The Heights May 3, 2018

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THE

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

EST. 1919 WWW.BCHEIGHTS.COM

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2018

MOMENTUM AWARDS 2018 A6-A9 Faculty Send Letter Criticizing B.o.B 220 sign letter calling for admin response to Modstock pick.

BY COLE DADY News Editor Two hundred twenty Boston College faculty and staff have signed a letter, as of Wednesday night, sent to University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., and Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley Monday morning questioning the appropriateness of the Campus Activities Board’s (CAB) invitation to B.o.B to perform at Thursday’s Modstock festival. This follows a letter written to Leahy by Alan Marcus, a BC finance professor, and Sheryl Marcus, BC ’05, expressing concern over the upcoming performance.

The letter raised concern over B.o.B’s single “Flatline,” which suggested antiSemitic views by invoking 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. They specifically raised concern over the lyrics do your research on “Do your research on David Irving / Stalin was way worse than Hitler / That’s why the POTUS gotta wear a Kippa.”

They also brought up public statements that express hostility to science, including proclamations that the earth is flat, and that the lunar landing was “staged.” The rapper has also publicly claimed that the Sept. 11 attacks were an inside job and that the U.S. government is “cloning celebrities.”

“We, faculty and staff of Boston College, are embarrassed that our Jesuit and Catholic university is supporting a performer who spouts such offensive and uneducated statements,” the letter reads.

“We are concerned that the sentiments he expresses could be condoned as legitimate discourse on our campus.”

The letter calls on the University to “issue a strong response, reinforcing Boston College’s mission to live out the social justice imperatives” and “disavowing B.o.B.’s conspiracy theories and antiscience and anti-Semitic proclamations.”

The letter also requests that BC review CAB’s processes for selecting B.o.B as a performer.

The University had not yet responded to a request for comment at press time.

The letter comes a week after CAB announced its Modstock pick. Members of the BC community have publicly condoned inviting B.o.B to come to campus.

CAB initially responded to the criticism with a statement dissociating the organization from the rapper’s personal views. CAB then released an apology on Monday.

“We hope that the Boston College community knows that we were not

See Modstock Letter, A3

FACULTY RETIREMENTS OVER PAST 10 YEARS

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*Source: 2017-2018 BC Fact Book

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2007-08 ‘08-’09 ‘09-’10 ‘10-’11 ‘11-’12 ‘12-’13 ‘13-’14 ‘14-’15 ‘15-’16 ‘16-’17 ‘17-’18

NICOLE CHAN / HEIGHTS EDITOR

With Economy Good, Faculty Retire in Wave Some BC faculty postponed retirement due to financial crisis

BY COLE DADY AND

CHARLIE POWER

Asst. News Editor

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2018-19 Has Most-Ever AHANA+ RAs Proportion of RAs who are AHANA+ increases from 44 to 52 percent

BY COLE DADY News Editor The Office of Residential Life has increased the diversity of its residential assistants for the upcoming academic year, as 52 percent will be AHANA+, in comparison to 44 percent this year, according to Mike Lorenz, ResLife’s associate director for selection, development, and formation. Additionally, 42 percent of new RAs identified as male, and 58 percent as female.

RAs play an important role in facilitating tough conversations around issues of diversity and inclusivity in on-campus residence halls, according to Lorenz. As such, it’s important that the staff is representative of the student body.

“It’s a big passion of mine to make sure

we represent our student body within our staff,” Lorenz said. “It’s a big deal.”

To incentivize students of diverse backgrounds to apply to the RA position, ResLife streamlined the application process and updated its RA contracts to reflect the values of inclusivity and safety, which are demonstrated through its mission statement. When ResLife interviews potential RAs, it asks how they would represent and support students from underrepresented populations in an effort to assist them.

While the Office of Residential Life isn’t legally allowed to record answers regarding candidates’ sexual orientation, economic background, and religious preferences, it aims to embrace all forms of inclusivity.

Questions on race, ethnicity, and gender identity are optional for candidates to respond to.

Notably in the wake of multiple racist incidents and the subsequent Silence is Still Violence march last fall, ResLife became incentivized to facilitate conversations on

difficult issues, hosted floor meetings, and led outreach initiatives to the impacted students, according to Lorenz.

“We constantly have to adapt to different people’s needs,” Lorenz said. “It’s hard because what works with one person may not work with another. But we’re trying to do the right thing and support people where they need it.”

While it’s nearly impossible to predict when a bias-related incident may occur, Lorenz believes ResLife should issue an adequate response to these occurrences.

The office attempts to address and respect intersectionality.

Through its efforts, it believes it can impact its “sphere of influence,” opening the minds of students in residence halls to new ways of thinking about diversity and inclusivity.

“The more that our student leaders are aware, the more that our professional staff are aware, we’re hoping that the campus culture can slowly be changed,” Lorenz said. 

This is the third and final part in a series about hiring and retaining faculty at Boston College.

The average age of faculty members at Boston College has stayed steady over the past decade, ranging between 52 and 54 years old. Yet this stability hides that the fact that the proportion of faculty nearing retire-

Ever-earlier recruiting timeline for banks causes consternation

BY COLE DADY News Editor Carroll School of Management Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduates Richard Keeley sent a letter to four major banks T participating in an accelerated recruiting process Tuesday afternoon asking that they wait until final exams are over before scheduling interviews and super days—the term for a day of multiple interviews for

Students apply to accelerated internship at banks

April 2018

May 2018 Students interview and attend superdays

positions at financial institutions—according to an email sent to all sophomores in CSOM. A number of bulge bracket banks targeting sophomores are in the midst of conducting interviews and super days for internships next summer, including Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.

“The recruiting timelines have become unreasonable and they have been driven by copycat behavior in an effort to get ahead,” Keeley wrote.

“This isn’t fair to you and it is a poor ‘process.’”

Throughout the month of April,

See Banking, A3

Students receive internship offers

May 2018

Student receives full-time offfers

June 2019 Students start summer internships

August 2019

May 2020 Students graduate and begin work

ANNA TIERNEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR

SUMMER PREVIEW ARTS

Heights editors and staffers preview the songs, movies, and new TV we’re most excited for this summer.

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THIS ISSUE

See Generational Wave, A3

The Accelerated Recruiting Timeline

A look at the Intercultural Dialogue and Diplomacy class that sent students to Kuwait over Spring Break.

NEWS: Woods Dean

ment age has grown, leading some to point out a generational wave of retirements that appears to be backed up by recent years of University data.

“Even as we have probably more older faculty, that’s been offsetted by all the new faculty that we’ve hired,” said Vice Provost for Faculties Billy Soo. “If we had kept the same number of faculty over that ten year period, the median age would have gone up significantly. So that’s sort of balancing out the increasing age.”

As reported in the second installment of this series, the total number of faculty at BC over the 2008 to 2017 period has expanded from 679 to 833.

This period of time has also seen

CSOM Sophomores Make Plans for Junior Summer

A WEEK IN KUWAIT Magazine

INSIDE

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News Editor

ATHLETES OF THE YEAR

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METRO: Eric Holder

WCAS dean Rev. James Burns will depart Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to take the reins at another university...........A3 talked 2020 plans at an event this week...............

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NEWS.........................A2 OPINIONS.................A10

Vol. XCIX, No. 16 MAGAZINE..................A4 A R T S . . . . . . . . .B8 © 2018, The Heights, Inc. METRO........................ A5 SPORTS...............B1 www.bchelghts.com 69

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things to do on campus this week

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The biology department presents an undergraduate research day where students showcase their work through a poster session on Friday from 1 to 3:30 p.m. in the Higgins Atrium. Two undergraduate candidates for Scholar of the College will be presenting their research.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

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The psychology department will be holding an undergraduate research presentation for students in the psychology honors program and other thesis courses in McGuinn 334 from 3 to 5 p.m. The event is open to all members of the BC community.

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Boston College film studies presents Filmmaking III students’ short films in the Thesis Film Premiere 2018. The event will take place on Saturday at 4 p.m. in Devlin 008. The event features films by seven students, and is open to all to all members of the BC community.

NEWS Gallaugher’s App Developement Class Showcases Final Projects BRIEFS

By Jack Miller

New Director for C21 Center Karen Kelly Kiefer, associate director of the Church in the 21st Century Center and BC ’82, will become the new director of the Center on June 1.

Appointed by University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., she will succeed Thomas Groom, a professor in the School of Theology and Ministry, who has led the Center since 2015.

Created in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, the Center’s mission has been to revitalize the Church. Kiefer has been with the Center since 2008 and has been instrumental in several programs, including Agape Latte, the Center’s partnership with Campus Ministry.

“Karen has been a key figure in the development of our Church in the 21st Century Center since its establishment 15 years ago,” Leahy said to The Chronicle. “She understands the mission and culture of C21, and is a person known for her faith, creativity, and ability to form effective relationships with a wide range of people, especially BC students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

I look forward to working even more closely with her.”

