogetsu stresses creativity and individual expression.

“In the past there were too many rules,” Misumi said. “Sogetsu can be arranged anytime, anywhere, by anyone, and with any material.”

Misumi went on to create two highly unique pieces. In one arrangement,

Logan Train to Replace Buses

isabel fenoglio / heights editor

This year’s show featured breathtaking arrangements from 50 New England garden clubs.

she used bendable colored wire to add movement to the piece.

The final designer to take the stage was Russell Bowers, representing the Ohara school.

“In Japanese, Ohara is written using two characters, one meaning ‘small,’ and the other ‘plain,’” Bowers said.

He explained that this is because the school is most known for making arrangements in shallow containers, which, like the Sogetsu school, signifies a break from tradition. For both arrangements, he used shallow glass bowls.

After the lecture dispersed, visitors stopped to grab a snack at the “Art in Bloom Cafe” or browse the “Art in

Bloom Market” in the Shapiro Family Courtyard. Many customers were on the hunt for Mother’s Day gifts, and the market featured a unique array of goods from Boston based vendors, who sold items ranging from handmade jewelry, to stationary, to ceramic fish, among others.

But the most popular stand at the pop-up market was the “Garden Cart,” which featured custom arrangements and succulents inside porcelain tea cups and coffee mugs, along with garden supplies and other small gifts.

Nearly every visitor left with a flower in hand, making sure to bring “Art in Bloom” back home with them. n

A Conversation About Ferguson, 4 Years Later

By Colleen Martin Copy Editor

Hosted in the forum of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, “The Movement for Black Lives: Justice for Michael Brown 4 Years Later” set the stage for a discussion about the events of Aug. 9, 2014: the day that Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo. It featured Lezley McSpadden, Brown’s mother; Benjamin Crump, lawyer for the families of Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Stephon Clark; Jason Pollock, director of Stranger Fruit, a documentary exploring the details of the case; and Jasmine Rand, attorney for the families of Brown and Martin.

The panel, held on Monday at 6 p.m., was preceded by a screening of Stranger Fruit—the conversation that followed often turned back to the film that aimed to explore the story that Pollock felt wasn’t receiving enough attention. Moderator Khalil Muhammad, professor of history, race, and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, began the discussion by asking Pollock what inspired him to leave his home of Los Angeles to travel to Ferguson and begin investigating this story. Pollock explained that although the story had sparked major media attention, he felt that the right story wasn’t being covered.

“I didn’t see anyone talking about Michael Brown,” the director said.

When he arrived in Missouri, Pollock worked for four months before meeting

with McSpadden—when he did finally establish a time to meet with her, Pollock said that he was slightly nervous to show her his work. Once she saw the trailer, however, McSpadden was sold on his commitment to the project and gave permission for it to progress. They began to work in tandem in June of 2015 and have been for the three years since. As Pollock spoke these words, McSpadden nodded.

“Three long years,” she said. “Thank you, Jason.”

At the time that he was killed, Brown was 18 years old. Since the loss of her son, McSpadden has been working to prevent the loss of life of another young, unarmed black man. McSpadden feels that speaking out about her son’s death is something she is called to do: Wilson, the officer that shot Brown, has never been jailed for the incident.

“The Department of Justice told me that I have to carry the burden,” she said in regard to the failure to prosecute Wilson.

Here, Pollock interjected that McSpadden is no way needs to be here—she doesn’t get much out of speaking about her son’s death to strangers around the country. The pain that she bears serves to educate the audience about the personal repercussions that follow the death of a citizen at the hands of the police. This connection is one that Pollock believes is missing from the social movements of today.

“I think a lot of people see the hashtag,

but they don’t realize how much of a human story there is behind this, and how much pain there is,” he said.

Crump furthered this discussion later on, calling on the lack of words in the English language to describe what it means to be a person who has to bury a child.

He explained that we have “widow” for someone who has lost a spouse, and “orphan” for those whose parents have died, but there is nothing for a mother who experiences the loss of her son. He said that although a conviction of the person responsible can’t bring back the victim, it might help in the healing process.

“To lose a child is so against the natural order of things, we can’t even name it,” he said. “If we can convict them, maybe there will be less holes in less hearts of black mothers.” He emphasized that just because something is legal, doesn’t mean it’s right. Crump said that despite the pain being faced right now, he has faith that in the future, police brutality will be something of the past.

“I don’t get discouraged, because we overcame slavery and if we could overcome that, we can overcome police brutality,” Crump explained.

Rand spoke of the way she hopes to achieve this: through her students. She encourages them to take the skills that they have been blessed with and use them to ensure that today’s civil rights issues do not remain when we leave the earth. She said whether that means being a doctor who serves an underprivileged neighborhood or a filmmaker like Pollock telling a

story people may not hear otherwise, we can use our gifts for change. She spoke about the consistency with which officers being investigated for shootings of civilians claim that the victim was reaching for a gun. This was the case with Brown, although Stranger Fruit has looked to disprove Wilson’s accusation that Brown was reaching with his bloodied hand, that had already been shot, into his waistband to withdraw a nonexistent gun.

“Police brutality doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” she said. “It happens because we systemically devalue black life in every aspect of society.”

After the panel, the group fielded questions from the audience about what steps people can take to prevent this from happening again, how students who have never experienced police brutality can talk about it, the semantics surrounding the topics, and an invitation from one audience member to Pollock to shed light on the injustice that some Native Americans face on their reservations.

Throughout the panel, McSpadden was often looked to with admiration. Last year, she earned her high school degree alongside her daughter, Deja Brown.

She also authored a book, Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil: The Life, Legacy, and Love of My Son Michael Brown, and announced Monday evening that she is planning to run for Ferguson City Council. Crump noted that, if elected, McSpadden will be supervising the same police department that was responsible for her son’s death. n

ISG Lecture Discusses Sacred and Personal Relics

By Chloe McAllaster Assoc. Metro Editor

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum houses a diverse collection of visual art and archival objects that spans eras and cultures. While many visitors may flock to the museum for a glimpse of the well-known works of Matisse, Michelangelo, Raphael, and others, the galleries also contain personal objects Gardner collected throughout her life. These objects, some of which were gifted to Gardner by acquaintances and loved ones, serve as relics honoring her life and legacy.

On Saturday, the museum held a lecture in its Calderwood Hall entitled “From Saints to Celebrities: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Relics of History.” The lecture was designed to accompany the Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth exhibit currently on display at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Nathaniel Silver, associate curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Casey Riley, assistant curator

at the Boston Athenaeum, spoke on the topic of relic collecting through the lens of the museum’s collections and Gardner herself.

Silver’s speech centered around the collection of sacred reliquaries, specifically the reliquary of The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin by Fra Angelico. In 1897, Gardner and her husband purchased an assortment of late medieval and early Renaissance reliquaries from an art dealer in Munich. These works are less known than the Angelico piece but served the same purpose for sacred objects, according to Silver.

“Their containers, called reliquaries, serve to enshrine such relatively invisible contents and glorify them with precious materials like gold, silver, and rock crystal,” he said.

Throughout the ages, relics have served an important purpose in public life. Silver gave the example of French monarch King Louis IX distributing thorns from Christ’s crown of thorns to his allies as a symbol

of allegiance.

Because of their role in the public sphere, relics tend to transcend the boundary that separates the sacred from the secular, making them prized among collectors for more than their aesthetic value.

“Collectors have long coveted important reliquaries as much as the faithful venerated their relics,” said Silver.

For her part, Gardner pursued The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin, which is “at the heart of the current exhibition.”

Silver delved into the details of how the reliquary came to be in Gardner’s possession, including the modifications it underwent in the centuries after its creation between 1424 and 1434.

“Excavation revealed several campaigns of decoration,” he said.

Gardner purchased the piece in 1899, making it the first Angelico work to be housed in the United States. Shortly thereafter, the Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard art museums, and private collectors began to

acquire other works by the famed artist.

“The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin became the first Angelico in the United States, and set a new standard that other museums were quick to follow,” said Silver.

The second half of the lecture was given

by Riley, who focused her speech on the Gardner Museum as a “home for relics,” and thus itself a reliquary.

“To walk through the courtyard and galleries of the palace is to enter into a state of wonder, to be captivated by the extraordinary beauty of the collections as she arranged them,” she said. “Isabella’s handwork—her touch is on every surface.”

Drawers, bookshelves, walls, and vitrines of the museum are filled with remnants of Garner’s life and passions.

“The objects that she assembled for us within the museum form a story of her life through things,” said Riley. “The things that she touched, the things that touched her, and the things that belonged to the people she loved and admired.” n

According to The Boston Globe, officials of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which owns and operates Logan International Airport, are planning to hire a consultant to advise them on building an “automated people mover” to take passengers to and from the airport’s terminals, the Blue Line of the MBTA, economy parking lots, and the rental car center—similar to the trains and monorails that other busy airports already employ.

The system, which would replace the shuttle buses from Airport Station, would provide a faster and more frequent means of transportation for passengers, as it would be separated from Logan’s roadways. According to Thomas Glynn, chief executive of Massport, the main idea behind the tram-like system would be to reduce traffic congestions—Massport data indicates that today the vast majority of passengers are using cars to get to Logan, with only 30 percent opting to take public transportation or high-occupancy vehicles.

The officials will be spending $15 million to design and study the feasibility of such a plan—which they have said could cost over $1 billion and take 10 years to be fully implemented.

State House Passes Budget After four days of debate, the Massachusetts House passed a $41.065 billion state budget for the 2019 fiscal year with a 150-4 vote this Thursday, according to masslive.com. The bill strongly focuses on education and includes new investments related to issues of criminal justice reform, homelessness, and substance abuse.

Among other policy shifts, it includes a repeal of the “family cap,” which refuses additional money for children whose families are receiving public assistance at the time of their birth. The budget will now move on to the Massachusetts Senate, which will then release its own version to be debated and voted on in May. A committee of House-Senate negotiators will reconcile the two versions in a compromise budget, which will need to be voted on again by both chambers and signed by Governor Charlie Baker before the 2019 fiscal year begins on July 1.

Airbnb Debate Continues At the moment, there is an ongoing high-stakes debate in Boston regarding the future of the city’s short-term rental industry, which is pitting companies like Airbnb and the “hosts” they employ against housing activists, neighborhood groups, and hotel workers union members who are advocating for higher regulations of the industry, according to The Boston Globe.

Mayor Marty Walsh, BC ’09, and the Boston City Council are currently weighing the implications of turning much of the city’s scarce housing stock into short-term lodging against keeping the city open to an industry that helps bring more visitors—and money—into some of the less-traveled neighborhoods of Boston. After filing a bill to regulate the industry back in January and subsequently pulling it before it was voted on by the Council, Walsh purportedly will be filing a new version soon. Lawmakers on Beacon Hill are also planning to pass their own bill for regulating the industry statewide this summer.

The Heights

A6

EDITORIAL

Monday, April 30, 2018

QUOTE OF THE DAY

B.o.B Selection Raises Questions About CAB Vetting Processes

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

- Nelson Mandela

Last week, the Campus Ac- nier.

B.o.B’s controversial views tivities Board (CAB) announced CAB hosts three major con- are very easily accessible—even that B.o.B would be headlining certs a year—Stokes Set, Plexa- his Wikipedia page dedicates a this year’s Modstock Festival. palooza, and Modstock—that section to his “Beliefs.” While Bobby Ray Simmons Jr., profes- all share a budget. Performers CAB has said that its invitation sionally known as B.o.B, rose to are paid, although the amounts to B.o.B does not constitute an fame in 2009 after the release are undisclosed. Each performer endorsement of his views, B.o.B’s of his single, “Nothin’ On You,” has to be approved by BC after views do appear inconsistent and has collaborated with artists CAB searches for artists over a with “Jesuit values”—and, more such as Jessie J, Bruno Mars, and months-long period. The organi- importantly, general decency— M.I.A. The artist has expressed zation claims to find artists who calling into question the strinsympathetic views toward con- are both affordable and would gency of the review processes spiracy theories, including for these artists. Equally the belief that the earth is concerning is the fact that “Equally concerning is flat and that the Sept. 11 B.o.B will receive some attacks were a government payment for the fact that B.o.B will receive undisclosed conspiracy. More concernhis performance. some undisclosed payment ingly, he promoted antiBC, whose approval is Semitic views in his 2016 needed for any pick , is for his performance.” song “Flatline,” in which also partially at fault. The he says: “... before you try day after the organization to curve it / Do your research pass the University’s assessment announced that B.o.B would on David Irving / Stalin was way of every performer’s adherence perform at Modstock, Fox 25 worse than Hitler / That’s why the to Jesuit values, according to past reported, “BC administrators say POTUS gotta wear a kippah.”

Heights interviews with CAB. they have not yet heard of any The Anti-Defamation League The Live Entertainment (LE) controversy with the B.o.B con(ADL) criticized the song in an division of CAB spends most of cert.” More appropriate would open letter expressing unease the year searching for artists that have been some condemnation because of his apparent support the organization can afford and (or at least an acknowledgement) of a conspiracy that the U.S. gov- the University would approve. As of the artist’s past anti-Semitic ernment is under Jewish control. of last September, none of their statements. Most appropriate The ADL was also concerned suggestions had been rejected, would have been the easiest deciwith B.o.B’s reference to British according to Mike Florio, CSOM sion of all: Don’t invite (and pay) pseudo-historian David Irving, ’19, at the time CAB’s director an artist whose lyrics promote a who is a known Holocaust-de- of LE. Holocaust-denier.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR In Response To: “B.o.B to Headline This Year’s Modstock Festival” To the Editor:

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Today we learned that Boston College Campus Activities Board (CAB) has invited B.o.B to be the headline performer at this year’s Modstock Festival next Thursday, May 3.

For those who don’t know, in January 2016, B.o.B released a single “Flatline” that referenced a famous Holocaust denier and included the anti-Semitic trope that Jews control the U.S. government: Do your research on David Irving Stalin was way worse than Hitler That’s why the POTUS gotta wear a kippah We think about our responsibility here. Should we keep quiet and let it slide, thinking, who listens to these lyrics anyway? But we all know that lots of people not only listen to the lyrics, they recite them. If there’s one thing Jewish people have learned from history, it’s that when there are rumors spread about us, we don’t just hope no one is listening.

We thought we’d check to see if B.o.B may have recanted these offensive lyrics. Instead we found this from a track produced later: “People asking me, like ‘Why Bobby Ray saying all this crazy ass shit? You think he really means it?’ Like this shit ain’t crazy, this shit is real, dawg. He’s always been rapping real shit.”

These days there are too many people making public statements that

are just untrue through too many media outlets. Sometimes we ignore them; sometimes we try to refute them.

Often, we would ignore a guy like this and hope someone can help him learn fact from fiction. But it is clear from his statement above that he has been called out on these views—and to no avail.

Unfortunately, a generation may be learning from these songs. He’s obviously selling his music, because the Boston College Campus Activities Board has invited him to be the headliner for their year-end festival, which probably comes at a high price.

As an alum of and professor at BC, we are embarrassed by our educated, intelligent college students spending money, i.e., supporting, a performer who spouts the hateful statements that B.o.B does, and are deeply offended that CAB, and therefore Boston College, is giving him a platform to propagate his uneducated and ugly rhetoric.

We choose to look at this as an opportunity—both a teaching and learning opportunity—for students, faculty, and administrators to remember that words do matter and what we support is, in fact, what we stand up for. The opportunity is most acute for students to educate one another as well, because what this performer raps are not just words.

Sincerely,

Alan Marcus, Professor of Finance, CSOM Sheryl Marcus, BC ’05

The Heights is produced by BC undergraduates and is published on Mondays during the academic year by The Heights, Inc. (c) 2018. All rights reserved.

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The Heights

Monday, April 30, 2018

A7

How To Say Goodbye 69

69

Josh Behrens

public proposals - It’s a little sappy, I know. The couple radiate happiness, so everyone around can feel the immense love and joy that comes from these special moments.

This weekend, we watched a man propose to his girlfriend in Boston Common, with their families there, watching, celebrating, wearing tshirts with the couple’s names on it. Over the summer, I watched a proposal at a bakery, with the question spelled out on cupcakes in the display case. Go to the ice skating rink at the Rockefeller Center during Christmas time, and, within 30 minutes, you’ll see at least one proposal that is then celebrated by all of the skaters around. You can hear the cheering and applause from so far away, with such delight evident in the symphony of voices you here.

These public displays of affection, although cliché, are really beautiful moments that simultaneously make you love humanity but also hate the pathetic mess that is your life (unless that’s just me).

69

meeting someone who doesn’t remember you for a second time - Remember that kid you met that one time at a football game, or at lunch with your friend, who they have a class with? He doesn’t remember you. He shakes your hand again, tells you his name, and you just smile through the sorrow and regret. You might’ve even talked for 10 minutes the first time you met, probably about some trivial thing like the surprisingly nice weather, or that football kind of sucks. But it’s fine, you aren’t bitter about it at all. But maybe he’s actually just as awkward as you are and doesn’t know how to talk about it without being weird because you know that if you tried to say something you’d probably sound like a stalker—an interaction can get really awkward really fast when someone asks if you remember them and you don’t. The best solution is to just stay at home always. Then you’ll never meet anyone for the first time that might not remember you the second time.

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This is my last column for The Heights.

Summing up my four years here in just 1,000 of my own words is impossible, so I’m going to rely on (read: semi-plagiarize) two pieces of writing that perfectly encapsulate my feelings about graduation.

The first is “The Opposite of Loneliness”

by Marina Keegan. Keegan was a Yale student who wrote for the Yale Daily News and penned “The Opposite of Loneliness” as her last Op-Ed for the paper right before she tragically died in a car crash just days after her graduation. The other is “This is Water,” a 2005 commencement address given by author David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College. This was one of Wallace’s only public speeches before his suicide in 2008 and is, in my mind, necessary for all college graduates to hear.

“The Opposite of Loneliness” focuses on an inscrutable feeling we all have in college. Keegan writes, “[the opposite of loneliness is] not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, that are in this together.” We, as seniors, are sad to leave the various little communities we’ve built over the past four years, like our a cappella groups, our roommates, our intramural wallyball teams that almost won a mug, that one group of friends you always see at pregames, etc., etc. But, Keegan points out that losing these individual communities isn’t the scariest part of graduation. The scariest part is losing a collective identity. Even if we sit alone in a booth deep in the depths of O’Neill, we are still a part of something bigger than ourselves. Boston College has been our home despite its many, many, many flaws. Keegan’s message is that losing our collective identity, however dysfunctional, will mean losing the “opposite of loneliness” we’ve come to expect as we are thrown headfirst into the unknown that is post-grad.

“This is Water” focuses on post-grad life. Wallace attempts to sober graduates up to the terrifying reality that lies after a diploma: The fact that, sometimes, life is

completely and utterly boring. He tells a story about someone who needs to buy groceries after a long day at work to show how the monotonous cycles of adult life can crush a person’s soul beneath the weight of a thousand thoughtless routines.

Monotony isn’t inherently bad, but rather a blank canvas on which we can paint meaning. The important part is to recognize the ‘water’ in which we swim—the perspective we use to draw meaning from our experiences. I’ll quote at length here because it’s that good: “It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down. Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that’s capital-T ‘True’ is that you get to decide how you’re gonna try to see it.”

Right now at BC, the “opposite of loneliness” is our water. Our environment is a campus where we are surrounded by thousands of fellow Eagles and it will be gone in less than a month. Soon, we will be swimming in water that is much less friendly, a water devoid of a collective identity to which to tie ourselves. This ending shouldn’t scare us, though.

Like Keegan says, we shouldn’t be afraid to “BEGIN a beginning.” This means beginning a beginning in a place far from the comfort of campus—far from late night mozz stix, and silly retreats you end up loving, and Father Leahy grass jokes, and pregames where you talk about Kant, and a thriving meme page, and Marathon Monday shenanigans, and thriving activist circles, and far too many a cappella groups, and the possibility to find your best friend around every corner. Damn, like that run-on sentence suggests, I’m gonna miss this place. So, behind all the rhetorical niceties of this column, I am scared to begin a new beginning because this beautiful beginning I started four years ago is ending.

Yet, endings shouldn’t define us. Both Keegan and Wallace died tragic deaths.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I idolize their writing so much. Both Keegan and Wallace were amazing writers, but their writings are not good because of their untimely deaths, but in spite of them.

Their stunning prose is able to stand on its

own outside of their endings—and so too should our BC experience. Our time here will hold a special place in our memories for decades despite the seemingly tragic ending of graduation.

Like I said before my whole tangent, graduation shouldn’t scare us. Although we will no longer be plugged into the communal feeling here, life beyond the cap and gown is what we make of it. Or, as Wallace puts it, “You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.”

I don’t want to worship the “opposite of loneliness”—that feeling of being constantly surrounded and never alone.

It has its perks in undergrad—as anyone running into what-feels-like-a-hundred friends in Hillside can attest—but it is not the reason my BC experience was beautiful, and I imagine the same is true for you.

Worshiping something that is “not quite love and not quite community” is like eating only frozen dinners: It will get you through life, but you will never feel fulfilled. People who worship the “opposite of loneliness” collegiate experience turn into the pitiful BC alums who attempt to relive their glory days every tailgate season and alumni weekend.

No, the things that made my BC experience so amazing were those little personal moments not captured on an admission brochure or flashy BC promo video. It was that time I cried in front of 60 strangers on Kairos, or a long, solitary night in a Lyons practice room singing my heart out, or hearing about my professor’s new baby in office hours, or watching the sunrise over the Res after dancing all night with my best friends. These moments weren’t the “opposite of loneliness” like we feel in the middle of the Quad or at a football game, but love itself. And while we will no longer be surrounded by hundreds of acquaintances, it’s our post-grad choice to surround ourselves with close friends.

It’s our choice to seek love.

Class of 2018, our graduation isn’t a tragic ending. It’s an exciting opportunity to dive into the opposite of the opposite of loneliness, into the water which lies beyond. I wish us way more than luck.

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

Learning To Live With Gratitude Madeleine Hughes I’ve only been at the homeless shelter for 30 minutes when Sucre comes laughing and dancing down the halls. She wiggles her hips from side to side, throwing her arms in the air before settling into the chair next to me.

The biggest smile is plastered on my face as I ask,“What has you so fiery?”

Her words waltz around the room as tells me that the shelter decided to move her to a bigger room, one where she doesn’t have to worry about roommates that relieve themselves in the showers and spit threats at her across the hallways. She leads me down the fluorescently lit hall, peeling open the metal door to her new room, letting me peek inside.

The white paint peels off the cramped walls of a room that’s barely the size of a Boston College dorm— hardly enough space for a mom and two daughters. But in this moment, it doesn’t matter to Sucre, who bounces back down the hall, radiating energy.

When I first started volunteering at Margaret’s House, a homeless shelter for women in Dorchester, I would often leave at night feeling a weird mixture of sadness and pity for the women that stayed after the elevator doors slid shut behind me. Now, after spending a year at the shelter, I am constantly in awe of the women’s strength and gratitude for small joys in the face of unimaginable adversity.

Despite the fact that they struggle daily to find permanent housing, stable employment, and enough food to last the week, the women maintain

a positivity that people with privilege struggle to find.

As I ride in the van back to BC, I am amazed at how quickly my thoughts begin to rage, clouded by negativity. I’m often frustrated by the amount of school work I have to finish, pissed at the rain falling outside, and upset over some grade that, in the long run, doesn’t really matter. I neglect gratitude.

At BC, it’s all too easy for students’ worldviews to shrink to the size of the campus. We become caught up in the bubble of our own social problems, challenging classes, and evolving friendships. And while many of these issues and feelings are justified, we forget how lucky we are to take such amazing classes, create formative friendships, and empower our futures. As students, it is easy to become distanced from the problems of the real world and forget to put life into perspective.

Recently, I was helping out in the shelter store when Darah, a mom with two older kids, walked in, asking if we had any sheets for a twin sized bed.

I could see the excitement blooming across her face as she told me she just received her Section 8 voucher and would be moving into a new apartment that week. Her kids had never lived outside of a homeless shelter before.

I quickly rummaged through the bins, apologizing when I realized that all of the brightly patterned pairs were already gone—the store only had plain brown sheets left for sale. Darah only smiled, adding them to her bag and assuring me, “No worries honey, anything the shelter can give us is a gift from God.” Though they have every right to be bitter, these mothers, who have surmounted immense obstacles to

escape homelessness, still find space to be grateful in their daily lives.

Their power radiates through their insurmountable positivity and drive.

Every day they wake up, mustering the strength to face constant frustration, anxiety, PTSD, relationship violence, and vulnerability. When they return to the shelter, they relay stories of anger and hurt, yes, but they also pay attention to the good.

As finals approach at BC, and I leave my PULSE site, I worry that I, too, will lose touch with this kind of reality. The stress and anxiety becomes overwhelming. I often sit in the library listening to the pained chatter of students anticipating group projects, endless papers, and anticipating the stress of final tests. They stare at blank laptop screens and groan, “UGH, I’m gonna KMS.” I am just as guilty of this pessimism. All of us could learn a lesson or two about being thankful from the women at my PULSE site.

It is important to keep in mind that, while tests and grades are stressful and important, they do not define our lives. Whether we get the ideal grades we desire or not, BC students will move on to attain successful careers, form healthy families, and be positive leaders in a world fraught with suffering and pain.

Though study days and inevitable stress loom large, we have a responsibility to remember gratitude and pay attention to the friends, families, and bright futures we are lucky to have. It is important that we see the people we aspire to be—those considerate to creating a world full of compassion—and embody those future selves even in times of stress.

Madeleine Hughes 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.

Importance of a Hobby Jack Nelson

I think every athlete will tell you that the satisfaction they get from a big win, from a monster individual performance, from a game-changing play, will provide the sort of adrenaline high that you just can’t find anywhere else. But they will also tell you of the paralyzing loneliness that comes with blowing a game, the moment when everything was on the line, and you dropped the ball. I know this firsthand.

This year, I came in to close a game at Virginia, but allowed our two-run lead to slip away, watching the Cavaliers walk us off the field. I was miserable the entire trip home, I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, and I felt like no one wanted to talk to me. Mistakes happen and people make errors, I understand that, but that still doesn’t make them any easier.

It is in those moments of self-perceived uselessness, when only the cold reality of defeat and the relentless rigors of Boston College academic life keep you company, that all athletes (and I would extend this to all students) need some sort of other outlet to express themselves.

When all you think about is training and studying, eventually you’re going to snap.

Earlier this year all I really judged myself on was my performance in baseball and school, and I felt really hollow. If I had a bad outing, I had a bad day as a whole.

This column has given me the forum and opportunity to express my thoughts and hopefully tell relatable anecdotes. Every other week I am given a blank slate and let my thoughts flow onto the keyboard.

My teammate and roommate, John Witkowski, finds his release through painting. Life as a student-athlete is rigorously structured: we wake up, we go to lift, go to class, go to practice/game, do homework and study, and go to bed. In season, it seems like there is time for little else. Wit, a studio art minor, has told me that what he finds so appealing about the canvas is working in abstracts and using colors to represent different emotions. So much of life as an athlete is judged in black and white—did you produce or not? It’s refreshing to see a blank canvas and have nothing but possibility at your fingertips.

In a lot of ways, I think these escapes can help both athletic performance and academic life. As a starting pitcher, every game is entirely different. Of course the opponent is different and the weather always varies, but there are more minute aspects of a game that most fans don’t notice that make all the difference. For instance, your body never feels quite the same way every time out there, but it’s your job to work with what you have on any given day.

Similarly, the umpire may have a big strike zone, or he may have a microscopic strike zone, he may be consistent or inconsistent, and you can’t let that affect you. It is all a part of the artistic nature of the game.

Every situation is different, every day is different—just like writing a column, just like painting a picture.

I guess I’m trying to communicate two messages in this column. First, I think it’s important to view athletes beyond simply their success or failures on the field. It’s really easy to go to a BC basketball or football or hockey game and just see those competing as athletes, but they are all just normal BC students with outside interests.

For most, it is really satisfying to be viewed as more than just an athlete.

Second (and more importantly), I think I understand why having a good hobby is so important. It lets your mind drift briefly away from the structured world and be creative. Without being involved in sports or as many extracurricular activities, first year college students tend to fall into the doldrums and suffer academically. They are left with no outlet and are less productive because of it.

Mental health is such a buzzword nowadays, and for good reason. As the semester draws to a close and students prepare to spend the summer doing amazing things, I think it’s important for everyone to take some time and find something that intellectually stimulates them, makes them happy, and pursue that. After you decompress from finals, try something new, get uncomfortable.

If you just keep searching, I promise you’ll find what you’re looking for.

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

The Heights

A8

Monday, April 30, 2018

Two Students Promote Libraries and Literacy, Near and Far Moverman and Hebert share their stories of how Legacy Grants helped them build libraries for communities in need.

By Andrea Pita For The Heights Not everyone has the luxury of engaging in something as simple as reading a book.

While it may be difficult for people at an institute of higher education to believe, illiteracy is a problem that continues to plague communities around the world.

Boston College’s Legacy Grant Program has given students the opportunity to fight against social issues, like illiteracy, by granting up to $5,000 for the development of underprivileged communities. Two BC students, Daniel Moverman, MCAS ’18, and Tara Hebert, MCAS ’18, were determined to combat theses issues.

These two Legacy Grant recipients and pre-med BC seniors devoted great time and effort to developing libraries with literary and technological resources in Kenya and Massachusetts.

Moverman was born and raised in Easton, Mass., just south of Boston. He ran cross country and track during high school and during his first two years at BC. As a biology major pursuing a pre-med track, Moverman plans on attending medical school after graduating.

Initially, Moverman learned about the Legacy Grant through a mass email, which he almost moved into his trash bin. But he decided to open it.

Moverman received funding to construct the first public library within the Langas Slum in Kenya. The money went toward purchasing books, bookshelves, desks, and computers for the library. The library was an extension of the Pamoja Mentors Program, a non-profit organization in Eldoret, Kenya. In Swahili, “pamoja” means “together.” It serves as a mentorship program for the youth in the community.

“It seemed like a great opportunity for the project that my brother and I had begun,” he said.

Moverman’s brother, Michael, is the co-founder of the program, along with his fellow classmate from Duke University. He decided to found this organization because he wanted to give the underprivileged the same opportunity for great teachers and

education as he had experienced throughout his life.

Moverman is now the vice president of the organization.

“We try to focus on mentorship within the framework of education. We are trying to foster and help the reading culture in Kenya,” Moverman said.

There are four different sectors of the organization—the library, vocational school, school programs, and community programs.

The library was the main focus for Moverman. The summer after his freshman year at BC, he went to Eldoret, Kenya for the first time, having never been out of the United States for an extended period of time. During his visit, he participated in a two-week mentorship summer camp where he was in charge of 20 children, some of whom didn’t speak English fluently, which Moverman found nerve-wracking at times. In the end, however, he made strong connections with the children.

Moverman still sports bracelets that the children made him.

In Eldoret, Moverman was surprised by the extreme poverty and misfortune he saw, saying that it was extremely tough to see these realities. While he had seen such worldly conditions on TV, he admits that it was not until he saw with his own eyes and interacted with the individuals that reality really sunk in.

Toward the end of the two weeks, other mentors in the community approached Moverman and his brother about starting a new relief project within the Langas Slums, where the greatest help was needed.

One of these mentors was Lameck, who currently serves as the program leader in Kenya. Lameck grew up in the Langas Slums and is now a prominent leader, teacher, and “motivator” within his community. “[He] really wanted to be involved in something that was long-lasting,” Moverman said.

Moverman and his brother were already brainstorming ways to expand their work in Kenya when they returned to the United States, and the Legacy Grant was a perfect opportunity to gain the resources they needed. The pair dedicated hours of time

and effort to completing the application and was sure that the committee would understand its goal. Come fall of Moverman’s sophomore year, however, they did not receive a call for an interview.

This initial setback did not stop them.

The following year, they applied again, received an interview, and got the grant.

At first, they intended to use the money to help bring leaders and teachers into the community for the summer camp. Instead, Lameck helped shape their goals into more long-term projects that could have a lasting impact on the Langas Slums.

In the slum there were no libraries, so they decided to build the first public library.

Most individuals in the community did not have the economic means to attend school or buy books. Building a library would give the community access to education and leadership, and keep children off the streets and away from drugs.

The library contains both academic and fiction books, and has four desktop computers along with internet access.

“The library is kind of the cornerstone of what we do,” Moverman said.

He believes that without the library, the Pemoja Mentors Program might not be active today.

Moverman was surprised by how many people attended the library. The kids were motivated to learn. Moverman said that there were 12-year-olds who would even walk a couple of miles to spend the day at the library.

“They were very friendly kids that have a thirst for learning,” he said.

In the future, the program will focus on further developing the library as well as the vocational school. Within the vocational school, they are currently running a sixmonth pilot program on graphic design.

It is taught within the library, using the computers funded by the grant.

After his time working in Kenya, Moverman has been inspired to work with Doctors without Borders to help underprivileged communities meet medical needs.

Closer to home, Tara Hebert built a library right here in Massachusetts upon receiving the Legacy Grant.

Sam Zhai / Heights staff

Moverman (left) plans to attend medical school after BC, and Hebert (right) plans to get a master’s degree in public health.

Like Moverman, she was completely unaware of the Legacy Grant program at BC until she came across a mass email during her sophomore year. Spontaneously, she decided to apply while binging Grey’s Anatomy in bed.

Hebert volunteered at St. Mary’s Center for Women and Children through BC’s PULSE program. There, she worked closely with the Margaret’s House floor, where there were about 36 families of mothers and their children.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, she would interact with the children through activities such as homework, baking, outdoors playground time, and other exciting activities including holiday festivities.

She also helped manage a boutique within the community that would distribute donated clothes to the members of the community who would complete all of their communal duties.