Learning to Learn Director Rosanna Contreras-Godfrey has been named the director of the Office of Learning to Learn after having served as interim director since Dan Bunch, special assistant to Vice President for Student Affairs Barb Jones, left the position. Apart from a period at the University of Massachusetts Boston from 2001-2003, Contreras-Godfrey has been at Boston College since 1997, formerly serving as assistant director of the McNair Program.

Contreras-Godfrey will continue Learning to Learn’s mission of helping first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students and students with disabilities. As assistant director, she created the College Transition Program that brings students to campus before the start of their freshman year to become familiar with a college environment.

“Rossanna has committed her entire career to college access and persistence for first-generation and low-income students,” Akua Sarr, vice provost for undergraduate academic affairs, said to The Chronicle. “She is a highly experienced administrator, grant writer, and strategic thinker, and I’m thrilled that she has agreed to take on the important role of leading the Learning to Learn Office on a permanent basis.”

Harvard , Grad Union to Bargain Harvard University President Drew G. Faust announced on Tuesday that Harvard has agreed to collectively bargain with its graduate student union, according to The Crimson. The announcement follows the successful vote to unionize held last week, and comes in the midst of the Boston College Graduate Employees Union’s fruitless efforts to bargain with the University.

According to The Crimson, Alan M. Garber, Harvard’s provost, sent out an email that afternoon detailing the administration’s decision.

“In light of the outcome of the vote and the existing NLRB precedent, Harvard is prepared to begin good-faith negotiations, guided by our fundamental commitments as an academic institution,” Garber said.

Unlike Harvard, some other universities have refused to bargain with their unions. This decision comes after BC’s union held a solidarity march on Friday, and a day after Columbia University’s union ended a weeklong strike.

Assoc. Investigative Editor

Rows of Macbooks lined Eagle’s Nest Monday afternoon as students in professor John Gallaugher’s Swift/iOS App Development class showcased their final projects for the semester. The course, now in its third semester, aims at arming the next generation of business innovators with the coding experience necessary to be successful in the modern world. He hosts an app showcase each semester.

“The biggest problem our entrepreneurs have is they don’t have the skills to be able to build their vision,” Gallaugher, BC ’88 and GCSOM ’90, said. “So I was wondering when I had my sabbatical, back in the fall of 2016, if it would be possible to design a first class in programming that would be very different.”

While his students have been thinking about their projects for the entire semester, he assigned a new, smaller program each week in class that built on the concepts of the previous week.

For their final exam, they wrote code that enabled their phone to cast spells from the Harry Potter series, complete with audio from the movies.

The apps on display ranged from assisting in purely recreational pursuits to professional use. One project, TeeToGreen, allows golfers to simulate driving ranges and courses, track their practice sessions, and share rounds with other golfers. Users can add their own course or select a pre-programmed one from real life, such as Augusta National, home of the Masters Tournament.

“It’s meant for individual golfers to practice in a more structured way,” said Michael Green, TeeToGreen’s creator and CSOM ’19. You can compare your results to friends just like you would do on the golf course.”

Yu Chang, CSOM ’21, developed Wunderite for commercial insurance

Photo courtesy of john Gallaugher

Students gathered in Eagle’s Nest to showcase the apps they created for the John Gallaugher’s Swift/iOs App Development class. brokers looking to streamline their risk profiles with an easy-to-use mobile app.

The program lets users add multiple companies, test out different options for premiums, and export business information to investors. Wunderite is part of a startup, a collaboration between 11 Boston College students and MBA candidates.

Many students gained inspiration for their apps by simply trying to improve parts of their day-to-day lives and hobbies.

“I’m a big golfer, and whenever I go to the driving range I always try to visualize shots in my head and plan out,” Green said. “So with the app I don’t have to as much imagination when I play, I can just press the button and I can focus on my shot because it generates on-thecourse situations for golfers when they’re practicing.

Kerry Nosta, CSOM ’20, created her app, NeatWorking, to organize the

vast number of business cards she had collected over the years. Users can store information, add notes, and attach pictures or LinkedIn profiles for an easy reminder.

“I have a bunch of business cards on my desk from networking events that I didn’t know what to do with, so I decided that was something that seemed functional to me,” she said.

Like many of her peers, Nosta entered the class with no prior programming experience.

“I like technology, but I’m not necessarily that good at it, so I decided to go for it,” Nosta said. “I have a new appreciation for apps. They are very difficult to create.”

For others, the course allowed them to refine and develop skills they had already learned through more advanced products. Vector, created by Kevin Cai, MCAS ’18, aggregates projected price ranges and call times for Uber, Lyft, and

the MBTA for any given trip.

“I’m a computer science major and a senior, graduating pretty soon. I wanted to do this because I thought it would be interesting and fun,’ said Cai.. “And to that degree, I’ve actually implemented code that shouldn’t be possible if you haven’t coded prior to this class. The layer that does all the heavy lifting is actually written in an entirely different language.”

This week also marks the final round of the New Venture Competition, an annual student competition hosted by Harvard Business School’s Rock Center for Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise Initiative.

“I think it’s the first year where every team that’s in the final I’ve had at least one of the students,” Gallaugher said. “I can’t take credit for them, but what is really wonderful is to see them get together, help each other, pace each other with their own internal excellence.” n

International Studies Reconsiders Application Requirement

By Charlie Power Asst. News Editor The Academic Advisory Board of the International Studies (IS) Program has discussed whether the major should be open to all students who are interested in the subject area.

This year is the 16th year that the program has been offered at Boston College.

Under the current system, students apply at the end of their freshman year, and the number of applications typically averages from around 115 to 120. Between 90 and 100 students are admitted to the major each year.

“To move forward from here, we’ll need to add additional sections of

classes, and we hope to do that in the next few years, so that we might be able to open the major to all students, without an application,” said Robert Murphy, the program’s director.

“No decisions have been made with timing, but our goal is that we would like to do that, to open it up at some point.”

The Advisory Board has estimated that the class size would jump to around 150 students if it were not a restricted major. If it does open the program, it plans on making sure that it has the capacity to meet additional demand if it is above what is expected.

“It will probably require more faculty to cover these courses, whether

that is using faculty that are here at BC, but maybe we are able to have them teach for international studies and meet some of our needs that way, or it might be that we have to hire some additional faculty to cover these courses,” he said. “Probably most likely a little of both.”

Murphy said the major has reached its maximum sustainable capacity.

Over the past 10 years, the number of majors enrolled in the IS program has increased from 132 to 253, according to the BC Fact Book.

Curriculum changes, however, may dampen overall student demand.

“I think one thing that is an important feature that may keep the

numbers from rising too quickly, or by too much, is that we have strengthened the language requirement, so students now have to go through a third year of language, or do a second intermediate language,” Murphy said.

“I think that may be something that students consider when they decide if they want to do the IS major.”

The IS major also consists of 14 courses, four larger than the typical major at BC, which generally consists of 10. This could be a deterrent for some students, even if the application were no longer restricted.

“I think [this] will also perhaps sort students in a way that keeps numbers from becoming too hard to manage,” Murphy said. n

POLICE BLOTTER: 4/30/18 – 5/2/18 Monday, April 30

Tuesday, May 1

8:51 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance on Upper Campus.

12:18 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a trespass warning in Stayer.

3:28 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a traffic crash on Campanella Way.

11:03 a .m. - A report was filed regarding a medical reportable in Fulton.

3:44 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance in O’Neill Library

11:36 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious circumstance in Gonzaga.

2:08 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance off-campus.

10:48 p.m. - A report was filed re garding medical assistance at Alumni Stadium.

Wednesday, May 2 12:02 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious circumstance in Conte Forum.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

CORRECTIONS What are you looking forward to this summer?

“I’m looking forward to travelling Europe with my family for the first time.”

—Claire Sheller, MCAS ’21

“I’m mostly just looking forward to relaxing with my family and friends from home.”

—Ali Manfredi, MCAS ’21

“I’m excited to hang out with my friends again and to work at a law firm.”

—Nishant Varma, MCAS ’21

“I’m going to Colorado on a road trip with my friends.”

—Nick Ardakani, CSOM ’21

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

The Heights

Thursday, May 3, 2018

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University Grapples With Recruiting Competition and Faculty Retirees FACULTY MEAN AGE, 2012-17 54

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52 51 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 Nicole Chan / Heights Editor

BC’s mean faculty age has appeared to decrease because the University has added over 100 faculty members in recent years.

Generational Wave, from A1 fluctuating faculty retirement numbers.

Between 2007 and 2010, 4.5 faculty retired on average. Retirements then increased in the early 2010s, returning to their long-term average, which Soo said was between 10 and 15 per year. The past two years, however, have seen a jump in the number of retirements. Twenty-one faculty members retired last year, and 23 are retiring this year.