Hebert strongly believed that a library would be a great addition to the center. She noted the need for books and computers so that the children could get their daily dose of reading. Hebert believed it could be useful for after-school activities with the children.

Hebert wanted to provide the children with stimulating and exciting reading material rather than the often damaged, donated books that no one really wants.

Since most mothers are immigrants who are not fluent in English, she saw low literacy rates as detrimental to the community’s development. Hebert adamantly believes that reading is constructive to the lives and education of children from an early age, especially at bedtime, as it was for her growing up. Reading is now an integral part of her life from day to day.

“I am hoping that it encourages a lifelong love of reading,” Hebert said.

Reading was encouraged by her parents, which fostered in her a personal love of literature. Similarly, the children expressed a deep-rooted desire for reading so Hebert wanted to provide them with the necessary tools to do so, within a productive environment.

“In reality, I’m hoping it just exposes them to literature earlier … so many of those kids are still so young, so being exposed to it at an early age before they enter school can have a really positive outcome on educational attainment,” Hebert said.

She received her first grant during her sophomore year, with which she created a library within the Margaret’s House community.

“It was about setting up a sustainable space for a library,” she said.

Hebert was shocked that she actually received this grant because of some mishaps that occurred during her interview as well as the fact that she was an underclassman.

After getting it, she was able to set up bookshelves filled with rich reading material for the children in both English and Spanish.

“I made sure to get Harry Potter and things that you looked fondly back on,” she said enthusiastically.

After completing the library, Hebert was still dissatisfied with the resources in the community. Technological resources were lacking. People only had access to one computer which was not nearly enough for 36 mothers to take full use of it.

One of Hebert’s most memorable interactions was with a young mother she grew close with during her service at Margaret’s House. The mother hoped to study hospitality, but she needed to apply for the SAT first. She was given a fee waiver, but by the time the computer was finally available for use, the voucher had expired. Her opportunity was hindered by the lack of accessible technology.

Following her first Legacy Grant, she became very involved with the Legacy Grant program. Hebert was in charge of sending emails and keeping the community informed about Legacy Grant opportunities through information sessions.

While Hebert was unable to visit Margaret’s House as often after completing the PULSE program, she was inspired to continue helping this community. So she met with the directors of Margaret’s House to see what could be done about the technology situation.

After reaching a consensus on the critical need for technology in the community, Hebert was able to receive her second grant this past summer. So “Margaret’s House Technological Literacy Initiative” was established, said Hebert.

This initiative provided Margaret’s House with four computers, a laptop, and a projector, and itincluded equipping them with software programs such as Microsoft Word. These resources play a large part alongside the library to promote educational development.

The role of PULSE student volunteers each semester is to make sure that the library and all of its resources are properly utilized as well as to guarantee access. The space is also intended for class use. “[It was] meant to be a sustainable way that they could continue to teach, but also provide access to these tools,” Hebert said.

She describes her interactions with the families as extremely enriching and “positive.” She enjoyed seeing their joyful responses to activities such as face painting for Halloween and egg hunts for Easter. Laughing, she admitted that her only complaint while interacting with the children is that they always got her sick.

The value of her experience, however, completely surpassed the insignificant downside of getting a cold.

“Recognizing and being able to see that they are taking something that I thought would be so useful and that I saw a need for and really transforming it to meet their needs, I think is really cool,” Hebert said. n

Straight From the West Coast, Tender Greens Comes to Boston The Calif.-based restaurant opened its second East Coast location in Chestnut Hill, with plans to open downtown soon.

By Mary Wilkie Opinions Editor It has only been there for three weeks, but you would never know that Tender Greens is new to The Street at Chestnut Hill. With nearly 30 locations, the California-based company is relatively new to the East Coast, having just opened in New York a few months ago. The restaurant has a base menu that is basically the same for all locations, although there are some minor differences between the east and west coasts because of the different products available in these regions.

Every day, each restaurant serves two unique specials, designed by its executive chef, that can be anything the chef wants.

Todd Renner, the executive chef at Chestnut Hill and regional chef for the East Coast, enjoys creating dishes inspired by southern Italy, having studied regional Italian cuisine.

Coming from San Diego, he also takes significant influence from Mexican cuisine that he grew up around.

Tender Greens encourages its kitchen staff to improve their skills and learn new ones regardless of what position they start out from. Chefs often rise through the ranks, perfecting one skill before they advance to a higher position. As the company continues to grow, classically-trained chefs are often pursued by a recruiting team to teach the foundations that their staff needs to learn.

Even now, as the regional chef, Renner doesn’t find himself out of the kitchen any more than he would otherwise be if he were

only the executive chef. He might not be the one directly putting the dishes together, but he’s often in the kitchen teaching his chefs proper technique so that they can grow and advance to get to wherever they want to be. The goal is for every kitchen to be thoughtful, attentive to detail, and “ultrasupportive”, according to Renner.

“I’m just as passionate about teaching as I am about cooking, and they’re symbiotic is so many ways,” Renner said. “It’s just awesome and different, and I’m happy to do both.”

As a kid, Renner wanted to be a restaurateur, which he still hopes to be some time in the future. Having worked as a pastry chef and an executive chef at a few restaurants, he has now stepped into a regional position for Tender Greens. Four years ago, Renner was a chef at a gastropub in San Diego. The restaurant outsourced its salami from a company whose owner was also the regional chef for Tender Greens in San Diego at that time. An opportunity arose at a Tender Greens, and one thing led to another: Renner became the executive chef for the San Diego kitchen. A year and a half later, he was relocated to San Francisco, and six weeks ago found himself in Boston as the new regional chef.

Although moving from California to Boston could be an astronomical shift in anyone’s life, Renner is thrilled to be on the East Coast. Not only has this position allowed him to advance in the ranks of the company, but, as a regional chef in a new area, he embraces the challenge to market

a company largely unknown to the region as an opportunity to prove himself capable of succeeding in such a high managerial position.

Until very recently, Tender Greens restaurants were only in California: Two months ago, its first location on the East Coast opened in New York. Now, with the additional Chestnut Hill location up and running and one in downtown Boston in the works, the company is expanding quickly. Renner won’t just be supervising the operations of previously established restaurants, but he’ll also be overseeing the launches of various restaurants in the area, such as the Chestnut Hill and downtown Boston locations.

Visitors to The Street at Chestnut Hill have quickly taken a liking to Tender Greens—the restaurant has already gained regular visitors and positive feedback from the community. Considering the other businesses around—including LuluLemon, Barry’s Bootcamp, and Legal Seafood—The Street is a fitting place for the restaurant to be located. Many of these companies have partnered with Tender Greens in the past, due to each drawing similar customers and values. Most of these businesses take pride in providing trendy and fresh products for their customers—from athletic apparel, to trendy workouts, to local ingredients—Tender Greens is no different. Although it does have to outsource a lot of its ingredients from warmer regions during the winter, it relies on many local producers to provide only the freshest ingredients for their

Mary Wilkie / Heights Editor

Tender Greens in Chestnut Hill has been open for three weeks and already has regulars. dishes. For such a casual restaurant, the kitchen presents these exceptionally fresh elements are presented very elegantly. The most popular dishes so far have been the steak plate and the chipotle chicken salad.

Compared to the downtown locations at which Renner has previously worked, the crowd in Chestnut Hill is different, which contributes to this location’s individuality.

While downtown San Francisco and San Diego both experienced a diverse influx of customers—most of whom desired a quick meal during their lunch breaks—Chestnut Hill brings forth many families, students, and shoppers who aren’t opposed to sticking around the restaurant for a bit after they finish eating. Todd explained the unique atmospheres that really come through at each individual restaurant by zooming in on the variety just within the San Francisco area:

Palo Alto caters to a young college-aged crowd, the downtown location next to the tech industries calls for a quick and casual lunch destination, and the Tender Greens down the block from AT&T Park has adopted a comfortable atmosphere appropriate for a restaurant so near a ballpark.

In order to encourage its customers to linger and enjoy the food at Tender Greens, the Chestnut Hill location has uniquely implemented the use of trackers in its service.

The customers don’t have to worry: Their dishes will be brought to their tables. The chefs have truly been utilizing their large kitchen space as they fine-tune the menu items in these opening weeks. “[This] is fun for me,” Renner said. “From a chef’s perspective, it only means that they can enjoy things more and really get to geek out on what we do here.” n

ARTS FEST

B1

BC ’S BEST B6

PETER AND THE STARCATCHER B6

POPULAR STYLES ENSEMBLE B2

A WARD CEREMONY B5

MONDAY, APRIL 30th, 2018

THE HEIGHTS | APRIL 30, 2018

2 | ARTS FEST

‘After Hours’ Acts as Late Night Theater ‘Stylus’

By Tristan St. Germain Heights Staff After Hours Theatre has its title for a reason. More like an informal gathering of loose acquaintances and interested passersby, the student-written performances put on Friday night from 11 to midnight showcased the ingenuity of time and money-strapped theatre majors, whose uproarious skits incited crowd participation.

From angsty teenagers to feuding roommates, After Hours Theatre covered the whole spectrum of Boston College personalities.

The night’s first skit involved a legion of depressive misanthropes seeking the company of other anti-socialites. The story begins when a newcomer asks to join this elitist society on the basis that she’s miserable like the rest of them. As the other members put it, “Misery loves company”—an oft quoted remark that, on multiple occasions, sent the audience into an uproar. Quick to jump on any opportunistic dreariness, the club has her recite an oath declaring all the despairful things to which she’ll devote herself.

When it comes time to decide which topics to discuss, however, things get a little contentious. The ponytail kid, always equipped with a dastardly vape he blows in people’s faces, wants to talk about an appar-

ently recurring theme—that is, spiders.

His daily itinerary of the mundane tasks with which he’s burdened is both hilarious and dramatic: waking up “early” at 1 in the afternoon to stare at the ceiling for an hour, contemplating life’s futility, watering the cactus, and hiding the Juul of someone named Dan Lotte.

But the new inductee takes offense at his sensitivity. What’s a spider bite compared to losing a relationship?

The other members get involved once the meaning of true misery comes into question. Wouldn’t having ever loved constitute some form of happiness, destructive of the club’s very structure? Among the skit’s many highlights was the ponytail kid’s perfect communication of the grief-stricken melodrama common to darkly clad hipsterdom.

His poetry—broadcasted into the audience with a powerfully articulated poignance—drew explosions of laughter, especially when he is kicked out of the club for confessing he is in a relationship.

The next skit, titled “Emergency Exit,” made ingenious use of a simple prop: an exit door. “What kind of drama can a door provide?” you may ask.

When a mall employee tries to leave through his usual route and is stopped by a preppy passerby (and casual neurotic), conflict soon en-

sues. Under the chance event that this emergency exit might set off an alarm, and thus cause the mall’s food court to release him and the children to abandon their posts at BuildA-Bear—an apparently traumatic childhood memory—he cannot risk letting his foe pass.

A conflict soon erupts, where the mall worker comically attempts drawing his attention away from the exit, but to no avail. The tension and bursts of aggravation were timed perfectly, lending to ridiculous slapstick battles full of kung-fu poses and Stooges-esque hair-pulling. The arbitrariness of the situation created an intense engagement in the stakes of these petty missions for self-glorification—even over something as picayune as exits.

After an interloper stops the fighting, the two enemies decide to grab coffee—a well-planned finale that sent the intoxicated crowd into peak fervor.

By the third skit, this audience was indeed in no mood to stay quiet.

Repeated interruptions, appraisals, and snide comments had engendered an atmosphere of absolute anarchy.After an exclamatory announcement from the playwright herself, the troupe plunged into its final skit, which revolved around two feuding roommates whose issues extend beyond mere miscommunication. One can’t stand her obnoxious roommate, who always has guys over

but complains when she speaks to a single friend. At such a moment, the antagonist appears, bombarding the casually chilling couple with a series of assaults and accusations— primarily, asking them why they had deliberately drunk her orange juice.

Even greater issues emerge when it’s revealed that this practitioner of the unpleasant is seemingly unaware of her own overbearingness.

The evening ended with a sudden entrance by the seniors, who stormed the stage as the audience chanted their appraisal.

The hosts, dressed in matching dress shirts of equally drab color, introduced the seniors on opposing teams—the heroes and villains— each bearing a distinct comedic personality that was more sincerely frivolous than fraught with the oft-times forced fraternal sentiment.

A laid-back and barely serious set of introductions paved the way for raunchy improvised antics, such as throwing beer on the face of an opponent, exuberant dance exercises, and more.

Though much of the humor seemed self-referential—as in, you had to be acquainted with the performers to really get the meaning of their jokes—the event nonetheless had a laid-back and engaging vibe, providing the perfect stage for a (perhaps improper) goodbye from the most soon-to-be theatrical departees of BC. n

‘Two Islands’ Documents Immigrant Crisis

By Tristan St. Germain Heights Staff Tattered shirts hang along clotheslines connected to chain link fences. Shoeless children, coming from trailer-sized compartments that hold families of eight or more, play around burning trash piles and seemingly endless dumps of some other society’s discarded detritus.

These are not the first images one associates with Athens, the home of Plato and Western civilization.

Nonetheless, it is a harsh reality bearing on Greece both economically and culturally. On Friday, Boston College students Marilyn Smith, CSOM ’18, and Angelos Bougas, MCAS ’21, presented their 30-minute documentary on the refugee crisis in Greece, Two Islands. Drawing from the lives of Greek teachers, homeowners, and politicians, as well as Afghan refugees, Two Islands is a masterful feat of international social justice.

Since 2015, over 175,000 migrants have fled their wartorn homes of Syria and Afghanistan. For Greece’s Kos Island, the influx of these migrants created serious economic pressures. As Lefteris Papagianna-

kis, the island’s mayor, explained, even well-organized countries in Europe like Germany faced troubles absorbing immigrants from the Middle East. “It’s a matter of management,” Papagiannakis said, “[As the biggest municipality], we’ll chip in a lot.” But management might be more difficult for Greece than it is for other countries. When the EU set up a series of NGOs to fund centers for refugees, the Greek government could only prove the legality of the organizations through Facebook. It is no surprise that officials would want to use such international relief foundations as machines for profit. At the time of filming, Greece had entered the ninth year of its economic downturn, one that had pinched Kos significantly, as its tourism industry (which accounts for 90 percent of all the island’s income) continued waning.

But as Two Islands displayed magnificently, the community was doing its best to facilitate the transition process for many people in distress. Greek homeowner Eleni described waking up each morning to see the beaches all yellow, full of life jackets discarded by incoming migrants. Feeling the need to assist some of the children who lived

in such impoverished areas as the “Moria Asylum Center”, which is described by many anonymous inmates as a prison or confinement center, Eleni fixed her house to accomodate for 32 immigrant children.

They were children who had lost their arms, who had lost their families, who had been traumatized by overwork and “bad stays” in Turkey.

Eleni noted the progress made by her new family members as they opened up to her and began playing as kids often do, regardless of environment or circumstance.

Such spiritedness and optimism was indeed inspiring for Sayed Hamed Mosawi, an Afghan English teacher who left his home country after his town was taken by the Taliban in 2016. It became too “risky and dangerous” to continue his profession. “I was serving the society, my people, to be able to make their future,” said Mosawi, describing his lifelong passion to teach English. But the Taliban had a “different mentality.” “They thought I was making [Afghan children] ready to work for the Americans.” The tedious process of seeking asylum in Greece caused Mosawi great fear and strain. To ward off homesickness and other

emotional burdens, Mosawi took up jump-roping, an activity the documentary covered in length—showing his leaping body among the otherwise impoverished and prison-like background of Moria Asylum.

Smith and Bougas also reached out to an elementary school teacher who had taught and cared for many Syrian and Afghan refugee children during the past year and a half. She taught her new pupils, many of whom could obviously not speak Greek, through facial expressions, hand movements, and body gestures.

For her, the Greek economic crisis and war in the Middle East were one and the same problem. In a poignant ending scene, she pleaded to the viewer to “please stop the war” so that such children and their families could flourish in whatever environment they decide to settle.

Mayor Papagiannakis voiced similar sentiments, saying that immigration had happened since the beginning of history and that Greece must look to countries like America, which is a model country that was built of migrants. “[We must] have [an] open mind, start seeing things differently, and stop being afraid.” n

Little Saturday Embodies ‘Popular Styles’

By Abby Hunt Copy Editor Little Saturday, the Boston College band that has made a name for itself by performing all over campus and in Boston, played this Thursday afternoon in Arts Fest’s O’Neill Plaza tent as the “Popular Styles Ensemble”—the name of the zero-credit BC course through which the band originally formed. The band consists of members from all four class years: Zachary Pugliares, MCAS ’19; Alexander Eichler, MCAS ’20; Peter Toronto, MCAS ’20; Isaiah Rawlinson, MCAS ’18; Andrew Hammond, MCAS ’18; and Zachary Moelchert, CSOM ’21.

The group, whose style—as Eichler has described it—is a mix of “rock, pop, funk, jazz, and fusion,” opened with a couple of instrumental pieces that showcased the members’ incredible musical talents with a lively mix of drums, saxophone, bass, keyboard, and electric guitar. Following these instrumentals was “Running,” one of the two singles released by the band so far, which the group performed with an building intensity until a perfectly synchronized dramatic pause—before kicking in to a final chorus of “I feel it running, running down my sleeve / The breath I take keeps

me warm.”

Following “Running” was another original instrumental: “Lemonade.” While showcasing Rawlinson’s smooth and jazzy saxophone melodies on top of repetitive bass riffs, “Lemonade” demonstrated the band members’ incredible ability to mesh their individual instrumental parts together into one cohesive, professional-sounding piece.

For its final song, Little Saturday announced—to the delight of the audience— that it would be doing a Beyoncé cover.

The band’s cover of “Crazy in Love,” which it initially debuted at the Music Guild’s Winter Showcase back in February, started out soft with a sweet vocal performance

by Toronto—who not only sang, but performed incredible guitar work for the song as well—and eventually built into an energized, rock-and-roll-style take on the 2003 hit. Audience members couldn’t resist bouncing their heads and tapping their feet to the the band’s unique take on the pop classic, and students passing by the tent on the way to class couldn’t help but walk to the beat.

Overall, the set gave the talented band another chance to showcase its unique style to a BC audience—all while clearly having a lot of fun with the performance. n

CELINE LIM / HEIGHTS STAFF

CELINE LIM / HEIGHTS STAFF

Little Saturday shows off their unique sound at the ‘Popular Styles’ event Thursday.

Launch

By Jacob Schick Arts Editor

Stylus, the literary magazine of Boston College, used this year’s Arts Fest to celebrate the launch of its spring 2018 issue. In a large room in Stokes Hall, the editorial board of Stylus provided all comers with pizza, a copy of the new issue, and the chance to listen to some very impressive poetry being read in front of a large slideshow of various pieces of art featured in the magazine.

Garbed in a mottled black-and-white canvas-like paper, this issue of Stylus has linked the material it uses to cover the front and back of the booklet to the nature of the art that is hidden within. Most of the launch event was composed of the various student poets featured in Stylus reading their poems aloud.

The first poem was “Relics,” by Kelsey Connors, MCAS ’18. This poem is divided into four parts, in which Connors focuses on different types of “relics” as she classifies them. This was quickly followed by another of Connors’s poems, “Far More than Rubies.” In this poem, Connors alternates between the primary voice of the narrator and the italicized asides that interrupt the poem at various points. Many people forget that poetry was originally an oral medium. Ancient bards told history in lyric and verse with their voices alone. Poetry is now regarded as primarily a written art form, but there is something incredibly moving about listening to poetry aloud.

Long gone are the days in which Seamus Connolly, Robert Frost, or Robert Lowell would go on speaking tours to read their poetry to packed lecture halls—some even at BC. Now, when people experience poetry, if at all, it is in a book. To hear poems read aloud, and especially to hear them read aloud by the people who actually wrote them, is a lost art resurrected by the members of Stylus at their spring launch. The evening continued with Kim Chook’s, MCAS ’18, reading of her poem, “4/7/17 Berlin.” In this poem, Chook pens a love letter to the raw and natural nature of the city of Berlin.

Halfway through the launch, Stylus featured an a cappella song by The Common Tones of BC. Seven members of the group gathered in a half circle at the front of the room for two quick songs in between sets of poems. The group began with a soulful version of “Forget You”

by Cee Lo Green. This song truly shines, more so than the original version by Green, through a cappella. It feels much more genuine—the original only feels real when Green swears, instead of censoring himself for a clean version—as if the song was written this way. The Common Tones finished the brief performance with “Chandelier” by Sia. Again, this song felt much more real and more genuine when sung by The Common Tones and not by the original artist.

After this brief but sonorous interlude, Stylus returned for more poetry readings. Sarah Santoro, CSOM ’20, introduced her poem, “Daughters of the South,” saying that she herself was from the southern United States and that this poem was about things that people from Connecticut or New Jersey might not understand or realize. The first verse of this poem does a very good job at explaining the general theme: “Born with apologies on your tongue / That fill your mouth like mounds of gauze / Blocking your song before it begins.” Other highlights of the launch included readings from Harry Hoy, MCAS ’19. The first was “Dear Dad,” in which Hoy speaks to his father about the little and yet important mundanities of life. He then read a haiku that wasn’t featured in Stylus, and he finished off the evening with a poem called “Dendrochronology,” which was also not featured in the literary magazine. He encouraged everyone at the event to look up the title of the poem to understand what it meant—the process of dating events using the rings on trees. n

APRIL 30, 2018 | THE HEIGHTS

ARTS FEST | 3

Finney, Chorale Welcome Spring With Song

By Jacob Schick Arts Editor The University Chorale of Boston College, under the direction of John Finney, helped to ring in Arts Fest 2018 on Thursday—the first day of the event series. The Chorale, a mixed-gender choir of 140 people, packed the stage in O’Neill Plaza’s tent. Accompanied by incredible musician Darryl Hollister, the Chorale sent their voices soaring across BC’s Middle Campus.

After a brief introduction, the Chorale got right to it. The choir would be performing pieces it had perfected and performed throughout their entire concert season over the course of the academic year.

Some of these pieces had been recently performed in Europe, during the Chorale’s annual spring vacation tour. Audience members who had seen performances by the University Chorale settled in for yet another stellar concert full of perfectly-held highs and lows.

It began the performance with “Tollite Hostias,” a piece that makes up the final movement in Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de Noël, and swiftly transitioned to “Exsultate justi,” a piece composed by Ludovico da Viadana.

Listening to these two pieces, along with the following “Beati quroum via” by Charles Villier Stanford, the

raw singing talent of the Chorale becomes immediately clear.

These three pieces are all sung in Latin, and therefore are not readily understood by most people in the audience.

This may sound like a drawback for the performance, but it instead works in Finney and the Chorale’s favor.

Instead of paying attention to the lyrics and their meaning, the audience can simply let the powerful and rich vocals wash over them. In doing so, the intricate interplay between the different sections of the Chorale is impressive.

Higher and deeper voices weave together, playing off of each other and responding, back and forth.

Finney then led the Chorale into three excerpts from Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai.

These excerpts are “Gloria,” “Sanctus & Benedictus,” and “Agnus Dei.” Each of these excerpts are stunningly beautiful.

They are, of course, incredibly composed by Haydn, but they are expertly directed by Finney and sung by the Chorale.

Sitting in the rows and rows of fold-up chairs that make up the audience section of the tent, it was clear that the members of the Chorale were flexing their vocal muscles, and the group seemed to enjoy performing these legendary pieces.

“O Fortuna” played out along the same lines, as the Chorale excelled in their famous classic piece.

The Chorale wrapped up their performance with two songs that weren’t in Latin. They were the African spiritual—a song the group

performed in Europe—“Every Time I Feel the Spirit” and the immensely famous and popular “The Circle of Life” from The Lion King.

These two songs were a perfect finale to the Arts Fest event.

The lyrics of the spiritual are

moving and powerful, while “The Circle of Life” shines with the full accompaniment of the 140 person choir. This performance provided a great survey of the Chorale’s work this year, giving audiences a desire to see more from them in the fall. n

University Chorale performed a survey of their best songs from the past concert season on Thursday.

JACOB SCHICK / HEIGHTS EDITOR

‘Laughing Medusa’ Spring Launch

By Kaylie Ramirez Assoc. Arts Editor

CELINE LIM / HEIGHTS STAFF

Duos Play Chamber Classics

By Emily Himes Asst. Arts Editor The Boston College Chamber Music Society, directed by Sandra Hebert, performed four pieces during its concert at Arts Fest. The event focused on duos of either two violinists or a violinist and a pianist.

The first piece, Beethoven’s “Sonata in A Major, op. 30, No. 1,” was played by Elizabeth Allen, MCAS ’21, on the violin and Alexis Wisdom, MCAS ’21, on the piano. They performed the sonata with an impressive mastery of the music.

The trance-inducing, rolling piano parts were smooth, seemingly conversing with and responding to the violin parts. The ending of the sonata was jubilant, as the tension that had built up throughout was

resolved.

Next, Annie Kim, MCAS ’18, and Gabriel Valle, MCAS ’20, both played violins in a contemporary piece by by Whitman Brown called “Five Short Pieces for Two Violins.” Written this year, Brown’s piece does not sound like typical classical music. Kim started out by plucking the strings on her violin, making an unusual sound that was both intriguing and strange. Valle followed in her lead. As the title suggests, the composition was made of five separate pieces. The pauses between each felt strange, but also created a greater suspense within the performance, as the audience did not know what was coming next.

The third piece was “Scherzo in C Minor” by Johannes Brahms. It featured Kim on the violin and Hebert on the pia-

no. The piece was faster and flowed more than the previous two. It was intensely suspenseful at times and smooth and flowing at others. This piece was easily the most engaging and interesting to listen to.

Lastly, Kim, Valle, and Herbert played Bach’s “Concerto for two violins in D Minor, BWV 1043.” The three-part concerto was composed of Vivace, Largo ma non tanto, and Allegro.

The Vivace part was upbeat, lively, and flowing. “Largo ma non tanto” was slower, sad sounding, and seemingly longer. The Allegro ending was jubilant, faster, and happy. This performance was particularly impressive not only because of the mastery of the music, but also the length of the concerto, which easily lasted more than 15 minutes. n

Creativity Decks Stokes Tent

By Caleb Griego Heights Senior Staff When walking around Boston College or elsewhere in this world, one may be struck with one idea, while someone else fixates on another. Art is the best lens to explore these differences. On a snowy winter’s day, one may be struck with the clean, surreal white of the snowfall. Another may be captivated by the shadows of the falling flakes as they flutter silently to the ground. The Art Club’s community exhibit explored subtle differences like these and more at this year’s Arts Fest.

“Roots” by Shirley Lin, MCAS ’20, adopts an almost Lovecraftian look in the compelling acrylic painting. An indiscernible, eerie quality sweeps over the piece as it depicts what appear to be roots jettisoning upward out of a green void.

Around this green abyss of tendrils, rocks, and wooden objects frame the rest of the painting. The piece is otherworldly, eliciting feeling of intrigue and uneasiness as one wonders from what place in time the image hails.

A photo series by Shan Z. Rizwan,

MCAS ’21, documents various scenes around BC’s campus. One, “Gasson Hall in Yellow,” is a quintessential Gasson shot that is made harrowing through what appears to be a yellowish filter. The sky is made bleak and imposing around the already heavy gaze of the tower. Two other pieces, “In the Snowstorm” and “Trudging through the Snow,” capture wistful snowy days on campus. The depth of the Stokes Quad is beautifully illustrated in “Trudging” as one single figure is seen deep within the frame, roaming through an abandoned snowy walkway. The bluish haze dominating the picture evokes a solemn notion of isolation in a place we have all seen overflowing with bodies and backpacks.

The oil paintings series Essentials by Alli Urbon, CSOM ’18, depict a slew of objects many girls at BC would not be seen without, including boots, nail polish, a Starbucks coffee, and a BC hat. All the paintings are dominated by the color purple, which seems to unify them in theme.

Though each piece had a different purpose, the common color seems to suggests that the sum of the parts is greater than the

whole as we pull ourselves together each day.

The photo works of Kate Mahoney, MCAS ’20, are separate, but equally compelling works. “Faces” stitches several photos of facial features together to create one unified visage. The amalgam, though clearly a patchwork individual, is not all that unsightly, suggesting that, even in our differences, we are more alike than not.

“Ring Pop,” depicting Mahoney herself, shows her in the streets with a red ring pop on her hand, as she lowers equally rouge glasses from the bridge of her nose.

The relatively neutral colors elsewhere in the photo, including her own blackand-white clothes, draw attention to the vibrant color and make for a captivating photo that knows how to attract attention.

The whole of the exhibit was a marvelous show of talent from those within the community, but moreover, it highlighted the value of perspective. The different lenses create and capture different things.

Whether through paint on canvas, or a duly timed photo, how someone is looking at the world matters far more than the world itself. n

The hot Boston sun beat down on the audience through the translucent panels of the tent on Stokes Lawn as the women behind The Laughing Medusa illuminated the works of its latest magazine edition. Bailey Flynn, editor-in-chief and MCAS ’18, welcomed guests to the magazine’s poetry reading and detailed the magazine’s success this year, which included a feature in The Heights, the launch of the publication’s website, and the most submissions the publication has ever received.

Erica Macri, MCAS ’20, was first to take the stage to read her poem “Lilith.”

The poem discussed the Biblical tale of Lilith as the poet pondered, “free Lilith, were you forced to breach / Eden’s gates—or did they beg you to leave?” The female artist read the eloquent poem with a distinct intensity in her voice.

Margherita Bassi, MCAS ’20, read two of her original poems, “Of My Likeness” and “Paper Boats.” The first was apologetic in tone and earned loud snaps from the audience, while the second focused on a man selling jewelry in Rishikesh, India.

Taylor Puccini, CSOM ’19, read two poems as well, “Loneliness, or dreaming” and “Learning How To Mother.”

The first slipped into the realm between sleep and wake, basking in the ethereal temptation of a “honey dream.” Puccini then read a poem about following the example in her mother but hardly succeeding, left with one dead plant the speaker failed to nurture.

Ji-Won Ha, MCAS ’21, stepped in to read poems by council member Sonja Goldman, LSOE ’19, who recently had surgery and could not be present for the event. Goldman’s “love leaving your body” endowed teardrops with a creative new title, while “Shoshone, Idaho” depicted a young girl’s first brush with smoking and the resulting anguish for innocence lost.

Opting to read older work as well as pieces from the latest Laughing Medusa release, Claire Kramer, LSOE ’18, read three poems: “Dancing in the Dark,” “Gravel Roads,” and “Around Me.” The first recalled a warm friendship “torn from” the speaker, while “Gravel Roads” offered a recollection of a bumpy car ride. “Around Me,” a piece from the publication’s most recent magazine, focused on the small details of life that can demonstrate the passing of time.

Rose Dornon, LSOE ’20, read the poetry of council member Kate Oksen, MCAS ’19. The speaker told the story of a frail, flea-ridden dog getting a bath during “siphonaptera vs. bath.” The frustrated speaker proclaimed, “they’re so

f—king small but they could take me to the ground.” Oksen’s “SIXTY-SIX PERCENT JUICE” detailed the significance of different digits and earned a laugh from the crowd when Dornon read the first line: “if a juice box is only 66 percent juice what the hell is the other 34 percent?”

Julia Nagle, MCAS ’20, presented “Thanks,” “Optics,” and “Ode to the Vacuum.” The first was a dramatic piece that detailed a dad’s reluctance to say “thanks,” a word “He never let past his lips. / Or if he did, / he spat it.” “Optics” discussed a “twisted” self image, while “Ode to the Vacuum” detailed a young girl’s love for the cleaning tool.

“Little Voyager” and “Variegated” were written and read by Christin Snyder, MCAS ’20. The first commented on the loneliness of “Voyager 1, which won’t meet another celestial body for 40,000 years.” “Variegated,” meanwhile, detailed a girl’s visit to the optometrist.

Maggie McQuade, MCAS ’20, read the works of Jordan Tessler, MCAS ’19.

“If Words Could Paint a Woman” included a collection of imaginative phrases that describe a loving mother and fascinating teacher, while “Tumbleweeds” compared “Wind Witches” to girls who are “pushed outside” to find a bad man.

Emma Winters, MCAS ’18, read “Water,” a poem about the speaker’s different notable encounters with water at a beach, on a bank, and near a pond. “I Don’t Have A Valentine This Year” was a commentary on hookup culture that compared the feelings involved with a sexual encounter to an illness.

Flynn took the stage to read her poetry for the last time as editor-in-chief.

The speaker read “Before The Bombs Come,” a powerful poem that discussed love as a solace for the speaker who lives through war with the lines: “How you will make the daily sirens into a song, / and we will dance in the kitchen / while the city wails for cover.”

The last presenter, Celia Smithmier, MCAS ’20, closed the poetry reading with “bacteria” and “common sense.” “bacteria” painted a picture of a time-telling blackbird in New Orleans, while “common sense” recalled the speaker’s grandfather’s jar of common sense and “delusion[al]” ideals that “God was a lie made for a rich, / but art was a truth made for the poor.”

To close the hour of poetry, Flynn took the stage one last time to thank everyone for attending the event and to introduce Puccini as the new editor-in-chief of The Laughing Medusa.

Flynn expressed the gratitude the artists felt for the audience.“A lot of times writing can be a very solitary activity, but we want to make that space kind of physical,” Flynn said. n

4 | ARTS FEST

THE HEIGHTS | APRIL 30, 2018

Imani Sings God’s Praises

By Jacob Schick Arts Editor

KAYLIE RAMIREZ / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Artist Reconciles Faith and Work

By Kaylie Ramirez Assoc. Arts Editor Contemporary Jewish artist Ben Schachter highlighted the tension between Jewish beliefs and artistic endeavors at his talk, entitled Becoming a Jewish Artist: What is Gained? What is Lost? Schachter, who is a professor of visual art at Saint Vincent College and the author of the 2017 book Image, Action, and Idea in Contemporary Jewish Art, first discussed his early exposure to art: Pollock’s “Number 1” painting at the New York Museum of Modern Art piqued young Schachter’s interest in art and planted the seed for inquisition into what constitutes creative work. By exploring the works of other Jewish artists, including Allan Kaprow, Schachter introduced the concept of action in art, a concept that would come to define his art later in life.