These fluctuating numbers cause uncertainty for the administration.

“What we fear from an administrative sidepoint is what if they all suddenly

say, ‘that’s it, I’m leaving,’” Soo said. “You can’t easily hire faculty, and this is one of the challenges that the departments face. In a year, if you can hire two, that’s a great year.”

In this sense, it appears the University is racing against time. While BC’s faculty base has expanded significantly in recent years, the prospect of above-average faculty retirements could offset efforts of further growth.

In searching for an explanation for these changing numbers, Soo and others suggested that the Great Recession could be contributing to the variance.

“If you’re a little bit older, and think-

ing of retiring, and your retirement fund has been cut by half, why would you want to retire?” Soo said. “You need to build up the money again, and so that’s what happened.”

The last five years have seen stocks soar. The Dow Jones Industrial Average broke the 26,000 point mark in Jan. 2018, and the S&P 500 has also reached record highs in recent months. In tandem with this market upswing, faculty retirements have risen.

“So we’re above normal,” he said.

“And part of that I think is just a catching up, those who did not retire during the financial crisis have suddenly seen

the stock market recover, they’re doing well now, so now they’re more comfortable in retiring.”

Matthew Rutledge, a research economist at BC’s Center for Retirement Research, has analyzed which factors are most influential in a person’s decision to retire. He has found that wealth shocks, such as the recent financial crisis, have less of an influence on the decision to retire than other factors. Some include the retirement of a spouse, a change in family dynamics, or if individuals have to start taking care of their grandchildren.

While wealth shocks may not be the largest explanatory factor for deciding to retire, they still appear to have had some impact. Rutledge suggested that faculty may have delayed their retirements if the financial crisis hurt their retirement accounts. While the asset composition of an individual’s savings account differs, the retirement account loss reached 25 percent during the crisis, according to one estimate. U.S. workers’ 401(k)s and IRAs lost about $2.4 trillion in the final two quarters of 2008.

Besides market volatility, Rutledge also cited the improvement in general health outcomes over the past few decades as another factor why many workers, include academics, have decided to prolong their careers. According to Rutledge, today’s average retirement age is now around 64 and will continue to trend upward.

Faculty at BC, however, appear to be retiring later in life. Michael Malec, associate professor of sociology, observed his colleagues who have recently have done so between ages 65 and 72. He is retiring after this year ends at age 77 after working at BC for

50 years, but intends to be around on campus even if he’s not working here.

“I think outside of the house in which I live, I’ll call this my second home and will for a long time to come,” Malec said.

Soo and Rutledge both cited that the lifestyle of an academic is not physically demanding compared to other professions, making it easy to stay on the job past the typical retirement age.

Tenure also ensures that faculty can stay as long as they wish.

“There’s lots of things about being an academic that make it so that the average retirement age absolutely should be later,” Rutledge said. “It’s the kind of job where you’re not going to have a lot of physical need, and so any age-related decline would be cognitive.”

Malec also suggested that BC’s culture makes it easy for faculty to stay on campus until late in life. He cited the benefits of the University—ranging from the library to technology support—as factors that have kept him coming back year after year, as well as the ability to work at a world-class institution with the city of Boston at his doorstep. Even though he has been perturbed by BC’s stances on social justice issues on campus over the years, they haven’t been enough to make him quit.

“The evidence is that so many of us stay here,” Malec said. “We say ‘I don’t like this, I don’t like that,’ but is it enough to make you think about leaving? No.” As the University faces external competition in recruiting high-caliber faculty and the prospect of elevated retirements, administrators will continue to grapple with this issue in coming years. n

Faculty Call WCAS Dean Named St. Mary’s University President Out B.o.B Stances

By Anthony Rein Assoc. News Editor

Modstock Letter, from A1 aware of B.o.B’s viewpoints when we chose him to perform, and it was never our intention to offend anyone,” the statement said.

“We invite artists to perform based on their musical talent and popularity with the student body. Any invitation to perform at any of our concerts is not, and has never been, an endorsement of the artist’s viewpoints.”

The Boston College Hillel Executive Board issued a statement, revised from a previous version, on Monday, which expressed its disappointment in choosing B.o.B to headline Modstock and in CAB’s response to student and faculty concerns.

The group has also been circulating a petition among students calling for an administrative response to students’ concerns—several dozen students had signed it as of Wednesday night.

“Boston College has a strong multi-faith community, but this choice in artist made by the Campus Activities Board isolates the Jewish students, staff, and faculty in the Boston College community,” the statement reads. “Jesuit and Jewish traditions emphasize the key role of building and fostering community, but this decision and the recent statement issued by CAB feel like the opposite, dividing our community and making it feel less inclusive.” n

Dean of the Woods College of Advancing Studies (WCAS) Rev. James P. Burns, I.V.D will leave Boston College to enter a new role as president of Saint Mary’s University in Winona, Minn., according to The Chronicle. Burns, who has been dean of the WCAS since 2014, will leave his position on June 15 and become Saint Mary’s president on July 9.

Saint Mary’s is a De La Salle Christian Brothers Catholic liberal arts university with an undergraduate, graduate, and online student enrollment of 5,700, according to The Chronicle. Like BC, it is a Catholic institution with a focus on the liberal arts.

“I want to express my sincere thanks to Fr. Leahy for his guidance and mentorship throughout my time as dean and for providing me this opportunity at Boston College,” said Burns to The Chronicle. “In addition, the opportunity to work closely with Provost David Quigley and my fellow deans, as well as BC’s vice presidents and its Jesuit community, has been a wonderful and singular experience. I am very grateful.”

Burns has been at BC since 2010, and before being officially named dean, served as the interim dean from 2012 to 2014. During his time at the WCAS, Burns expanded the curriculum of the Woods College, adding programs in applied economics, leadership and

administration, cybersecurity policy and governance, and sports administration, and added the school’s first online program in 2016. He increased partnerships with BC’s other schools, including the Law School, Carroll School of Management, and the Connell School of Nursing. David Goodman, the associate dean of academic affairs and advising in the Woods College, will serve as interim dean.

“We have built upon the strong foundation that Fr. Woods left us and crafted a smart, caring and thoughtful staff that is focused on student success and faculty support,” said Burns to The Chronicle.

“As a result, we have seen our student retention rates increase significantly and our enrollments have doubled and tripled in some areas. We have been a hub of innovation, and have become the leader in online delivery systems to students at BC, with a focus on quality and rigor.”

Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley commended Burns for his leadership of the Woods College.

“I’ve been blessed to work closely with Fr. Burns during the past eight years,” said Quigley to The Chronicle. “I have long admired his commitment to and belief in Woods College students, and his leadership has advanced the school to a new level of excellence. We wish him every success as he returns home to his beloved Minnesota.”

Burns will be the first president of Saint Mary’s in over a century to not be

Photo Courtesy of Lee Pellegrini / University Communications

Rev. Burns will enter his new role at St. Mary’s University on July 9.. a Christian Brother, the order that runs the university.

“I intend to bring the same energy, passion and conviction to my work with students, faculty and staff at Saint Mary’s that I brought to the Woods College each day,” said Burns to The Chronicle.

“There are so many natural connections

between the Lasallian charism and the Jesuit charism. Both highly value and honor education at all levels, both seek to find God in all things and to live in God’s presence, both have clear concern for those who are on the periphery and both seek to provide opportunities for all men and women.” n

Banking Internships Present ‘Ridiculous’ Recruiting Timeline Banking, from A1 CSOM sophomores flocked to information sessions, coffee chats, internship bootcamps, and career treks in an effort to establish a relationship with banks and build the groundwork of securing an internship for the following summer. Banks with a notable presence on campus include Barclays, Goldman Sachs, UBS, CITI, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan.

By securing an internship for the summer after junior year, students often hope to secure a full-time offer for after graduation. As such, students could potentially line up their jobs after college before they get half-way through college.

But it seems that banks are becoming more unreasonable as they continually accelerate the recruiting process, particularly for the area of Investment Banking, according to Amy Donegan, assistant dean for undergraduate career advising in CSOM. When sopho-

mores apply to internships in banking, they only have three semesters worth of college to base their application on, leaving them banks with few criteria to evaluate them on.

“They’ve only had three semesters at BC, they haven’t even taken a finance course, they haven’t even taken any of their more difficult upper-level electives,” Donegan said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Donegan said the push to hire underrepresented individuals in banking, particularly women, has triggered the accelerated timeline.

“The competition in the accelerated timelines is because of the search for diversity candidates, and that includes women,” Donegan said. “In investment banking and in sales and trading, they’re underrepresented.”

According to a 2017 Investment Banking Report compiled by Wall Street Oasis (WSO), RBC sits at the highest percentile for female representation among banks at 28 percent.

Banks at a lower percentile, such as Scotiabank and BMO Capital Markets, only have about 12.5 percent women.