Schachter then turned the Torah’s second commandment, which prohibits idolatry and has been interpreted to include the creation of representative art. Schachter, however, looked to the definition of work to find room for creation in the Jewish faith. While discussing “avodah,” which Schachter defined as labor, and “melachah,” the Hebrew word for creation, Schachter concluded the work Sabbath demands rest from creation.

“God created for six days and then rested [during the Sabbath],” Schachter said. “We should do the same.”

Schachter analyzed the subject matter of contemporary Jewish artists, which he contends is often the recreation of traditional Jewish images. The artist included many of Ken Goldman’s works in this discussion, finding his kippah-shaped hair to be an especially amusing piece, as it was a response to the criticism that a Jewish man should remove his kippah while in the studio.

Schachter introduced the audience to his own works: They focus on the drawing of “eruvs,” or enclaves constituted various barriers and openings that expand the privacy of Jewish homes to the public sphere. Schachter draws the eruvs of various cities, including that of Chestnut Hill, using blue thread and white paper. This concept is especially important on the Sabbath, during which time religious Jews do not carry items between buildings unless they are enclosed by an eruv.

Schachter concluded his presentation with a discussion of what is gained and what is lost in becoming a Jewish artist. According to Schachter, creating Jewish art has gifted him greater knowledge of Jewish texts and friendship with those who share his profession. Schachter recognizes that contemporary Jewish art is not able to reach as broad an audience as secular contemporary art, stating his work would not be suitable for museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Museum of Modern Art. “My pool is small, but it is very engaged,” Schachter said. n

Student Films Show Common Humanity

By Kaylie Ramirez Assoc. Arts Editor The Film Studies Program at Boston College sponsored a film screening of four student-produced documentary films on Friday night. Funded by the Jacques Salmanowitz Program for Moral Courage in Documentary Film and the LaMattina Family Grant for Social Justice Film, each short documentary focused on a different social justice issue. Film professor John Michalczyk provided a short introduction for each film and lauded the students for their diligence and passion.

Marilyn Smith, CSOM ’18, and Angelos Bougas, MCAS ’21, showcased their documentary about the Greek immigration crisis, titled Two Islands.

The film featured different inhabitants of the area who offer aid to the Syrian immigrants taking refuge in their homeland of Greece. A teacher discussed how she teaches the refugee children, who are upbeat and playful despite their dire situation. Shots of children playing in their tent villages depicted the hope the documentary’s subjects discussed in relation to the war: hope for the war to end, hope for people to get a better life, and hope for happiness.

The next documentary, titled Haiti: The Aftermath of Natural Disaster, showcased the work of Beth Pezzoni, MCAS ’18, Sebastien Cadet, WCAS ’18, and Rusty Cosino, MCAS ’19. The film documented the students’ trip to Haiti to provide relief services to the devastated island. Upbeat Haitian music provided the heartbeat of the film that described the positivity of the Haitian people following years of recovery from the earthquake that ravaged the small island in 2010. Responding to

the volunteer filmmakers’ generosity, a Haitian man expressed gratitude for the continued relief efforts on behalf of others and encouraged people who have a desire to do good to continue to help out the Haitian people.

“Help is from the heart—it doesn’t come from your possession,” the man said.

Grass Routes: CORD (Chinmaya Organization for Rural Development) India commented on the state of development in rural India, which is minimal compared to other areas of the country.

The documentary took place in Tamil Nadu, India, where Louise Nessralla, MCAS ’19; Audrey Hersman, MCAS ’19; Mackenzie Hulme, MCAS ’19; and Sierra Dennehy, MCAS ’18 ventured as a part of GlobeMed. Grass Routes detailed the efforts of CORD to empower women to gain financial independence by selling sustainable goods in their villages. A zoomed-in shot focused on the process of creating and packaging peppermint balm, which has healing qualities. The organization also centers on providing educational resources to children and combatting rampant alcoholism, a serious threat to the well-being of the rural communities, as one bottle of alcohol may cost as much as a rural worker’s daily earnings.

Leah Bacon, MCAS ’18, was unable to debut her film, Kwibuka: Remembering the Genocide Against the Tutsi, due to technical difficulties, but the student filmmaker briefly detailed her study abroad in Rwanda and the filmmaking experience. The documentary details the importance of remembering the 1996 Rwandan genocide and depicts the state of present-day Rwanda. Bacon will be premiering the short film at Cadigan Alumni Center on Tuesday at 6 p.m. n

Arrayed in three rows on a bleacher set on the stage of O’Neill Tent, the Voices of Imani, Boston College’s gospel choir group, performed on the last day of Arts Fest. Through rhythmic steps and swaying, the members of Voices of Imani presented six vocally heavy songs to the audience gathered that afternoon. The singers were backed by a live band—saxophone, guitar, keyboard, and drums.

Voices of Imani was founded in 1977, as their website description states, by a small group of black students who felt “the need to be closely connected in their new academic environment” and who “congregated to encourage and support one another by singing the songs of their religious tradition and to give praise to almighty God.” Imani is the Swahili word for faith and was chosen as the name of this group. This word, faith, was readily

apparent in the songs chosen for this performance and the passion that embodied them.

The group began with “Hallelujah, Salvation, and Glory.” This song is a gospel song, featuring lyrics like “Honor and power unto the Lord our God / For the Lord our God is mighty / Yes the Lord our God is omnipotent / The Lord our God, He is wonderful.” The voices of the choir, in singing this song, melded together in a beautiful sound of passion and faith.

Next up was “Awesome,” by Charles Jenkins. During this song (and others), the choir was cheered on by four members of Presenting Africa to You— BC’s African Dance group—who had showed up to the performance wearing the same outfits they had worn in their prize-winning performance at earlier this month at ALC Showdown 2018. This song featured a wonderful solo by one group member, which was echoed and backed by the repetitions from the rest of the choir.

Rounding out the middle of the event, Voices of Imani performed one of the most easily recognizable songs of the set: “Go Down Moses.” This spiritual describes the events in Exodus, in which Moses is commanded to tell the pharaoh of Egypt to let the Israelites go. In this song, the members of Voices of Imani began to dance back and forth, exaggerating the movements of their torsos, to emphasize the chorus of the song.

The second half of the event consisted of three songs—“Draw Me Close To You,” “Blackbird / Now Let Me Fly,” and “Glorious.” This finale was just as good, if not better, than the first half of the show.

At times, the band switched to a much jazzier sound, especially on “Blackbird.”

In a very artistic and fitting moment, at the height of one of these songs, a slight breeze carried the petals of hundreds of flowers from the recently spring-renewed trees nearby through the air of the tent. n

CELINE LIM / HEIGHTS STAFF

MT Wing Recalls Musical Hits

By Colleen Martin Copy Editor Performers from The Boston College Musical Theatre Wing put on a cabaret of show tunes this Thursday, ranging from Legally Blonde to Tuck Everlasting to Sideshow. The hour of signing opened at 1 p.m. with the trio of Madison Mariani, CSOM ’20, and a layout editor for The Heights; Meg Dolan, MCAS ’20; and Thea Black, University of Glasgow ’19; singing “Mama, I’m A Big Girl Now” from Hairspray. This group, and all of those that followed, were accompanied by the keyboard performance of Andrew Gaffney, BC ’16.

Michaela Simoneau, MCAS ’18, followed with “It Won’t Be Long Now” from In the Heights, a play with music and lyrics written by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Miranda’s music wasn’t gone for long, as Natalie Marsan, CSON ’21, delivered an impressive performance of “Satisfied”

from Hamilton, followed by Mia Mercurio’s, LSOE ’21, rendition of “I’m Not Afraid of Anything” from Songs for a New World.

Brothers Tommy and Paul Boyce, both CSOM ’21, were greeted with cheers when they took the stage. The applause continued throughout their energized performance of “I Will Never Leave You.” Another student welcomed to the stage with raucous applause was Brett Murphy, treasurer of the Musical Theatre Wing and MCAS ’18, who sang “Top of the World” from Tuck Everlasting.

Caroline Downey, MCAS ’20, entered the stage with confidence, before beginning “Astonishing” from Little Women.

Her performance was passionate and well-executed, and was rewarded by a strong reaction from the crowd at the end. The second-to-last performance was a lively and animated piece from Little Shop of Horrors called “Feed Me.” It was sung by Grant Whitney, MCAS ’21, and Hal Knowlton, MCAS ’21, a duo

that recently performed together in the BC Dramatics Society’s rendition of The Addams Family.

Closing out the show was Lauren Strauss, MCAS ’18, with “Journey to the Past” from Anastasia. The senior’s voice carried well throughout the tent on O’Neill Plaza, marking a pleasant end to the BC Musical Theatre Wing’s section of Arts Fest.

The music organization’s goal is to foster a dedication and appreciation for musical theater, as well as provide a space for students on and off campus to pursue opportunities to perform. It also aims to perform for a wider community than just the BC student body, as was evidenced at this performance by the attendance of professors, kids and staff from the Campus School, as well as parents of the performers. The singers from the Class of 2018 will take the stage at their final event of the year, Senior Cabaret, at the Bonn Studio Theatre on May 2 at 7:30 p.m. n

BC Playwrights Take the Stage

By Jacob Schick Arts Editor The Stokes Art Fest tent was home to two new plays by Boston College playwrights Samuela Nematchoua, MCAS ’18, and Haley Bannon, MCAS ’20, on Friday. The first, Nematchoua’s play One Night Mass, was a modern look at an individual instance of hookup culture. The play had a cast of four actors, along with a narrator sitting in a fold-up chair on stage to read the stage direction in the script.

The narrator introduced the four characters as Amber (Anna Livaccari, MCAS ’20), a woman in her early 20s; Dara (Nicole Hayes, MCAS ’20), a woman in her early 20s and Amber’s best friend; Mike (James Stevenson, MCAS ’20), a man in his mid 20s and Amber’s hookup; and Nate (Jorge Borbolla, MCAS ’21), a man in his mid 20s, a club promoter, and Mike’s friend.

The play begins with Amber, having woken up in Mike’s apartment, searching for her necklace before she sneaks out.

Dara, who was supposed to be waiting in the car, has come up to the apartment to help her look for it. While Amber and Dara sneak around the apartment—and Dara stops to pee in Mike’s bathroom— Mike wakes up. A series of attempts to keep Dara hidden from Mike ensue, culminating in Amber’s insistence that Dara is her “agent” and Dara’s insistence that Mike allow her to stay for breakfast (as she thinks Mike doesn’t care about Am-

ber). This results in Amber’s storming out in frustration with Mike and Dara.

The play continues into two more scenes, where Mike and Dara meet at a coffee shop (not because she followed him from his house) and where Mike, Nate, and Dara throw a party to “make it up to” Amber. One Night Mass is an impressively funny show, especially considering the actors’ relatively new exposure to it. Both plays were performed with the actors and actresses reading directly from the script on stage. Yet each play felt very genuine. It was really a testament to the writing of the scripts and the talent of the performers that the lines were delivered with the appropriate emotion and feeling.

Further, the performers’ ability to project their voices into the tent on Stokes Lawn, even over the building rain pounding on the canvas above, was quite impressive. Through door slams, gusts of wind, and the voices of those outside, the actors and actresses in each play managed to keep their cool composure while remaining in character.

The second play performed at this event was Girlfriends Interrogation.

Bannon’s play was equally as funny and relatable as Nematchoua’s had been. The general plot of the show consisted of four friends sitting and talking to each other at a dining hall table. All of these friends were women (hence the title), and most of the dialogue was centered on previous, present, and upcoming relationships

(while also meandering into discussions about tennis, camping, and cocaine).

These characters were Emily (Anabel Johnson, MCAS ’20), Kelsey (Isabel Litterst, MCAS ’21), Caroline (Elizabeth Koennecke, MCAS ’19), and Bri (Sophia Chryssofos, MCAS ’21), supplemented by a brief appearance by Stevenson as Ryan.

Most of the play was spent as the other girls asked Emily about her recent interest in a guy. She had been asked to a Celtics game (along with some discussion of a dual camping trip with this guy at some nebulous future time) and was excited. She was also, however, trepidacious. In a very moving and realistic moment, she expressed her anxiety about hiding or changing her emotions for him.

“I can’t be not fun,” she said. “He’s always fun.”

While sprinkled with genuine comedy, like when Bri admitted to doing coke, Girlfriends Interrogation fictionalizes what could very well be genuine experiences. Tiny questions, passive aggression, or even stress from outside factors can all build up into an outburst of emotional distress that seems unwarranted in the moment but is really predicated on dozens of individual and cascading factors.

While Nematchoua will be graduating at the end of the semester, many of these actors, along with playwright Bannon, will be at BC for years to come. This event was a great chance to get a taste for what they can do. n

5 | ARTS FEST

APRIL 30, 2018 | THE HEIGHTS

Creativity Rewarded at Arts Fest Ceremony

By Isabella Dow Heights Senior Staff The Stokes Arts tent housed the annual Arts Award Ceremony to recognize the extensive contributions of students, faculty, and alumni to the arts.

Theatre department chair Crystal Tiala explained that since the original one-day arts festival that started on campus 20 years ago, Arts Fest has grown with the campus arts community.

The festival is designed to serve the arts by showcasing the artistic talents of the community, as well as encouraging participation in the arts. Provost & Dean of Faculties David Quigley proceeded to reflect on the place of artists in sustaining “the spirit of possibility,” notably in relation to the conflict in Ireland in the 1990s.

To contextualize both Quigley’s professional beginnings at Boston College and the origins of Arts Fest, he described how Senator George Mitchell’s role in negotiating the Good Friday Accords in 1998 paved the way for artists, communities, and practitioners to reflect on the

conflict.

Several students received Student Awards for their contributions to the arts at BC and beyond.

Jeremiah McGrann, professor of the music department, awarded Andrew Hammond, MCAS ’18, for his talents as a baritone, and fostering and expanding vocal programs at BC. Katie Kelleher, CSOM ’18, was honored for her work with BC Music Guild, which supports and brings popular music to the campus community, as well as her own talents in performing and recording music. In a brief performance, she also sang two folk pop songs accompanied

by Nicole Rodger, MCAS ’19. Both songs showcased Kelleher’s pure, dreamy vocal style, and Rodger’s mellow, wistful acoustic guitar accompaniment created evocative renditions of “Look What They’ve Done to My Song,” and Fleet Foxes’ “Helplessness Blues.”

University Chorale director and Symphony Orchestra conductor John Finney honored George Liddy, MCAS ’18, for his contributions as president of University Chorale, going out of his way to help execute

several successful concerts including Pops on the Heights, three sold-out Christmas concerts, and the concert of University Chorale and BC Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall in recognition of Finney’s 25 years as conductor of the chorale.

Liddy also worked around the clock with travel officers to help send the Chorale to Europe for its successful concert during the massive snowstorm that occurred over Spring Break this year.

Nicholas Rocchio-Giordano, MCAS ’18, was honored for his active presence as a music major and chorale member, which he used to serve a social need by establishing a music program in Quito, Ecuador when he studied abroad as a junior.

He applied for the grants used to buy equipment for the program and worked with the school to enlist teachers in the program as part of a social service requirement.

Scott T. Cummings, a professor in the theatre department, honored Noelle Scarlett, MCAS ’18, for her prolific presence in campus theater.

She has done everything from serve as president of the Dramatics Society, help make costumes for the Rob-

sham production of Stop Kiss, and act in prominent roles in plays written by Molière, Anton Chekhov, and Charles Mee. She was described as “not only a hard worker … but also a deeply comforting presence.”

John Michalczyk, a film professor, presented Marilyn Smith, CSOM ’18, for her ability to bring her majors in marketing, film studies, and Hispanic Studies together.

Smith, along with Angelos Bougas, MCAS ’21, went to Greece to make Two Islands, an exhibit about the refugee crisis, which posed numerous logistical challenges, but turned out extremely well.

Julie-Anne Whitney honored Taylor Tranfaglia, MCAS ’18, for her role in campus theatre. A marketing assistant in the theatre department, Tranfaglia has explored several aspects of the theatre, including her efforts as an actor, singer, dancer, designer, and director of Stop Kiss.

Through her work, Tranfaglia was able to create a comfortable, friendly community for the people with which she worked, which was vital to the success of Stop Kiss in addressing social challenges.

ANNA TIERNEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Crystal Tiala honored Margaux Villeneuve, MCAS ’18, for her role as production manager of BC Arts Council and her passion for making the arts a reality.

Villeneuve has worked as a stage manager, ensuring the performances go off smoothly, and oversaw the Arts Council during the two and a half month transition period when there was no set leader for the organization last year.

Eileen Donovan-Kranz, associate professor in the English department, honored Emma Winters, MCAS ’18, for her fusion of writing and theology as a humanitarian through the arts.

Winters served as associate editor of Fresh Ink, the online publication dedicated to publishing the work of freshman writers, and served as an editor for The Gavel. Winters studies English, creative writing, and theology, the influences of which appear in her poetry, and which demonstrates her commitment to justice and compassion.

Claude Cernuschi, a professor in the fine arts department, honored Jessica Lipton, MCAS ’18, with the Jeffrey Howe Art History Award.

Lipton wrote a nuanced, critical paper on the architecture of Frank Gehry, which went above and beyond the requirements of the assignment, and provided a persuasive argument.

Dean of MCAS Gregory Kalscheur, S.J., presented the Faculty Award to Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, who are co-holders of the Calderwood Chair, and share an interest in Islamic art and architecture.

Blair and Bloom received the award for their work in the world of Islamic art, as well as their many years of service to the arts at BC. Danielle V. Auriemma, BC ’10, presented the Alumni award to Natalia Majluf, BC ’88, director of the National Art Museum of Peru. Majluf has overseen the renovation of the museum and expanded its art collection, as well as lectured extensively on 19th- and 20th-century Latin American art. Majluf expressed gratitude for the extraordinary professors she had at BC to help her find her way in life. She mentioned Howe, her adviser, as an inspiration in art history research. n

Astaza Brings Sounds of Middle East to BC

By Jacob Schick Arts Editor One of the events that kicked off the last day of Arts Fest was a performance by Astaza, Boston College’s Middle East Ensemble. Astaza’s goal is, as the event program states, to bring “students together to learn multiple music traditions of the region” and “to promote intercultural understanding and student-community exchange.”

One of the many musical groups to do so, Astaza performed in Gasson 100. The event featured four songs, all of which were played at an Astaza event that occurred two weeks previously.

Listening to these songs a second time, different aspects of the music begin to be made clear.

At first, the hollow percussive beats on the wide drum and the at-

mospheric violin and cello work— and of course the oud playing—are the most prominent parts of the music played by the ensemble.

The second time through, it is the wind instrument—the ney—played by professor Ann Lucas, that takes center stage.

The ney is a Persian end-blown flute made of wood. The qanun, played by resident Astaza artist Jamal Sinno, was also a very impressive part of the music.

The qanun is a very large string instrument that sounds similar to a cross between a piano or harpsichord and a guitar.

Astaza began the performance, under the direction of Nizar Fares, with a song called a sama’i—an all-instrumental piece with Turkish origins.

This particular sama’i was composed by master oud player Charbel

Rouhana—a musician that BC had hosted at the last Middle East Ensemble event.

This song was made up of four verses and a chorus and, as is always the case when played by Astaza, was beautiful. The second piece was a duet of two songs played together.

The first part of this was “bTendam,” a very popular Lebanese song from the ’50s and ’60s.

The other part of the duet was “Debbek Debbayki,” a more traditional Lebanese folk song. The singers of these two songs were both non-student members of the ensemble, Mireille Thomas and Nader Hawa, respectively.

Astaza followed up with a crowd favorite from their last concert, “‘Ahwi.” “Ahwi” translates to “Coffee” and was also composed by Rouhana. Prefacing the song was an oud improvisation by Hussam Je-

fee-Bahloul, another adult musician in the ensemble.

Backed by the slowest and lowest notes, drawn out on the violins and cellos to provide a filler for silence and a backdrop for the oud music, Bahloul performed an entirely improvised oud piece.

This backing was constructed in much the same way a painter would frame art to separate it from the surrounding wall. “‘Ahwi” itself is a very upbeat and engaging piece, especially with the beautiful singing from Nano Raies, a student from Berklee College. At the last concert, this song proved a favorite among the audience members, as many joined in to sing along.

The lyrics of the song, transliterated and translated on the program are also enjoyable to read and listen for. "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 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."

The concert wrapped up with a song called “‘Unshūdatul Fan,” sung

by Nizar Fares. The piece began with expert violin work by Ben Lee, CSOM ’20, and was quickly buffed out by the rest of the ensemble.

Overall, this was a very nice and neat survey of Astaza’s last concert, providing audience members who had been there a refreshing memory and new audiences a great sense of the ensemble’s capabilities.

Audience members from this concert and their last perforamnce should be looking forward to performances from the ensemble in the fall semester. n

Ensemble Trio Takes Chamber Music Outside

By Jacob Schick Arts Editor While the water falling from the sky might have seeped into the grass that served as the floor of the O’Neill Plaza Arts Fest tent on Friday, coating the bottoms of the audience’s shoes in mud, everyone present was ready for a relaxing and enjoyable hour of warm music from the Baroque period.

This event was composed of three shorter performances by different groups in the Boston College Chamber Music Society—BC Baroque, the Flute Ensemble, and the Cello Ensemble.

First up was BC Baroque, an ensemble of musicians playing music exclusively from the Baroque period.

Some of these musicians taking the stage had just come from a performance with the Symphony Orchestra that ended only 20 minutes before.

The group played only one piece: “Winter” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The piece is divided into three movements—fast, slow, and fast again.

Beginning with some truly incredible violin work, “Winter” was a very fitting choice for the evening.

Audience members sat, listening to the music and watching their breath fog in front of them in the cold, wet air.

The rain pattering outside the tent provided an additional weather-related effect for the event. Yet, BC Baroque excelled in its piece.

Violins and cellos took center stage,

but a keyboardist standing in for a harpsichord lent that classical Baroque sound to the performance.

Next up was the Flute Ensemble.

In stark contrast to the weather, the all-flute music was light and airy. At times, the lilting tune became almost ethereal, recalling sentiments of fairy music in a wooded glen, like a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

This sense made the chilly evening feel just a bit warmer, a sentiment that was certainly welcomed by all in attendance.

The performance was put on by eight female flutists, some using alto or bass flutes, to a contrasting and enhancing effect.

Throughout the short performance, the sounds of the flutes float-

ed like a phantasm drifting through the air of the tent.

In preface to a piece of music by Bach, Judy Grant, a faculty member in the music department, introduced four of the flutists as seniors about to graduate. While their fellow flutists were certainly sad to see them go, their last performance definitely ended on a high note—in more ways than one.

Closing out the Chamber Music Society event was the Cello Ensemble.

The audience was made to understand that the ensemble adopts a different theme every year. This year’s theme was the ever-popular and readily-accessible Game of Thrones.

The acclaimed television series (and the books it is based on) have been

enjoyed by many, and the Cello Ensemble was quick to capitalize on that.

The group—staffed by all cellos of course—began its performance by playing the theme from the show.

Fans of the program would certainly have been able to correspond each stroke of the cello with an imagined visual of a model city being built, as shown in the title crawl of the HBO series. Next up were two pieces that the ensemble had learned with an Irish fiddler. Each cello player moved their bows in unison, making for an impressive visual effect.

These final performances reflected this well, as the music adopted that lilting and exciting rhythm that so often accompanies sounds from the Emerald Isle. n

6 | ARTS FEST

THE HEIGHTS | APRIL 30, 2018

‘Peter and the Starcatcher’ Never Gets Old

By Isaella Dow Heights Senior Staff Every Arts Fest has a play, presented by the Boston College theatre department, that runs each night.

This year, that was was Peter and the Starcatcher, directed by Luke Jorgensen, the assistant department chair in the theatre department. The play tells the heartfelt tale of Peter Pan’s quest to find himself and a place where he belongs, and conjures up awareness in the audience of many goods in our own lives that are taken for granted.

Featuring phenomenal performances and inhabiting a stage full of ships and magical mermaids, the play served as a lovable narrative of the joys of childhood dreaming, and the melancholy of all good things eventually coming to an end.

The play is a prequel to the wellknown story of Peter Pan, where the audience meets the protagonist as a nameless, rag-clad orphan who just wants a home to call his own. Set

in the Victorian era, there are two ships headed for a distant kingdom, the Neverland and the Wasp. While the queen’s storage trunk has “star stuff,” the powerful substance that can make you whoever you want to be, the other trunk holds a far less valuable trove of sand. The queen’s trunk ends up aboard the Neverland instead of the Wasp, unknown to the pirates who board the royal ship.

When Molly, a mythical Starcatcher apprentice, boards the Neverland and tries to protect the chest of star stuff, she and Peter navigate the choppy waters of friendship and obligation. Led

by Black Stache, the pirates imprison Lord Aster, Molly’s father, and after Stache finds the worthless treasure trunk, Molly and the orphans work to ensure the star stuff is destroyed in a really hot volcano, like “Mount Jalapeño.” Nobody would want the star stuff to fall into the wrong hands for evil purposes, such as those of “Mark Zuckerberg.”

The entire cast played a vital role in

embodying the spirit of the play. Gabrielle Esposito, MCAS ’18, brought constant exuberance and enthusiasm to Molly, which conveyed her fierce independence and bubbly disposition extremely well. Dan Quinones, MCAS ’19, played the devilish pirate Black Stache with a devious comedic energy. The character has a poetic streak, a self-proclaimed “bloodthirsty outlaw” enamored with his own “facial foliage,” and Quinones served as a sympathetic villain for whom the audience cheers.

And Dustin Uher, LSOE ’19, showed the growth of Peter Pan by conveying him initially as a moody loner, before bringing more wonder and joy to the character as the show progressed.

On a play where so much of the story relies on elements of magic, the production was integral to the story’s successful execution. Everything from the set design to the costumes was extremely detailed, which created an elaborate atmosphere that enhanced the audience experience. The costumes reflected the 19th-century time peri-

od, with Lord Aster (Alex O’Connor, MCAS ’20) wearing a long, stately coat with a top hat, or Molly’s caretaker, Mrs. Bumbrake (Erica Fallon, CSOM ’18) wearing a high-neckline dress with a full, ruffled skirt. When the pirates of the Wasp and the crew of the Neverland face off in the sea, the bows of each ship roll onto the stage. While the Wasp was painted regally in navy blue and yellow trim, the Neverland looked to be a ramshackle ship made of rotted planks. There were even hand-held model ships to introduce the two ships at the start of the play, which were only onstage for a moment, but which helped the audience latch onto the action early on. In the front of the stage, a small pit filled with clear and blue balls created the “sea” into which characters would occasionally fall, which was both essential to the story and added to the spectacle of the show.

One of the strengths of the show involved its comedic elements. When the two ships faced off in a battle for the treasure chest, the fighting was ex-

tremely high stakes, decided by thumb wars and rounds of rock-paper-scissors. A boxing-match microphone even descended from the ceiling to call a fight between the captains of the Wasp and the Neverland, the amusing results of which lead the Neverland captain to jump into the ball-pit sea, overwhelmed with his own mommy issues. Another running joke in the performance stemmed from Lord Aster’s insistence on communicating with Molly in code language, one of which was “Dodo,” which sounds like senseless babbling and which always garnered lots of laughs from the audience.

Overall, the play developed a handful of misfit characters who were all striving to find their place in the world and live up to their dreams. While heroic acts gave way to egregiously unfortunate mishaps, the play captured the hearts and imagination of the audience with flawed, humanized characters striving to adjust to the demands of a world forcing them to grow up. n

SAM ZHAI/ HEIGHTS STAFF

The final Boston College theatre department production, ‘Peter and the Starcatcher,’ presented the trial of aging through a idyllic and childlike lens.

Liz McGovern, Shady Lady Best the Competition

By Kaylie Ramirez Assoc. Arts Editor Student performers brought their best to BC’s Best, an Arts Fest event that determines the winners of both Singer -Songwriter and Battle of the Bands. With four performers competing in the Singer-Songwriter portion and three bands competing in the Battle of the Bands, the tent on O’Neill Plaza was filled with the sound of the students’ original compositions for nearly two and a half hours on Thursday.

Mac Porter, MCAS ’21, kicked off the Singer Songwriter portion of the night with two original songs: “Other People’s Flowers” and “Too Young to Be Alone.” The talented singer exhibited impressive control of his voice as he worked his way through the crowd-pleasing second song, during which some audience members sang along to the lyrics “I’m trying to tell you pretty girl / We’re too young to be alone.”

Next to take the stage was Peyton Spencer, MCAS ’18. The folk phenom charmed the audience with calming acoustic riffs and her soft voice.

Spencer opted out of the usual sad tone of folk songs for an optimistic mood during “Gravedigger.” The artist concluded her two-song set with “Coffee Cans,” a piece with steady guitar chords and lyrics about her two favorite things: coffee cans and Michigan.

Stavros Piperis, MCAS ’19, also showcased his illustrious talents during his three-song set at the event.

During “Hands,” Piperis conveyed the dark song about being wronged

KAYLIE RAMIREZ / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Phenom V ignites the audience with invigorating original rap songs on O’Neill Plaza.

Liz McGovern performs tracks from her recently released EP, Elizabeth, at BC’s Best.

by a lover with a distinct intensity in his voice and fast guitar strumming.

The artist slowed the tempo down for “Delicate,” a song that allowed the artist to showcase his range. Piperis weaved in and out of the lyrics of the building broken-hearted ballad “I Remember” with John Mayer-like vulnerability and control.

Liz McGovern, MCAS ’18, who recently released her debut self-titled EP Elizabeth, followed up with two effortless original songs. The artist wrote the first to cope with all of the chaos in the world right now, and it repeated the line “swear I’m gonna care.” McGovern wowed the crowd with “Beautiful Man,” an intense ballad that featured a beautiful longing in the singer’s unique voice. Timeless lyrics like “It feels like a nightmare / But tastes like a dream” demonstrated the artist’s incredible writing abilities. The song ended with a dramatic touch of low humming, leaving the crowd speechless.

strained energy well. The band members were pleased with their set and amazed at how well they were able to mesh despite the band’s young age.

“I’m really proud of how far we’ve come in the past two months of being together,” Eichler said.Rapper Phenom V, otherwise known as Emmanuel Laguerre, WCAS ’18, was accompanied by his band Extreme Sounds for his high energy five song set. Combining traditional hip-hop beats with atypical instruments for the genre, including a violin and electric guitar, made for a fun set that showcased the artist’s creativity. The artist performed songs that relied on lyrics about deeply personal experiences, including a stint of homelessness during the artist’s time at Boston College. Laguerre and his band debuted the artist’s newest song, “Wake Up,” which was released on Spotify on Thursday and ended the set with a party anthem titled “The Weekend.”

The 2016 Battle of the Bands win-

The event then moved to the Battle of the Bands portion of the night and featured three student bands: Shady Lady, Phenom V and Extreme Sounds, and Funky Giant. The bands competed for a chance to open for B.o.B at Modstock next Thursday.

Shady Lady got the event off to an energetic start with an enthralling four song set. The band opened with two jazzy rock songs, during which drummer Alex Eichler, MCAS ’20, donned a long electric blue wig.

Throughout the set, keyboardist Katie Kelleher, CSOM ’18; bassist Alex Moran, MCAS ’19; and vocalist Nicole Rodger, MCAS ’19, harmonized and demonstrated the new band’s remarkable chemistry on stage. Lead guitarist Rachel Moon, MCAS ’19, stole the show in the second half of the set with electric guitar solos, performing her final solo in the middle of the crowd.

Caroline Rooney, MCAS ’19 provided the steady rhythm guitar for the set, complementing Moon’s unre-

Shady Lady channels girl power and rock riffs as it competes for iits first Battle of the Bands title at BC’s Best on Thursday night.

KAYLIE RAMIREZ / HEIGHTS EDITOR

ner Funky Giant closed the night with a four-song set. The band’s first song set a groovy tone with sonic keyboard and basslines. The lyric “They don’t know how to love” comprised the repetitive chorus which was presented with effortless cool by vocalist Jaclyn Chan, MCAS ’18.

Bassist Nick Rocchio-Giordano, MCAS ’18, provided the heartbeat of the band’s funk throughout the set with his impeccable basslines, while Matt Chilton, CSOM ’18, remained calm and cool while delivering quality guitar riffs. The final song of the set took on a Santana feel with sultry Latin rock guitar intro. Drummer Mario Borges, MCAS ’18, spoke a few Spanish words into the mic prior to a skillfully tight drum solo.

Host Alex Waldner, MCAS ’19, entertained the crowd with a hilarious ukulele song about the artist’s precarious college journey while the judges (Paul Dagnello, Office of University Communications; Emma Hardy, MCAS ’20; Patrick Halm, MCAS ’21; and Shan Rizwan, MCAS ’21) tallied up the scores from the night.

Waldner concluded the event with the announcement that McGovern won the Singer-Songwriter portion, and Shady Lady won Battle of the Bands and will be opening at this year’s Modstock.

Shady Lady reflected on its sudden claim to fame at BC following the announcement. “[Before the set] Caro [Caroline Rooney] in the huddle was like, ‘Oh my gosh look at us, we just started this, we made it first round, and now here we are,’” Moran said.

“It’s surreal,” Rooney concluded. n

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B8

Monday, April 30, 2018

BASKETBALL

Robinson Hires Agent, Elects to Remain in 2018 NBA Draft

By Andy Backstrom Sports Editor

When Boston College men’s basketball combo guard Jerome Robinson declared for the 2018 NBA Draft three and a half weeks ago, there was a sense that the junior was on his way to the Association. On Saturday night, those suspicions were confirmed.