While these statistics are based solely on user submissions to the WSO Company Database for interviews and employment, they are indicative of the general fact that fewer women are pursuing careers in business and finance than men. That also hits home for BC, as 34 percent of students in CSOM are women, according to statistics in the 2017-2018 Fact Book.

Attending engagement events as a sophomore, such as a coffee chat, is one way in which employers screen nand identify strong candidates. To be a top candidate, Donegan said, one must possess a high GPA and established leadership or organizational involvement, or at least be extremely articulate. A lot of times, banks will also specif y minimum GPAs that students must have to apply to their internship programs (the Barclays 2019 Investment Banking summer

analyst position requires applicants to possess a 3.2 minimum GPA, for example). But when firms come around to the period of selecting candidates, students—particularly those applying to investment banking internships— more realistically need at least a 3.6, according to Donegan.

Regardless of the firm’s efforts to gather talented students earlier on, they’re most likely not getting the best candidates.

“I haven’t spoken to a single person at any of the firms who thinks this is a good idea, yet no one will stop it,” Donegan said. “They’re all trying to get a jump on the other firms by accelerating their recruiting.

“All it takes is one firm to have a super day and extend offers to start the whole cycle, and we’re in the midst of it right now.”

As of now, firms still plan on coming to campus to recruit in the fall. But with many bulge banks having limited internship opportunities, the acceler-

ated timeline may mean that most of the spots are gone before junior year begins. Donegan did note, however, that this is primarily a phenomenon in investment banking, and not other areas of finance, like asset management or corporate finance.

In other business sectors like accounting, firms have a much more organized process, offering early identification programs through sophomore leadership programs and recruiting in the fall of junior year.

Donegan belie ves investment banking has become an appealing profession because the salaries are high, it has lucrative exit opportunities, and students consider it very prestigious.

But she emphasized that finance, along with other areas of business, are high paying across the board.

“It’s unreasonable to expect students during an exam period of their sophomore year to be doing super days in New York,” Donegan said. “It’s gotten out of hand.” n

The Heights

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Thursday, May 3, 2018

Games for Good: Student Turns Tradgedy Into Innovation

By Abby Hunt Copy Editor Tech expert and budding entrepreneur Matt Giovanniello, CSOM ’18, is always searching for new ways to innovate. But his biggest project, which he started at only 12 years old, is one that he never intended to embark on.

When he was in sixth grade, Giovanniello’s grandmother suffered a stroke during open-heart surgery.

Despite being relatively healthy beforehand, she woke up from the surgery having lost her short- and long-term memory, ability to speak, and movement in the right side of her body. “[It] was like crazy for me to fathom that this could happen to somebody at a moment’s notice,” he said.

To no avail, doctors and therapists tried to rehabilitate Giovanniello’s grandmother with flashcards with basic pictures—stick figures of boys and girls, clip art images of houses—in order to teach her the fundamentals she had lost.

But, pushing the health professionals away with her one good arm, she made clear that she wanted nothing to do with the therapy. Seeing his grandmother was not only not interested, but also not progressing, Giovanniello knew that something had to be done. So harnessing his seventh grade Powerpoint skills, he threw together a “game” of questions, images, and music that were relevant specifically to his grandmother.

“It would be like a big family photo, and I would point to a specific person and say, ‘Who’s this?’” he said. “This [taught her] not only a ‘boy’ and a ‘girl,’ but that this is your son or this is your grandson … and she really identified with that. She loved it.”

Over the following years, Giovanniello would go on to create several of these games, and eventually, although not exclusively from the program, his grandmother became able to speak in elementary sentences.

“We were able to have a conversation, she was able to kind of tell us how she was feeling, which, when she first stroked, none of that was possible,” he said. “She was on a tube, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe on her own. So to see her a year or so later progressing in the way that she did, it was enough that was worth celebrating. It was like a little milestone for her.”

A few years later, Giovanniello brought up the work he was doing with a family friend of his—Chris—who told him he was onto something big.

“Totally not my vision to start building a product when I was 12 years old, but it ended up happening that way,” Giovanniello said.

So Giovanniello and Chris began working on an application that incorporates patients’ personalized data into computerized therapy sessions—in essence, a more comprehensive version of Giovanniello’s Powerpoint games—that would be able to help patients suffering from not only strokes,

but also PTSD, dementia, or traumatic brain injuries. After determining the severity of the patient’s brain injury through a series of tests, the program incorporates data that has been input by doctors and the patient’s care team—their family members, friends, and so on—to create a therapy program particular to that patient.When Giovanniello was in high school, he and Chris began meeting with an attorney in order to start trying to obtain a patent for their idea.

“The first day we met him, he told us that our chances of being awarded a patent for this were 50 percent at most, and it would cost in excess of $60,000,” Giovanniello said.

“And we kind of just looked at each other, we were like, ‘Holy crap, what did we get ourselves into?’ And then the next thing was like, ‘Okay let’s do it.’”

The two were able to pull together the funds for the ambitious effort, and after six years of experiencing constant rejection from the patent office and subsequently refining the definition of their product, Giovanniello woke up one morning his sophomore year at Boston College with the long-awaited email in his inbox containing the notice of allowance for the patent.

“I was ecstatic—I couldn’t even believe that that was happening,” he said. “We received all of these documents in the mail, and now Chris and I hold a patent for our invention, which is really remarkable.”

Since then, Giovanniello and Chris have been working on their business model, and they are currently in the process of hiring a full-time developer to help bring their project to life. The pair has also entered their business idea in the Shea Venture Competition at BC, where they ended up as finalists.

“We entered that just kind of as outsiders. I wasn’t involved in Shea Center beforehand, and Chris doesn’t even go here—he’s 10 years older than I am,” Giovanniello said.

“We ended up being finalists ... and that was again like kind of out of nowhere, not really expected.”

Although he is not certain what the exact time frame will be, he is optimistic that within the next couple of months the team will have a beta version of the program—now named Frenalytics—which they will be able to continue refining, or possibly try out on real patients.

He hopes that by the end of 2018, they will be in the works of partnering with hospitals.

“If I’m able to improve the life of just one other patient out there, in the way that I did with my grandmother, I think that’d be mission accomplished, in a sense,” Giovanniello said. “I think the selfless act that my grandmother gave to me, and in essence to the world, is something that I shouldn’t take for granted. As unfortunate as it was for this to happen to her, it opened all these doors to providing new opportunities for patients.

“She was at the extreme end of her stroke, but there are patients who don’t suffer as significantly, but they’re still impaired.

katilin meeks / Heights editor

Giovanniello helped his grandmother rehabilitate after a stroke by creating a PowerPoint game, which led to the creation of an app.

And if we could reach patients across the spectrum at all and improve their lives, I think that would be something really incredible.”

Giovanniello’s innovative endeavors haven’t just been limited to Frenalytics, however: After the venture competition, Giovanniello became more and more involved with the Shea Center and its TechTrek program.

Just last semester, while taking Intro to Swift with professor John Gallaugher, Giovanniello was able to create an app that helps alleviate an all-too-familiar frustration for BC students.

“I didn’t know how to develop apps before this at all,” he said. “I’m like not a developer, not a programmer, like, that’s not my space.”

Nevertheless, by the end of the course, Giovanniello had developed Packtrack: an app that lets students track the status of their packages that are being sent to the mailroom in real time—from the moment they are shipped to when they are ready to be picked up.

“Originally I did it out of my own necessity, because it was frustrating for me to figure out where packages were before that ‘ready for pickup’ email came out, and I learned that there was a lot going on in the background in speaking with mail services and my research of shipping and tracking numbers—there’s a lot that people don’t understand,” he said. “I created this app for me to get a better understanding and to just kind of make it a one-stop shop to figure out where your stuff is.”

Not only did Packtrack win “Most Useful for BC Students” at last semester’s Student App Showcase, but it also became the first app from Gallaugher’s Swift class to be pub-

lished to the App Store—now it is available for free for anyone to download.

“I think [he] is a wonderful example of the trajectory we hope our students can achieve,” Gallaugher said of Giovanniello, who now serves as a TA for the Intro to Swift class.

“He’s got all of the characteristics for an innovator to be able to achieve their vision,” he said. “The fact that he’s working on a product and he’s now got the skills to be able to bring this to the next level ... embodies so much of what we want to strive for with our students here: to show them that they can find a place where their technical skill and their passion for helping others can come together and maybe even launch a business, or at least a product.”

Giovanniello has always been interested in technology and entrepreneurship, but didn’t always expect to follow such a path.

“Both of my parents are in the medical field—hence, my interest in health care—but ever since I was a little kid I always thought I would be a doctor,” Giovanniello said. “I dressed up as a pediatrician for Halloween three years in a row when I was younger … And then, when I was in fourth grade, I don’t know what exactly inspired me, but I went up to my parents and I was like, ‘Hey, is it okay if I don’t be a doctor when I grow up?’