First reported by Shams Charania of Yahoo! Sports, Robinson has decided to hire an agent and remain in the draft. More specifically, the 6-foot-6 guard will sign with CAA—the same agency that works with All-Stars like

Chris Paul, Paul George, and Carmelo Anthony.

Robinson, who is currently a projected as a fringe first-round pick, just posted the best numbers of his collegiate career. This past season, the Raleigh, N.C. native averaged 20.7 points per game and shot 49 percent from the field. Against conference opponents, though, he was another entity. Leading the league in scoring, Robinson recorded 24.3 points per game on 55.1 percent shooting—including 44.5 percent from downtown—in ACC play.

If selected in the first round of

this year’s draft, he’ll be the highestpicked BC player since Reggie Jackson back in 2011. Even if he slips to the second round, he’ll still be the first Eagle to hear his name called in June in three years.

Robinson’s partner in crime, Ky Bowman—who also declared on April 4—has yet to hire an agent or withdraw his name from the draft.

Head coach Jim Christian was just signed to a two-year extension through the 2021-22 season this past week. Expectedly, managing Robinson’s departure is the fifth-year coach’s first test of the offseason. n

Keith Carroll / Heights Editor

Jerome Robinson (top) led the Eagles to their highest season win total since 2010-11.

FOOTBALL

Cornerbacks Yiadom, Moore Round Out Eagles Draft Class

By Andy Backstrom Sports Editor

Boston College football cornerbacks Isaac Yiadom and Kamrin Moore received a total of six offers in high school—half of which were to play in the FCS. BC was only the Power Five school to take a chance on the defensive backs. But once it got its foot in the door, it made the most of the opportunity. Four years later, the duo is on its way to the NFL. Separated by three rounds and 90 picks, Yiadom and Moore were selected a day apart. On Friday night, the Denver Broncos—who nabbed former BC safety Justin Simmons in the same round of the 2016 Draft—snagged Yiadom with the second-to-last pick of Day Two. Then, about 18 hours later, the New Orleans Saints took Moore with the 189th overall pick, making him the fourth BC defensive back selected in the NFL Draft in the past three years—the others being

Yiadom, John Johnson III (Los Angeles Rams) and Justin Simmons (Denver Broncos).

Coupled with Harold Landry, who fell to the Tennessee Titans early in the second round, Yiadom and Moore round out the Eagles’ 2018 draft class.

The selections mark the fifth-consecutive year that BC has had multiple players picked in the same draft.

Yiadom burst onto the national scene this year, especially toward the end of the regular season. After starting a combined 15 games over the course of his first three years on the Heights, the 6-foot-1, 190-pound corner played with the first-team defense each and every week of the 2017 season. Yiadom recorded 53 tackles, doubling his junior year total, all while picking off two passes and breaking up seven more.

Renowned for his physicality, particularly when jamming receivers at the line of scrimmage, as well as his versatility, having played countless snaps on special teams throughout his collegiate

career, the Worcester, Mass. native watched his draft stock rise in January.

At one point winning three-consecutive one-on-one reps when defending the downfield fade, Yiadom’s name popped up in Senior Bowl practice reports time and time again. Along with a decent combine performance, the senior’s play—both leading up to and in the honorary game—was enough to warrant a third-round pick, at least as far as the Denver Broncos were concerned.

Considering the Broncos traded AllPro cornerback Aqib Talib to the Los Angeles Rams last month, it made sense for Denver to address the position. In all likelihood, Yiadom will have a chance to compete with Tramaine Brock for limited first-team reps this offseason.

Regardless, there’s no question whether he’ll see the field, due to the fact that he’s an adept special teamer.

Yiadom got to watch Day Three, knowing he already had a new home.

On the other hand, his partner in crime had to sweat out the festivities until the

sixth round.

Right off the bat, Moore will add depth to a New Orleans secondary that clocked out as the 15th-best pass defense in the league last season. The senior, who served as one of BC’s team captains this past year, is a little hiptight, but as hard-hitting as it gets.

During his three years a starter, Moore earned the reputation as an aggressive defensive back, often driving his body into receivers at the catch point. The 5-foot-11, 203-pound corner tallied 50 tackles and nine pass breakups in 2017—both career highs, even though he missed the last three games of the year with a shoulder injury. When all was said and done, he capped off the season with the second-highest Pro Football Focus coverage grade among all ACC cornerbacks in the 2018 draft class.

Like Yiadom, Moore will get some looks on special teams. All things considered, his fiery demeanor and finishing ability should be enough to secure

a roster spot.

With Will Harris and Lukas Denis on the backend, Yiadom and Moore lined the corners of a BC secondary that ranked 22nd in yards allowed and 12th in interceptions last season. The two went hand-in-hand, frequently shutting down their respective receivers. Perhaps their chemistry was best exemplified at Louisville on Oct. 14.

Tied at 42, Cardinals quarterback Lamar Jackson dropped back and fired a pass to Jaylen Smith, but before long, Hamp Cheevers poked the ball loose. Immediately, Moore scooped up the rock and sprinted 11 yards to the Louisville 39, only to fumble. Following his classmate the whole way, Yiadom recovered the ball, setting up a game-winning Colton Lichtenberg field goal—one that jumpstarted the Eagles’ 5-1 regular season finish.

The cornerback tandem has been joined at the hip the past four years.

Now they’ll have to learn to play apart from each other at the highest level. n

Condoleezza Rice and NCAA Commission Miss the Mark Waste of Time, from B1 profile basketball league, then overseen

by David Stern, enacted a rule that forced high school draft prospects to spend at least a year in college or overseas before entering the draft. This, of course, has created a mass exodus of freshmen from college basketball each year, and addressing this issue was clearly a large priority of the commision.

Unfortunately, Rice stood at the podium and raised the threat of ruling freshmen ineligible in response to the chance the NBA never reverses course on the rule, a prime example of backwards thinking as the committee attempted to work the restrictive bylaws around eliminating the “one-and-done” phenomenon.

Changing the one-and-done rule would be excellent, but moving to an even more restrictive model makes no sense.

The report states that, if the NBA refused to change the current rule, the committee would consider “including freshman ineligibility and/or the ‘lock-up’ of scholarships for a specified period of time” as a consequence.

Both are terrible ideas. Freshman ineligibility would cause the quality of the game to suffer tremendously and is just furthering the restrictions that are placed on student athletes.

Three years ago, the Big Ten formed its own commission, this time for football, and floated the same idea out under the guise of “helping division one athletes adjust to the academic life of campus.” The

commissioner, Jim Delaney, termed it a “Year of Readiness” and by all accounts was seriously hoping it would happen. At face value, this would help students struggling with academics, a rare case of the NCAA prioritizing the student part of the phrase, but it’s weird because of context.

There’s already a rule in place—added recently, too—where athletes who don’t hit certain academic benchmarks coming out of high school are required to redshirt, so Delaney’s proposal isn’t even really necessary on that front.

Delaney and the commision came up with the freshman ineligibility idea for different reasons, but as far as the latter is considered, the solution to not force players to go to school for a year is essentially making them sit out a year—a decision that is utterly counterintuitive.

In a perfect world, student athletes would follow a path similar to that of college hockey—after graduating high school, they’re drafted, then can develop further in college if needed. This leaves players the capability to enter the realm of pro sports earlier and maximize their chances at having a lengthy, successful career, while others that are more raw or less talented can at least go to school and have something to fall back on.

2) Let’s Just Create More Turnover The other threat, the “lock up” of scholarships, is somehow even more confusing to me. Taking away a scholarship from a program after a freshman leaves would be incredibly detrimental and would essentially penalize teams

for having good players—which makes zero sense. The way the committee approached the issue of one-and-done wasn’t very well thought out, as it’s not as if getting the NBA to vanquish the rule by inflicting odd infractions will suddenly cure problems with corruption and under-the-table deals. Overall, the idea of watching coaches struggle to fill rosters with transfers or walk-ons after a particularly tumultuous draft class would be a nightmare on top of the already crazy offseason.

3) NCAA Basketball 2K-Never If I walked into the committee meeting room and was asked what the top priority, biggest issue, most important thing to talk about was, I would settle on the raging debate around paying college athletes. The reason there are so much corruption and backdoor dealings is a direct result of the NCAA’s incredibly strict bylaws—it knowingly provokes shady transactions. It’s why Arizona basketball head coach Sean Miller was reportedly caught on wiretap discussing a $100,000 payment for Deandre Ayton, a consensus lottery-bound pick and generational player.

Miller wouldn’t have needed to resort to that if players had much more leeway with the use of their image and likeness, and didn’t have to search out money from coaches and other shady channels. Wading into the debate over how to pay players or compensate them fully is a tricky subject, especially in terms of less profitable sports, but the fact remains that it would be very easy to allow athletes to sell their

likeness for a video game—the NCAA can “solicit and accept money from media rights deals, apparel deals and other revenue streams,” but the athletes featured in these are left out. Actually sorting out how to manage the payment and other ethical arguments are even trickier, but the fact that Rice and the committee barely discussed it is a bad look.

4) It’s Not All Bad, Maybe I’ve adopted a very negative tone for much of this—hopefully it came across as unsurprised disappointment. Why would the NCAA, an organization that has a rich history under Emmert of doing the wrong thing, suddenly reverse course and not just point fingers at everybody else?

That’s not to say that it was a complete failure, though, as several things stuck with me as being mutually beneficial for the student athletes and the game itself.

The recent move to allow players to enter the NBA Draft process without signing an agent to test the waters, only to eventually return to school, was a muchneeded change. The recommendation put forth takes student-athlete independence one step further, in a good way, as it adopts an understanding of how volatile the draft waters truly can be.

“Elite high school and college basketball players tend to misjudge their professional prospects,” the report reads.

“Erroneously entering the NBA draft is not the kind of misjudgment that should deprive student-athletes of the valuable opportunity to enter college or to continue in college while playing basketball.”

So, instead of leaving undrafted players in limbo, stuck trying to work their way onto a G-League roster or being forced to head overseas, a shift to allowing players to return if undrafted—even if they signed with an agent—is huge.

Other positives of the report include moving enforcement out of the organization to independent investigators, allowing players to maintain eligibility after signing with agents, maintaining NCAA eligibility up until the signing of a contract, and adding public members to the board.

“The most significant thing is that the dialogue has been opened up,” committee member David Robinson told ESPN afterwards. Yet, in most cases it’s not the right dialogue to be opened up. The NCAA knows what’s wrong, but refuses to adapt, instead dragging out the same tired thinking—even after putting someone with as much power and reputation as Condoleezza Rice at the helm.

The NCAA has always adopted the belief that the more and more restrictions you put on players and coaches and programs, the less problems you’ll have.

Unfortunately, time and time again, that assumption has been proven wrong, and so at the end of the day, this 50-plus-page report is nothing but a blip on the radar that missed the mark.

Bradley Smart is the associate sports editor for The Heights. He can be reached on Twitter @bradleysmart15.

SPORTS in SHORT ACC baseball STANDINGS

Numbers to know

Conference

overall

Clemson

17-7

34-11

N.C. State

15-9

31-11

Florida State

13-10

31-14

Louisville

10-11

29-14

Wake Forest

11-13

20-25

Notre Dame

10-14

20-24

Boston College

6-18

15-28

3

Football players drafted in the 2018 NFL Draft, the program’s most since 2015.

8

Shutout innings for baseball left-hander Dan Metzdorf in Saturday’s win over Notre Dame, tying a career-high for innings pitched.

36

Combined goals recorded by lacrosse in the first two ACC Tournament games, convincing wins over Louisville and Notre Dame.

QUote of the week

“I’ve been here five years, and my freshman year, our goal was to just win one game. ” — Tess Chandler,

on the growth of the lacrosse program since her arrival in 2014, per BC Athletics.

The Heights

Monday, April 30, 2018

B9

BASEBALL

ACC Woes Continue as Eagles Drops Series to Notre Dame

By Mike Malley Heights Staff Simply put, weekend series have not been kind to Boston College baseball this season. Entering Friday, the Eagles were a woeful 7-17 in three-game sets and had dropped their previous six such contests, getting swept by both Florida State and Wake Forest. Things were better this weekend, though not much, as the Eagles managed to win just one of three when they traveled to South Bend to take on Holy War rival Notre Dame.

This series was of the utmost importance for both sides, who have each struggled mightily this season. BC (15-28, 6-18 Atlantic Coast) is stuck in the conference cellar, while Notre Dame (20-24, 10-14) holds the spot above them, an almost equally bad 12th overall. Both teams are still mathematically in contention to make the conference tournament, but each identified this series as pivotal to have a chance.

Then, with a chance to take the series,

the Eagles suffered another disappointing loss in the rubber match on Sunday. Despite leading for most of the game, a disastrous eighth inning and 12 men left on base cost BC in the 5-4 defeat.

Notre Dame got on the board in the first inning, when junior Nick Podkul’s double into the gap scored Jake Johnson. It was a welcome sight for Irish freshman pitcher Tommy Vail, who was making his first start of the season. He looked to be dealing early, striking out four of the first six batters he faced, but struggled from then on.

BC got to Vail in the third inning, using a string of hits from the top of its batting order to take a 3-1 lead. An RBI single and stolen base by Chris Galland and another run-scoring single from Jack Cunningham gave the Eagles the lead, and Cunningham would eventually score on a bases-loaded walk of Brian Dempsey. The stolen base by Galland—only a freshman—was his 28th this season, setting a new program record for the Eagles. Despite chasing Vail after just three innings, BC couldn’t further its lead,

leaving the bases loaded.

Notre Dame equalized in the fourth, tying the game on a Eric Gilgenbach two-run home run. Gilgenbach went deep on the first pitch of the at-bat from BC starter Brian Rapp, who quickly settled down and worked a three a masterful additional innings.

BC’s offense, however, could only muster another run to aid him when Jake Alu hit a sacrifice fly in the fifth. The Eagles would lead the game all the way until the bottom of the eighth inning, when everything quickly unravelled. BC would use three relievers in the inning and watched the lead, and potential series win, dissipate.

Zach Stromberg and Thomas Lane allowed the bases to fill up with one out, prompting Eagles coach Mike Gambino to opt for Joey Walsh out of the pen. He was greeted rudely, as Niko Kavadas tied the game with a single to left field. Gilgenbach followed and reached base on a fielder’s choice, which brought in Vierling after an error by Dempsey—and proved to be the decisive run.

The Saturday game was a bounceback victory for the Eagles, aided by a fantastic performance from junior pitcher Dan Metzdorf in a 6-0 win. Metzdorf earned his first win of the season, going eight innings—tying a career-high—without giving up a run. While he tallied just two strikeouts, the junior only gave up two hits and two walks.

BC’s offense was also firing on all cylinders in the Saturday game. Galland paced the lineup with a multi-hit effort, also driving in a run. Designated hitter Anthony Maselli led all players with three runs—scoring on a sacrifice fly, a wild pitch, and an error in an unconventional manner. Overall, it was a dominant performance from BC, who was desperately seeking to get a weekend win under its belt.

The Friday game was a heartbreaking loss for the Eagles, as they were vanquished on a walkoff hit from Notre Dame’s Kavadas in the 10th inning to give the Irish the victory, 5-4.

After going down 3-0 in the third inning,

the Eagles looked to have been done and dusted. They came roaring back, however, in a crazy seventh inning that was capped by a grand slam from junior Gian Martellini to give BC a 4-3 lead.

It didn’t last long, however. In the bottom half of the seventh, the Irish managed to pull one back on a wild pitch that allowed Daniel Jung to score from third. The mistake was costly, as it kept the game going into extras, and eventually, the Kavdas liner into right field off of a 2-2 pitch from Lane ended the game.

Dropping another weekend series is a bad sign for BC, especially in terms of general frustration—the Eagles were a bullpen breakdown away from winning their first since March. Last season, the Notre Dame series was a huge win for BC, earning it a place in the postseason conference tournament. This season, it’s left it with more questions than answers, as it stares down two more weekend conference series with the chance of missing out on postseason play. n

LACROSSE

Tar Heels Spoil BC’s Chance at First-Ever ACC Championship LAX vs. UNC, from B1 first five shots of the game, two of which found the back of the cage, courtesy of Taylor Walker and Cara Urbank. Winning two of the first three draw controls, head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein’s team dominated possession, limiting the Tar Heels’ scoring opportunities in the early going.

Eventually, though, UNC cracked the code and attacked the crease with a flurry of inside shots. In a matter of one minute and 18 seconds, the game was tied—50 ticks later, the Tar Heels had the lead. Jamie Ortega and Katie Hoeg headlined the scoring spurt, tallying a combined six goals and three assists in the first half alone. The underclassmen attackers’ chemistry was through the roof, not

to mention that both of them were practically unstoppable inside the eight.

After conceding five-straight goals, Apuzzo ended a drought with her first scoring play of the game. Nearly seven minutes later, Dempsey Arsenault scooped up a Tar Heels turnover, dashed downfield, and located Hart in a sea of green, who proceed to will her way to the crease, fighting through contact, before whipping a shot past Moreno.