“And they were like, ‘Of course, follow your heart—whatever you think you’re interested in, we will support you all the way.’ … I was interested in computers—even before I could speak … but that real passion kind of clicked when I had that conversation and they said yes.”

In sixth grade, Giovanniello created his first website, an online gaming site that

consisted of all of the computer games typically blocked on his middle school’s network—that was unable to be blocked by his school. Soon hundreds of thousands of people from around the world began using the site as well.

“Free Addicting Games Online by Matt G—that’s what I named it,” he said with a laugh. “Not very original.”

Giovanniello continued his online endeavors in high school as well, where he founded what he referred to as a “pseudoconsulting company” for the tech needs of people in his community, to help them with fix their computer problems or expand their online presence for business purposes.

His senior year, he and three of his friends started a free anonymous student-to-student tutoring website for his high school.

“Nothing like for money or anything—it was just an activity that we did,” he said. “Like the whole spirit of just creating this thing that didn’t exist before is something that I find really interesting and exciting.”

While it may seem obvious that Giovanniello was destined for a life of involvement in entrepreneurship and innovation upon his arrival to BC, Giovanniello admits that he couldn’t have anticipated the way things have turned out for him.

“If I had to think back to freshman year in terms of where I am now, I don’t think my freshman year self would have seen me where I am senior year,” he said. “If I had to like speak to my freshman year self... I would say reach out and remain confident and really run with the ideas that you have, because I think they have the potential to change not only people’s lives, but their perception and your perception of how things go.” n

A New Marketplace for College Students by College Students

By Timmy Facciola Asst. Magazine Editor Upon moving into his off-campus apartment at the start of his junior year, Mark Dimeglio, CSOM ’18, realized he needed a dresser. After checking Target and IKEA and deciding it would be too expensive to buy new, Dimeglio scrolled through countless expired furniture listings on Facebook before finally finding a senior with an extra dresser in his Mod. Dimeglio bought the dresser, but his problem was far from over. He needed to get it from The Mods to his apartment near 2000 Commonwealth Ave. He dragged it to St. Thomas Moore Road, but with chafing red marks on his arms from the hardwood furniture, Dimeglio couldn’t go much further.

He called an Uber XL, and upon arrival, his driver gave him a dirty look before help-

ing him lug the dresser into the trunk.

Dimeglio got the furniture into his apartment and that night, pondered the stressful situation he had undergone.

“I thought about it and realized, ‘This is a problem that so many college kids are having,’” he said.

And so, UniMarkit was born: an app that serves as an online marketplace for college students looking to safely buy and sell just about anything—ranging from furniture, to fan gear, to possibly even parking spots for the day.

“I’m an information systems student, I like to build things in my free time and learn about tech and I said, ‘you know what, this is something I’m really passionate about and I’m just going to solve the problem myself’,” Dimeglio said.

Unlike already-existing online marketplaces like Craigslist, UniMarkit doesn’t let

Kaitlin Meeks / Heights Editor

The boys’ app allows fellow students to safely buy and sell just about anything.

just anybody use the app. It’s designed by college students, for college students.

“To use our app, you need to have a bc.edu address to use it. Second, to be able to even buy, sell, or make an offer, you’ll have to actually verify your email,” Dimeglio said.

“We’re trying to keep it as secure as possible and we want people to trust the platform, and also trust other users on it.”

Dimeglio hopes the app will solve problems for new kids who perhaps don’t know too many people who would have extra items for sale.

“There’s so much stuff circulating around campus but your ability to get stuff is really only as strong as your social connections, especially if you’re a freshman or sophomore,” Dimeglio said. “It’d be a lot easier if you could pay a little bit of money and use an app to find something you need in a pinch, when you don’t have a lot of money.”

Although the company is starting at Boston Collge, the team plans to bring the app to the West Coast. Joe Taveras, MCAS ’18, is in charge of marketing the app and thinks the demand for such a service goes beyond Chestnut Hill.

“There’s something similar out in California but they don’t take extra steps to verify people on the platform are actually people within a university community,” Taveras said.

Taveras studies psychology—particularly how it relates to marketing. He first entered the industry through a summer job at Tinder, where he researched how customers around the world used the app and then designed strategies to more productively maneuver marketing strategies.

To raise brand awareness, Taveras, who’s from L.A., has enlisted his West Coast connections.

“We have an ambassador program with kids from Seattle University, [University of California, Santa Cruz], [University of California, San Diego], UCLA, and we’re looking to expand that to the Boston schools,” Taveras said. “We send them gear, and a wide variety of social media content.”

Dimeglio loves working with tech, but writing the code for the app was far from easy.

“Every line of code I wrote was the first time I’d ever written that kind of code … You have to be okay with saying ‘I don’t know but I’m going to figure it out,’” he said.

After designing the prototype of the app, Dimeglio recruited two friends, Teddy Burns, CSOM ’18, and Zach Wilner, CSOM ’18, for help with the tech side of the project.

(Wilner is a former general manager of The Heights.)

“I got to know [Zach] because we both worked at PwC this past summer, he was doing tech consulting,” Dimeglio said.

“Teddy Burns has become the tech lead.

Before coming on board with us, he had an internship doing tech consulting at Accenture.”

The four-man team shares responsibilities and makes certain to give each other endless creative freedom.

“I think to be passionate about what you’re doing, everyone has to have autonomy. I’ve heard stories about failed startups where there’s a founder who was super possessive of the business they’re in control of,” Dimeglio said. “I think everyone works well on our team because everyone has been

given a substantial amount of responsibility and I think it allows them to be passionate about what they’re doing.”

UniMarkit also hopes to solve some financial concerns of college students. A few months back, the team invited friends to a party at 2150 Comm. Ave., but realized they didn’t have any speakers. They considered either borrowing ones from friends or buying new ones from Best Buy and then maybe returning them the next day. This led them to the idea of single-use sales.

“We’ve talked about making it possible to request items that people need even if it’s just once,” Dimeglio said. “We’ve also thought about the ability to share parking spots, or being able to rent your car out for the day.”

The team has considered different ways to make money off the app, but given the recent controversies surrounding Facebook, they want to avoid selling users’ information or using it to custom tailor advertisements to specific tastes.

“Right now, we need to first to deliver the experience that kids need, so right now I’m taking a loss on it,” Dimeglio said. “We’re trying to prove to people and maybe even potential investors that this is something that should have happened a long time ago and it’s going to happen now.”

The team thinks the app has evolved from something they’d like to do into something they must do.

“It’s almost our obligation to provide the solution we’ve come up with,” Taveras said.

“It’s an obligation not only to provide the service but also make it safe, trustworthy, fun, reliable, and always there when you need it.” n

The Heights

Thursday, May 3, 2018

TOP

3

off campus study spots

1

Boston Public Library is the most obvious, yet perfect location for studying off campus. A short T-ride to Copley Square will provide you a historic place to cram for finals. With long wooden tables, green lamps, and a high ceiling, the Bates Hall study room is a Bapst away from Bapst.

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2

While the Museum of Fine Arts may seem like an unorthodox spot for studying, it is frequently habitated by students. After exploring the current exhibits and galleries, stop at the New American Cafe in the Contemporary Wing to grab a coffee and settle in among the art.

3

A popular study spot for students living off campus, Fuel America offers the classic coffee shop environment complete with a local Boston touch. Grab a booth or a spot at the bar with some friends and get to work. The menu is complete with coffee, smoothies, and lunch items.

Eric Holder Talks Redistricting, 2020 Plans METRO

By Isabel Fenoglio Asst. Metro Editor

On Monday night, Eric Holder, former Attorney General of the United States and a potential candidate for president in 2020, addressed a tightly packed audience at the JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard, discussing the importance of civic engagement.

Holder served as the keynote speaker for the annual Godkin Lecture, which is hosted by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. The theme of this year’s lecture was made explicit in its title: “Full Participation: Making Every Voice Count.”

Douglas Elmendorf, dean and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, delivered introductory remarks. Elmendorf stressed Harvard’s devotion to promoting public duty, both among leaders and citizens.

After briefly outlining the history of the lecture, he invited the night’s speakers to the stage.

Alongside Holder was Archon Fung, dean and Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government, who served as the moderator.

His first question concerned Holder’s path after leaving government, in particular why he chose to focus on the issue of redistricting. Holder currently serves as the chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC).

“If you want to have a fair voting system that has the ability to shape the direction of the country, first you need tackle redistricting,” Holder said. “I think if the

lines are drawn fairly, then democrats and progressives will do just fine.”

Fung pointed specifically to an article published by The Washington Post on March 27, which covers the current status of the redistricting case in Maryland.

He referenced a quote from the article where former governor of Maryland Martin O’Malley admitted to redistricting the state in favor of the Democratic Party. Fung asked Holder if he supported O’Malley’s actions.

“I am not here to gerrymander for Democrats,” said Holder.

“Even if it costs Maryland Democrats some congressional seats?” countered Fung.

“Yes,” Holder said. “We have to come up with a system that is more neutral, because the reality now is that we have politicians picking their voters as opposed to citizens choosing who their representatives are going to be.”

Holder went on to advocate for independent state commissions to draw electoral maps. He offered the current commissions in California and Arizona, which are composed of non-partisan members, as examples.

Fung pointed out that even if we were to fix all of the maps in the country, American democracy would still be far from perfect, since such a small number of Americans actually vote—only 56 percent of the voting age population turned out for the 2016 presidential election.

“What would it take to get voting participation to 80 percent?” he asked.

Holder responded with two simple solutions: expanding the number of

BRIEFS

Brigham Faces Civil Lawsuit

isabel fenoglio / heights editor

Former AG Eric Holder served as the keynote speaker of Harvard’s annnual Godkin Lecture.

days people can vote and increasing the number of people registered.

“You can’t change anything if you don’t participate in the process,” he said.

“We have a responsibility as citizens to do more. We need to be more civically engaged.”

Next, the conversation shifted to Holder’s time as attorney general, and his opinion of the current Russia investigation. Fung identified that the scandal has the potential to become the next Watergate and asked Holder how further long term damage to public trust in government can be avoided.

Holder responded by saying that, hypothetically, if the investigation were to lead to the impeachment and subsequent removal of President Donald Trump, the short-term impact would be devastating to public opinion of govern-

ment. If looked at from a more positive perspective, however, the hypothetical event would also showcase the strength of American institutions.

“That’s the way I would try to have people look at that potential outcome,” Holder said. “That the institutions held.

This is a country that still has common interests, we are still a nation of enduring values, and there is a basis I believe, for us to recognize it.”

Fung’s last question put Holder on the hot seat. He asked Holder to confirm the rumors as to whether or not he is considering running for president in 2020.

Holder’s face flushed, and he let out a laugh before responding.

“I’m thinking about it, but I won’t decide until sometime next year,” he said, looking out into the audience with a smile. “Let’s change the subject.” n

ArtWeek Provides Interactive Experience for All

By Chloe McAllaster Assoc. Metro Editor

Launched in 2013 as part of the Boch Center’s strategic plan to increase its presence in the creative community, ArtWeek has since expanded from a Boston-based festival to a 10-day series of events spanning all of Massachusetts.

Running from April 27 to May 6, over 525 events will take place in 155 towns and neighborhoods across the state.

The inspiration for creating ArtWeek stemmed from the popularity of restaurant weeks, according to Sue Dahling Sullivan, the chief strategic officer of the Boch Center. Rather than focusing on the business model of such events, the Boch Center looked to its innovative and experiential aspects to fulfill its goals.

The decision to create an innovative, hands-on festival was guided by research from the National Endowment for the Arts.

“We were inspired by research that came out from the National Endowment of the Arts that said audiences today are looking for a little more,” Sullivan said. “Today people are yearning

for something that is more learningbased, more social interaction, more experiential.”

A regional, nonprofit performing arts center, the Boch Center is best known for its historic Wang and Shubert theaters. The Boch Center, however, sought to expand its influence outside of these theaters to diverse audiences who may never venture inside.

“One of our strategic goals was to be more visible as a champion and leader for creative communities,” said Sullivan.

According to Sullivan, the Boch Center theaters have always strived to be at the forefront of supporting traditional and nontraditional art forms alike. The standard of what is considered art has transformed considerably in recent years, and ArtWeek reflects this shift.

ArtWeek events are designed to be out of the ordinary. They offer interactive, behind-the-scenes experiences audiences couldn’t find any other time of year. Around the Greater Boston area, such events include a virtual reality experience in construction, a historic walking tour of Newbury Street, and an

eco-friendly gift wrapping workshop.

In 2013, ArtWeek hosted just 25 events located around the Greater Boston area. This original model, which ran until this year, featured one festival in the spring and one in the fall. Following the immense growth that occurred in the subsequent years, the Boch Center made two major shifts.

According to Sullivan, the festival hit a “tipping point” in 2017 when it grew to 260 events across eastern Massachusetts. The festival was also receiving an increased number of requests from the central and western regions of the state, leading ArtWeek to rethink its framework.

In light of this growth, the Boch Center decided to begin holding the festival once per year in the spring and to expand the events statewide. This year’s festival has over 70 partners at the state and regional levels that make it possible for ArtWeek to reach such an expansive scope.

Two of the leading partners are the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism.

“Frankly, it’s exploded,” Sullivan

said.

In keeping with the ArtWeek model, Sullivan said the ArtWeek events are “lightly curated.” All events should have an aspect that makes them different from other art-related events throughout the year.

“We really want to say yes to as many people as possible, so we do a lot of coaching,” she said.

The Highland Street Foundation is the presenting partner of ArtWeek.

According to its website, the foundation is dedicated to providing access to education, housing, mentorship, health care, and the arts to families in Massachusetts and California.

The Boch Center decided to partner with the Highland Street Foundation because the two nonprofits share similar values and objectives. Within ArtWeek and more broadly, removing the barrier of affordability is of particular importance. “ We share what I call guiding principles of ArtWeek,” Sullivan said, “which is making art, culture, and creativity affordable and accessible to people of all backgrounds, all ages, all resources.” n

A Drop in the Harbor: Cementing My Love for the City Isabel Fenoglio The day started off like every other Monday. There I was, sitting at my usual side table in Bapst, with a cup of Special K and a coffee to my right and a stack of unread articles to my left.

I stared blankly ahead, trying to block out the sound of the girl aggressively highlighting her theology homework across from me.

It wasn’t working, so I changed tasks to something that requires little concentration: Spanish vocab. I had made it nearly halfway through the quizlet when a shadow reflected onto my computer screen.

I looked up to make eye contact with a dad in khakis and a neatly tucked polo. He was holding a fancy

looking camera, and it was pointed directly at my face. Before I could react, he pushed his finger down on one of the buttons, emitting a soft click that permeated through the silent library.

As soon as he took the picture, the dad quickly scurried back to the tour group filing through Bapst’s secondfloor entrance. The entire ordeal happened in less than a second, and he was probably just trying to take a picture of the stained glass window behind me, but I felt personally targeted in the moment. I looked from the aggressive highlighter back to my vocab and sighed. I needed a change of location.

Last year, I was one of those prospective students. Luckily, my parents are not into flash photography, but there were still embarrassing moments. One of the most notable happened off campus, at what might be my favorite place in the city: the Boston Tea Party Museum.

Located on the Harbor, the mu-

seum is every history nerd’s dream.

Created to memorialize the Boston Tea Party and Revolutionary War, there are historical interpreters, interactive exhibits, a gift shop filled with colonial memorabilia, and a restaurant where you can sample the tea thrown overboard by colonists in 1771.

But best of all, the museum is connected to a fully restored 18th century ship that you can dump tea off of.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

There’s only one catch, you need to buy a ticket to get on the ship. I was not aware of this before going, and I was not about to drop $30 to toss my tea in the harbor. So, like the colonists, I staged a rebellion.

When no one was looking, I quickly crossed over the rope, boarded the ship, and dumped my tea. The act cemented my love for the city, and in that moment I decided I had to go to Boston College.

“I’m going to dump tea into the

harbor before every exam, for good luck,” I told my dad as we walked out of the gift shop.

He rolled his eyes. “Good luck with that.”

“No, I’m serious.” I said. “I’m doing it.”

Unfortunately, that summer I soon forgot about my promise. Fall semester rolled by and I never made my pilgrimage to the Harbor. But that Monday afternoon in Bapst, I decided it was time to go back.

When I dropped my tea into the harbor for the second time, I couldn’t help but reflect on the year that had passed.

Maybe I’ll just go once a year before finals from now on. If you haven’t been to the museum yet, go.

It’s not too late to drop tea in the harbor before your first final. It will bring you good luck, I promise.

Isabel Fenoglio is the assistant metro editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

Two trials are scheduled in the Suffolk Superior Court of Boston regarding allegations of discrimination at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, as reported by The Boston Globe. Nirva Berthold, a Haitian-American nurse, said that she was turned down for a job because she is black, and another Haitian-American nurse said that the hospital retaliated against her when she stood up for Berthold. The hospital has maintained that the allegations are untrue.

Berthold and Gessy Toussaint, her colleague, sued the hospital and three managers in 2014. The Boston Globe reported that Berthold’s attorney, Allison MacLellan, is expected to argue that Berthold was qualified for the job she was denied in January of 2013. It reported that Brigham and Women’s gave false reasons for turning her down for the nurse educator in orthopedics position, while the hospital claims that it is because she doesn’t hold a master’s degree—something that she was three weeks shy of completing.