Led by Ortega, UNC quickly fired back with four more goals. Although Apuzzo and Arsenault scored prior to intermission, the Tar Heels clearly had the momentum.

The teams exchanged goals in the opening three minutes of the second period, but head coach Jenny Levy’s didn’t wait any lon-

ger to distance itself from the ACC regular season champions. In the span of 10 minutes, four different Tar Heels ripped twine, extending their largest lead of the game. Ortega and Bill jump-started the scoring spree with a pair of highlight-reel goals, forcing WalkerWeinstein to call a timeout.

Out of the break, Apuzzo promptly righted the ship, flinging a bounce shot by Moreno for her team-high fourth goal of the day. In the grand scheme of things the sequence hardly disrupted the Tar Heels’ run. A bit more than two minutes down the line, Hoeg recorded her 36th goal of the year to restore UNC’s five-score lead. Moments later, Moreno tallied her 32nd save of the weekend—the most ever recorded in an ACC Tournament—ran out of the crease,

and hurled the ball downfield, setting up Ela Hazar’s lone goal of the game.

In large part because of an increase in defensive pressure, BC goalie Lauren Daly didn’t give up another scoring play the rest of the way. That was only half the battle, though.

Down six, the Eagles began to stage a comeback for the ages, logging back-to-back goals in just over a minute of game time.

But before BC could finish digging itself out of its grave, UNC clamped down on defense, holding the Eagles scoreless for the next six and a half minutes. BC upped the ante inside Tar Heel territory, but struggled to finish, converting just five of its 23 second-half shot attempts. Frustration spread as the Eagles’ turnovers, dropped passes, and missed shots piled up. To make matters

worse, Brooke Troy and Hannah Hyatt were carded in the waning minutes of regulation.

Chandler cashed in on the Eagles’ second-to-last free-position attempt of the game to keep their championship hopes alive, but UNC won the impending draw control, effectively putting the contest to bed. Following Walsh’s breakaway and tumble, the Tar Heels held on for the win, redeeming their loss to BC back in March.

Instead of kicking off the NCAA Tournament as a top-two seed, the Eagles will likely find themselves behind undefeated Stony Brook, Maryland, and, now, UNC. Perhaps fittingly, BC will once again enter the dance as an underdog—an identity that WalkerWeinstein’s team actively embraces on a weekly basis. n

SOFTBALL

Eagles Cool Off, Suffer Series Sweep at Hands of Louisville

By Bradley Smart Assoc. Sports Editor Winners of three straight, Boston College softball arrived in Kentucky to face conference foe Louisville with plenty of confidence. After all, the Eagles had taken one of three from division-leading and nationally ranked Florida State, had taken the series from fellow heavyweight Notre Dame, and had rattled off wins in each of their last seven non-conference games.

The Cardinals weren’t phased.

Louisville swept BC, slipping by with late inning rallies on the first two days and routing them in the series finale, a run-rule shortened 8-0 win, sending the Eagles packing in a convincing manner.

The Cardinals (30-17, 10-10 Atlantic Coast) held BC (25-21, 11-9) to just four runs all series, handing it its first series sweep in conference play.

Sunday’s win was particularly tough for the Eagles, as Louisville ace Megan Hensley continued her masterful weekend, allowing just four hits. Her offense quickly handed her a lead to work with, and they

weren’t disappointed. Hensley danced around trouble en route to the win, leaving seven runners on base over her five innings of work.

Meanwhile, the duo of BC’s Jessica Dreswick and Allyson Frei couldn’t find the outs when they needed them, each lasting less than three innings while allowing three earned runs apiece.

Louisville was paced by four multi-hit days from players in the lineup, guided by three RBIs from Sidney Melton atop the lineup. Hensley chipped in at the dish as well, going 2-for-3 with a two-run single.

The Cardinals led by two after the first, six at the fourth, and walked it off in the bottom of the fifth against Frei to end it early.

Facing Frei in the fifth with a 6-0 lead, Louisville didn’t waste any time in wrapping things up. Nicole Pufahl drew a leadoff walk, then scored on a triple to center field from Celene Funke. After a groundout, Alison Szydlowski singled, Blaire Bass was hit by a pitch, and Louisville quite literally walked it off when Melton drew the bases loaded walk to trigger the automatic ending.

On Saturday, it was a combination of

offensive struggles and defensive miscues that doomed BC in a narrow 3-2 loss, spoiling a complete game effort from Dreswick in which she allowed just a single earned run.

C.C. Cook and Emme Martinez combined for four hits, but the rest of the lineup managed just seven hits and couldn’t make the most of several opportunities. Meanwhile, three errors in the field was one shy of their regular season high, and practically handed Louisville the game.

A costly error brought in the games first run, as the Cardinals struck in the bottom of the first. After an error allowed Maddy Newman to take an extra pair of bases on a single, another error would prove to be too much to overcome. Jenna Jordan reached on a throwing error from second baseman and Newman dashed home.

BC answered shortly afterwards, seizing the lead on the strength of a two-out rally. After Lexi DiEmmanuele reached on a throwing error and stole second, Annie Murphy followed with an RBI single to right-center. After a Martinez single, Cook laced a run-scoring single to left field to

bring in Murphy, but Martinez was thrown out trying to take an extra base—a third out at third that would haunt them.

Louisville promptly answered with a two-run frame of its own, taking a decisive lead. Melton, Newman, and Hensley strung together a trio of singles, with the last one bringing in two runs—Melton from third with ease, and Newman via an obstruction call. It was a tough turn for Dreswick, who had settled down and spun four scoreless innings, albeit stranding five runners in total.

Friday was more of the same, a slim 4-2 win for Louisville on the strength of a three-run home run from Hensley—one of two on the day for the junior—in the fifth inning that took away what could’ve been an important series-opening win for the Eagles. Frei had impressed through three innings, retiring the first seven Cardinals in order. The wheels would come off, however, as she coughed up a home run in the fourth, then tasked with protecting a 2-1 lead, allowed another en route to the loss.

After trading runs in the first few innings, including one via a Hensley home

run, BC took the lead in the fifth. Cook, who impressed throughout the weekend, drove in the go-ahead run with a bases loaded single. BC stranded the remaining runners, though, setting the table for the Cardinals comeback.

Hensley, though, continued to make her presence known at the plate. After two reached, she strode to the plate and promptly handed the Cardinals the lead with one swing of the bat, depositing a three-run home run to the same place she had launched one earlier in the day. She then returned to the circle and retired six of the final seven batters she faced to secure the win with relative ease.

It was a forgetful weekend for the Eagles, who entered with a comfortable edge over Louisville in the ACC standings, but now find themselves with a slim lead after the sweep. BC had been playing excellent softball for a good chunk of the season, but the wheels came off in Kentucky. The runrule blowout to end the series was almost fitting, a simple reflection of BC’s inability to find any success in an important conference series. n

BRADLEY SMART / HEIGHTS EDITOR

The Eagles struggled offensively, managing just four runs the entire series, and additionally saw poor performances from Jessica Dreswick (right) and Allyson Frei in the circle during the sweep.

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Christian Reaps Benefits of First Power Five Winning Season Christian Extension, from B1 one of the most lethal backcourts in the conference. Slowly but surely the Eagles earned respect, snapping their 666-day ACC losing streak on New Year’s Day with a 15-point victory over reigning Midwest Regional Champion Syracuse. Despite dropping the final 15 games of the season,

there was a newfound optimism surrounding the program.

This year, the results started to show. Robinson and Bowman upped their consistency, rivaling the best guards in the country, Jordan Chatman diversified his game—establishing himself as the team’s third scoring option—Nik Popovic mastered the pick and roll and transformed into

an effective low-post scorer, and Steffon Mitchell flourished as a doit-all stretch four. Stringing together multiple win streaks, BC showed that it could beat anyone in the country— that is, when it was in on its game.

Meanwhile, Christian and Spinelli landed the program’s first ESPN 100 recruit in 12 years: 6-foot-8 small forward Jairus Hamilton. Despite

suffering a first-round exit in the NIT, the Eagles have already popped up in number of way-too-early 2019 NCAA Tournament brackets.

Three and a half weeks ago, Robinson and Bowman declared for the upcoming NBA Draft, but both elected not to sign an agent, thereby temporarily maintaining NCAA eligibility.

But, on Saturday night, Robinson—an

AP All-American honorable mention—signed with CAA, effectively parting with BC. As far as Christian is concerned, his ability to lead the Eagles to the dance without one of his bonafide stars could ver y well determine whether or not Wednesday’s two-year extension eventually turns into a longterm deal. n

SPORTS

B10 @HEIGHTSSPORTS

MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2018

LACROSSE

Waste of Time

BRADLEY SMART

against Virginia Tech, No. 5 UNC (15-3, 6-1 Atlantic Coast) countered an early deficit with an offensive explosion, stringing together a 9-2 run over the course of 16 minutes and 17 seconds in the title game’s opening frame.

But for the better portion of the first nine minutes of play, the Tar Heels were helpless on the offensive end of the field.

No. 2 BC (19-1, 7-0)—a team that recorded a combined 36 goals in the first two rounds of the ACC Tournament—looked as if it was primed for another high-scoring affair. The Eagles logged the

When NCAA president Mark Emmert, a man described on Twitter as having hair “styled with the sweat of college athletes,” announced in October that he was creating a committee headed by former United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to clean up the general shadiness in the sport of college basketball, most people— myself included—felt that there was a slim chance anything meaningful would come out of it. During this year’s Final Four, Emmert said that he didn’t want to waste Rice’s time—that alone appeared to be an indication of potential progress.

Alas, once again, the NCAA has left proponents of college athletes’ rights, as well as fans, annoyed by Rice’s recommendations—a list of broad, sweeping changes that are ultimately meaningless in the context of the many scandals to hit college athletics, the most recent one shaking men’s basketball to the core. After all, the report comes off as defending the current system—failing to recognize the fact that it is flawed in a lot of places, takes advantage of student athletes, and allows for tremendous corruption and profit throughout.

It’s not all bad, but a good amount of it is, so here’s my take—as a fan, a college student, and a frequent writer of sports—on some of the more significant recommendations put forth.

1) All Freshmen Must Sit The headliner of the recommendations was without a doubt the association’s attempt to strong-arm its big brother: the NBA. Back in 2006, the world’s highest-

See Lax vs. UNC, B9

See Waste of Time, B8

DOWN TO EARTH

ANDY BACKSTROM / HEIGHTS EDITOR

On Sunday, No. 5 North Carolina used a mid-game scoring spurt to capture its thirdconsecutive ACC Championship, snapping BC’s season-long, 19-game win streak.

BY ANDY BACKSTROM Sports Editor With 34.2 seconds left in Sunday afternoon’s ACC Championship, Boston College lacrosse attacker North Carolina 14 Sam Boston College 11 Apuzzo tracked down an errant Maggie Bill pass and flicked the ball to Christina Walsh, hitting the junior defender in stride across midfield. Even with a wide-open Kaileen Hart to her left, Walsh made a bee-line for the net. But as soon as she crossed the 8-meter line, North Carolina defender Kara Klages shoved her to the

ground.

Walsh went flying forward, face-first. Right when she hit the turf, she barrel-rolled before ultimately curling up in a ball, grimacing in pain as the BC training staff trotted out to the field. Klages was administered a red card, disqualifying her for not only the rest of the game, but also the entirety of the Tar Heels’ first-round matchup in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. Walsh, on the other hand—bloody nose and all—had to be helped off the field.

Trailing by three goals with less than 25 seconds remaining, the Eagles—who hadn’t lost a game in 336 days, dating back to

last year’s National Championship—were hurting, both figuratively and literally.

Fortunately for BC, the foul gifted Tess Chandler with one final free-position attempt, but her shot soared over the net. Cara Urbank didn’t fare any better on the ensuing wraparound—in fact, she was stuffed by UNC goaltender Taylor Moreno.

The streak was over.

Moreno ran out the clock, simultaneously sealing the 14-11 victory and crowning the Tar Heels conference tournament champions for the third-consecutive year.

Just like Friday’s semifinal MEN’S BASKETBALL

Christian Signs Two-Year Extension Through 2021-22 Season

BY ANDY BACKSTROM Sports Editor This summer, Boston College men’s basketball head coach Jim Christian was on the hot seat. With newly named Director of Athletics Martin Jarmond in town—a former Michigan State and Ohio State executive, who not only has a basketball background, but also played at University of North Carolina Wilmington—there was a sense that the fourth-year coach had to prove himself in 2017-18. Eight months down the road, it’s pretty clear that he passed the test.

Christian guided the Eagles to seven ACC wins—one more than he totaled in

his first three years on the Heights—five victories over NCAA Tournamentbound teams, including a thrilling upset over top-ranked Duke, back-to-back conference tournament wins, and their first winning season and postseason appearance since 2010-11. On Wednesday afternoon, Christian was reportedly rewarded with a two-year contract extension through the 2021-22 season, per CBS college basketball insider Jon Rothstein.

Since taking over the position in 2014-15, the Bethpage, N.Y. native has posted a 48-83 record, all while attempting to rebuild the program from the ground up. After winning 13 games

in his first year with the team, Christian weathered back-to-back single-digit victory seasons—the first of which saw the Eagles infamously finish 0-18 in ACC play. During that span, six players that Christian recruited—Sammy Barnes-Thompkins, Matt Milon, Idy Diallo, Ty Graves, A.J. Turner, and Mike Sagay—transferred.

Fortunately for Christian and assistant coach Scott Spinelli, they were able to find a few diamonds in the rough, namely Jerome Robinson and Ky Bowman. In 2016-17, the two North Carolina guards teamed up to form

KAITLIN MEEKS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

See Christian Extension, B9

Jim Christian is coming off his first winning season as a Power Five head coach.

FOOTBALL

Landry Falls to Titans in Early Second Round of NFL Draft

BY ANDY BACKSTROM Sports Editor

AMELIE TRIEU / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Defensive end Harold Landry (left) ranks second in BC history with 26 career sacks.

INSIDE SPORTS

After dropping out of the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft, Boston College football defensive end Harold Landry heard his name called about 30 minutes into Friday night’s Day Two festivities. The Tennessee Titans struck a deal with the Oakland Raiders to trade up to the 41 spot and snag the edge rusher, making Landry the highest-picked BC player since Luke Kuechly in 2012.

The selection ships the Eagles’ premier defensive lineman to Nashville, where he’ll team up with new Titans head coach and former New England Patriots linebacker Mike Vrabel, whose son committed to play for BC this past winter.

For Landry, the wait is finally over—one year after many assumed he’d leave for the pros.

After all, he most likely would have been a first-round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. Instead, he joined Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller as just the second prospect to ever lead the nation in sacks and forgo the ensuing NFL Draft. In order to finish out

his collegiate career, raise his draft stock, and receive his degree, Landry returned to the Heights for one final season.

Unfortunately for the Spring Lake, N.C. native, things didn’t exactly go to plan. Six games into the year, the senior suffered what would eventually be a season-ending ankle injury. Although he performed well at the combine and was projected by many to go in the first round, Landry never got a chance to hold up a personalized jersey in front of a packed AT&T stadium.

Still, his nagging ankle injury wasn’t enough to turn away Tennessee. In many ways, the Titans are stealing a first-round talent. Landry—who ranks second on BC’s all-time career sack chart—is as explosive as it gets on the outside, often drawing comparisons to Atlanta Falcons linebacker Vic Beasley.

Throughout this season, the 6-foot-3 defensive end was frequently doubleteamed, and for good reason. As a junior, Landry took the country by storm, racking up a nation-leading 16.5 sacks, en route to Second-Team Walter Camp All-American honors. Not only that, but he also piled up 50 total tackles—including 22 behind the

SOFTBALL: Eagles Swept by Louisville BASEBALL: BC Steals Game in South Bend

line of scrimmage—forced seven fumbles, deflected four passes, and returned one interception for 20 yards in the Quick Lane Bowl.

With Landry’s ability to pressure the quarterback, stuff the run, and drop back in coverage, analysts have often discussed whether or not he will play outside linebacker in the NFL. Considering that Titans new defensive coordinator Dean Pees ran a 3-4 hybrid scheme during his six-year tenure in Baltimore, there’s reason to think that Landry will spend a good amount of time off the line.

Regardless of where he ends up on the field, he’ll have his eyes on the quarterback, along with the rest of Tennessee’s defensive line—a unit that cracked the top five in sacks last season.

Sometime in the next 24 hours, the second-round pick will hop on a plane and fly to Tennessee for his introductory press conference. The former three-star recruit is heading back down south. There’s no doubt, though, that Landry—the first BC player recruited by head coach Steve Addazio to reach the NFL—is leaving behind a legacy in Chestnut Hill. 

SPORTS IN SHORT................................... B8

BC’s lineup went cold, scoring just four runs, all while The Eagles snapped their seven-game ACC losing streak, but NFL DRAFT.............................................. B8 losing ground in the conference standings..................B9 a pair of one-run losses cost them the series.........................B9 SOFTBALL............................................... B9