Toussaint’s lawsuit claims that after she stood up for Berthold in an instance where she said a doctor was being verbally abusive toward her, she was targeted by the hospital as they began to investigate her for cases of poor patient care. The hospital stated that it had legitimate concerns for her care, and she refused to take steps to resolve the issue. Toussaint eventually resigned from her position.

This lawsuit is part of a larger issue of the lack of nurses of color not only in Massachusetts, but nationwide.

The Globe reported that only 6 to 10 percent of registered nurses in the United States are black, while black citizens make up 13 percent of the U.S. population.

Warren Pushes Marijuana Bill U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is working with Republican Colorado Senator Cory Gardner to create a bill that would give states the power to completely legalize marijuana, according to The Boston Herald.

They recently discussed the bill with Republican senators and described the conversation as “encouraging.”

“If a state has already passed laws legalizing marijuana, whether it’s medicinal or recreational, however the state wants to handle it, then the federal government doesn’t come in and interfere,” Warren said to the Herald.

“States for a long time have made their own determinations about alcohol, about tobacco. I think they ought to be able to do the same with marijuana.”

Amazon Opens in Seaport Sq. Amazon announced on Tuesday that it will be expanding into the Seaport Square, where it will create a building dedicated to the development of Alexa, cloud computing, and robotics, according to The Boston Globe.

In a statement by Rohit Prasad, vice president and head scientist of Alexa, Amazon announced that this new location would create 2,000 new jobs in the city of Boston. The Globe reports that since 2011, Amazon has created 3,500 jobs in Boston through its office in Back Bay, robotics facility in North Reading, and distribution center in Fall River.

THE FRISSON IN THE AIR COPELAND

6 | MOMENTUM AWARDS

THE HEIGHTS | MAY 3, 2018

M. Shawn Copeland electrifies the atmosphere with her passion for social justice, pushing people to think about the tangled and unbreakable nature of the relationship between theology their world.

Joan Kennedy Magazine Editor

A

12-year-old girl danced around the kitchen of her Motor City home, arm extended in a graceful third position to reach the top shelf of the refrigerator as she began to concoct her sandwich of the day.

Her thoughts capered from place to place as she trotted on her tiptoes around the linoleum floor. The Detroit outside of her walls was throbbing, on the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement. Amid the bustle of the ’60s, the city was simultaneously transforming into “Motown,” but the little girl’s radio was not on, as she put a tune to the words her grandmother had imparted to her again and again: “Everybody can’t like you.”

Everybody can’t like you, hummed the little girl, thinking about the plot of the novel she had been swimming in at dawn that day. Everybody can’t like you, she whispered, slathering peanut butter in long, smooth motions her bread. Everybody can’t like you, she said aloud, pausing the innocuous choreography of the characteristic summer day. She enunciated, then savored the words. The more she sucked on them, the more bitter they began to taste.

“It occured to me that when some people don’t like you and have power over you, they can kill you,” said M. Shawn Copeland, a professor of systematic theology (who has a joint appointment in the Program in African and African Diaspora Studies).

Copeland got her B.A. in English at Madonna College (now Madonna University) in 1969, then her Ph.D. in systematic theology at Boston College. She has taught theology at St. Norbert College, Yale University Divinity School, Marquette University, Xavier University, and has held a visiting position at Harvard Divinity School.

She was a convener of the Black Theological Symposium, and the first African American woman to serve as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. She is, in a word, accomplished.

Copeland’s first exposure to social issues was through documentaries she watched, released by unspecified news media on poverty in America. After seeing a few, she knew she wanted to aid the afflicted.

“You want to be a million different things when you are a little person, and I wanted to be a lawyer, I thought this was a really important way to help people,” she said.

The summer of her watershed realization, Copeland went to school and took classes on French and world history, where she learned, for the first time, about World War II and Adolf Hitler’s extermination of Jewish people. She read about the Chancellor’s rise to power, use of propaganda, and creation of Nazi Germany—soon becoming disillusioned with her desire to be a lawyer.

“It left me with an impression that maybe laws aren’t the best way [to help people], because we can change laws,” Copeland said.

So the Catholic Copeland started thinking theology was a good avenue for her to take in her pursuit of transformation, as she believed it could change people’s hearts and minds. Resolved at 12 years old to be a theologian, Copeland didn’t know exactly what it would entail—but she knew she would get to read and write and assumed it would involve teaching.

“It was real to me, it was very real to me,” Copeland said. he saw the brightly painted boundaries of her segregated city when she traveled to her school that was located across town on a public bus every morning. Young Copeland was not allowed to go to the Catholic school closest her house, as the sister in charge of the school told Copeland’s mother they did not take colored children. This denial did not affect her faith in any way.

She said her parents did not show their anger to her, thus she did not harbor resentment in her heart, but she soon became aware of problems within the Church and world around her—her early morning bus rides served as trial-runs to the lack of acceptance she was to experience over the course of her life, being an African American woman.

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“I think when you’re young and impressionable Catholicism really can shape you in an important way, it can alert you to sacred power in very deep and symbolic ways,” Copeland said. “I think even though our church [was] very small, and segregated, and very plain, there were ways in which our little church building … actually impressed upon me the power of the sacred.”

As she grew older, Copeland retained a notion of the power of the sacred, but began to have a lot of questions about the way in which the Church worked and operated.

She was particularly interested in discovering why the Church didn’t take a risky or important stand on the tensions existing in the United States surrounding race.

“I didn’t see, during that period of time, a real push for considerations of equality from the Catholic Church,” Copeland said.

“And sadly, I still don’t see that today … We don’t have any substantive response from our bishops about the deleterious racial situation we’re living in.”

Though careful not to condemn anyone—as she says, “judgement in the largest sense is up to God”—Copeland is disappointed in Church leaders’ lack of direction on matters of social and racial justice and lack of response to matters of social and racial injustice.

“For some people its very difficult to take stands, for some people its frightening,” she said. “But if you open yourself up to religious leadership, if you think this is your call from God, if you think this is what you are to do, then we all—all of us—have the expectation—and the right to expect it—that you would do your best to try to step forward to give us some guidance … to show your leadership.”

Copeland has an expectation for the leadership of the Church, and is unapologetic about it. She points out that although the church never separated over the question of slavery, it still practiced segregation.

Copeland expressed worry at the Church’s willingness to forget chattel slavery, and the way in which it participated in the buying and selling of bodies, claiming that it is the responsibility of theology to preserve these memories without minimizing them, thus reducing them to a story of the past.

“We had an issue we just can’t seem to wrestle with well, and that’s the truth of the matter,” Copeland said.

She points out that even what was to become the prestigious Catholic beacon of education, Georgetown University, was saved by slavery: In 1838, two Jesuit priests organized the sale of 272 slaves to pay off the university’s debt. In her article, “Chattel Slavery As Dangerous Memory,” she highlights the views of past church leadership saying, “Southern bishops and priests maintained that slavery, as a legal, economic, and societal institution was legitimate as long as the slaveholder’s title of ownership was valid and the slave cared for materially and spiritually.”

The church, she found, placed respect for law above respect for the body, which complicated the concept of imago dei—if man is created in the image and likeness of God, how was it that people could be sold?

“I’m loath to think people are simply indifferent, no one’s life is insignificant, and there is no price on life,” Copeland said.

“Although, we have to face up to the fact that for the last 500 years we’ve commodified life.”

She also pointed out the Bible’s role in that commodification.

“The Bible has been used so often to justify oppression of people, so it was used quite handily in the United States to justify slavery and to try to keep people enslaved,” she said.

But, Copeland said, the use of the Bible in such a way occurs when people take verses and stories out of context and twist them to justify privilege and supremacy.

Religion, though, is untainted by such manipulation. Copeland uses the example of Hernán Cortés, who plunged into the Valley of Oaxaca and told the Aztecs to convert or die—they converted, but blood still flowed from Tenochtitlan, showing that the greed, hatred, and violence are human engagements separate from scripture.

Copeland also draws a distinct line between the Church and God. “The thing is that the Church is not God, the Church may be mediating the grace of God to us through sacraments, but the church is not to be identified as

exclusively, exhaustively, and solely God,” Copeland said. “It is also a human institution, and as a human institution it is deeply flawed on this matter [race], as well as on the matter of women, as well as on the matter of LGBTQ people.”

Besides being what her colleagues describe as an important face for BC’s theology department, Copeland recently made the news for cancelling a lecture at Madonna University, her Alma Mater.

Copeland was contacted to speak on Pope Francis’ encyclical Evangelii Gaudium, and its agenda for social justice in the church.

A right wing group called “Church Militant,” which objects to inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community in the Church, got a hold of Copeland’s book Enfleshing Freedom, took quotes from it out of context, and proclaimed her as dangerously against their agenda, calling for the cancellation of her talk, “so that young, impressionable Catholics are not led into sin by anti-Catholic discourse.”

“Someone, apparently, on the faculty [of the university] complained that I had written these things and the person that invited me wrote back ‘well I think we should all have open minds, we should be able to disagree, isn’t that what academic life is about?” Copeland said.

But, things quickly escalated—the group decided they would protest if she came to speak. Copeland’s 91-year-old mother was to be present.

“I’m not going to have my 91-year-old mother see people with placards—that’s beyond—I wasn’t going to do that,” she said.

The university would also have to hire extra security for what was supposed to be a low-key ordeal.

“I just thought that it wasn’t a good use of their resources or a good use of my emotional resources … what do you tell your mother?” Copeland said. “It was very sad.

Since that was my college, it was even sadder in that sense.”

She was also troubled that the group’s goal was not to converse.

“I realized that if you wanted to talk about this then … maybe the people that were protesting would ask if they could be respondents if they wanted to really get at what I was saying, but they didn’t.”

Copeland and the University came to the joint conclusion to cancel the talk, but the Church Militant soon published a piece with a headline saying she was disinvited. heology professor Lisa Sowle Cahill, another former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, has worked with Copeland in various contexts. Cahill was on faculty when Copeland was a graduate student (and still is now that she is a tenured professor), and they both served together on Barack Obama’s Catholic Advisory Council, through which they advocated for policies in line with Catholic social teaching and discussed social questions. She says that Copeland has been an important face and voice for the theology department, as she has a clear sense for what she wants to see happen within the field.

“As time has gone on, of course she has been more and more visible in the area of African American theology, more and more prioritizing the question of women and gender,” Cahill said. “Certainly at Boston College and in our culture as a whole those voices, voices such as hers—really

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speaking to racial justice and gender justice—you know, those are increasingly important.”

Sowle Cahill thinks that Copeland has a gift for bringing people together and points to a lecture she gave earlier this year on the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination as a good example of this talent. She says that Copeland’s lecture was prophetic, and “called people to a shared vision, for self-criticism, and to look to the future.” During the lecture, Copeland called for the examination of society’s conscience, and remembrance of the time where “young black men wearing the uniform of the United States Marine Corps [could not] feel safe from physical assault in white Southern towns.” She asserted that King was sensitive to the word of God, and thus, able to scrutinize the signs of the times.

Copland believes that this examination of society, and contextual reading of human experience, is important.

“This the whole thrust of the Second Vatican Council, to read the signs of the times—to scrutinize the signs of the times and to tell us where God is acting,” Copeland said.

But as Copeland does not see this happening to her liking, she calls for a much more democratic approach, and has taken it upon herself to do her part.

“If the bishops are not going to speak out, or cardinals, or leaders—then ordinary Catholics should be speaking out. Ordinary Christians should be speaking out,” Copeland said. “We should be responding to these events in ways that are appropriate to our training, our preparation, our circumstance. For me, teaching is a really serious way to do that.”

Copeland is enthusiastic about the fact that students have lots of life before them, and with that, they carry the ability to shape, then reshape the world—molding it toward perfection. She believes theology has the ability to shape, then reshape the person a little bit, toward understanding the connections compounded upon connections through which all life is interrelated. Such shaping can help people understand that difference is a gift, not an issue.

Her scholarly work embraces such differences, as she focuses on the body and race. She sees questions about these subjects as present at BC. Specifically, the Hebrew Bible has a very positive image of the body, but she doesn’t always see that image of the body being upheld on campus.

“I think young women’s concerns about sexual assault and harassment on campus are real,” Copeland said.

Though sexual harassment and violence should not be tolerated anywhere, she is especially troubled that such issues exist on BC’s campus—a campus which, in its status as Catholic, was built on the sentiment that God became Incarnate through Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, she believes the institution and its surrounding culture should operate with bounds of respect for the human body. Copeland sees gender on campus as an important topic of discussion.

“The studies say—they keep saying, I don’t know what the next study will say— that women who come to BC are very successful when they come and they wind up feeling less successful, less empowered, when they are about to leave,” Copeland said. “One would hope that by directing our attention to women in class that this

would change.”

She takes her concept of respect for the body further when thinking about racial violence in the world.

“Black people in the United States are like canaries in the coal mine long ago,” Copeland said.

In the 1900s, before technology improved, coal miners would take canaries in cages into the bowels of the earth with them. The job of the canaries was to warn the miners of the presence of toxic gases.

When the little bird grew weary, or woozy, and began falling over, the miners knew it was time to leave—that conditions were dangerous.

“What happens to black people happens to all people,” Copeland said. “The neglect of any one group of people in this country really portends the neglect of all.”

She points to the opioid crisis as a good example of the relationship she describes.

Copeland asserts that all people are deeply intertwined—that one person’s call for engagement and yelp for respect should be answered with compassion and concern, since humans have the God-given right to call on one another for “action and assistance.” She says that the Black Lives Matter movement, which notably manifested itself on BC’s campus with the Silence is Still Violence march, is not just about black people.

“When people say ‘black lives matter,’ they’re not saying anyone else’s life does not matter,” Copeland said. “What they’re saying is that these lives have been treated with such disrespect that we have to say they matter—its telling yourself you matter, its telling people who’ve been hurt ‘you matter.’”

Copeland believes that movements like the one that happened on campus earlier this year are excessively important not only in checking and critiquing our imperfect society, but in the formation of individuals’ voices.

“I realize that we’ve now scripted student protest into ‘you need to get a permit to protest, you need to get a permit for a march, no chalking on the sidewalk,’ ... I think these are venerable traditions of academic freedom,” Copeland said.

Though she acknowledges that students don’t have “to a certain extent real academic freedom,” she stands by the fact that students should be able to, by some measure, resist what they think is wrong, as students at BC are smart, innovative, and vivacious. Through protest and conversing over disagreement, students can both listen to dissent improve their own arguments, both of which are important in formation of the person.

“I don’t think we should penalize people simply because we can,” Copeland said.

To her, BC as a community (markedly, as she points out, a community that includes her) is too self-satisfied at its success.

“One wishes that we were more alert and alive to the systems in which we are operating, the structures in which we are operating—and I don’t just mean in the University but in the nation,” she said.

As a faculty member with tenure, Copeland supposes that she needs to reflect on her own privilege and comfort. Looking out onto the green grass from her third-story office window, she shook her hands in frustration.

“You don’t feel the frisson in the air,” Copeland said. n

PHOTO COURTEST OF M. SHAWN COPELAND

MOMENTUM AWARDS | 7

MAY 3, 2018 | THE HEIGHTS

JARMOND PUSHING THE P.A.C.E. Martin Jarmond—the youngest athletic director in the Power Five—arrived at Boston College with a vision, and hasn’t wasted any time since.

Andy Backstrom Sports Editor

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osted up on a couch in his third-floor Conte Forum office, Boston College Director of Athletics Martin Jarmond swayed one shoeless foot across the ground, as the other stabilized his casual posture on the black-leathered sofa. With up-beat jazz music playing in the background, the 38-yearold AD—the youngest in the Power Five—positioned himself in line with a framed picture located at the very back of the spacious room, a photo that served as a reminder of just how far BC Athletics had come in one year.

Jarmond—who previously worked as the assistant athletic director for development and director of regional giving at Michigan State (2006-09) and, most recently, The Ohio State University’s deputy athletics director and chief of staff (2009-17)—took the job at BC having witnessed more than a decade of excellence, including, but certainly not limited to, a Final Four appearance and a college football national championship. His new staff, on the other hand, had been starved of a home upset in the NCAA’s two

biggest revenue sports for practically three years. During that span, BC football and men’s basketball posted a meager 12-68 ACC record. Plain and simple, winning was rare, and doing so on the national stage was foreign— something that Jarmond discovered rather unexpectedly.

On Oct. 27, BC football hosted a reeling Florida State team, honoring Welles Crowther in the annual Red Bandanna Game. Predictably, the Friday night, ESPN-televised matchup drew viewers from across the nation. The Eagles—winners of two straight—jumped out to a 21-3 lead at the half, and Jarmond decided to capitalize on the department-defining opportunity.

“I was tired of hearing, ‘Man I was able to rush the field my freshman year against USC, but I haven’t had anything since,’” the first-year AD said. “I wanted this to be a moment.”

As soon as BC stopped the Seminoles on the opening drive of the second half, Jarmond knew that head coach Steve Addazio’s team was going to top FSU for the first time in eight years. When the fourth quarter came along, he made the necessary calls to guarantee a proper field storming. At least that’s what he thought.

The clock ticked zero, locking up BC’s first ACC victory in Alumni Stadium in three years, and students began to jump the fence and swarm the field, but not all of them made it through. The police held back a handful of kids, creating a divide of sorts among the crowd. Not only that, but the department’s photographers failed to capture the scene. Knowing that there must have been a serious miscommunication between him and his team, the administrator was initially frustrated, but soon came to realize his error.

“I assumed, coming from where I’m from, you’re ready—you’re ready for the moment,” Jarmond said. “We weren’t ready.” bit more than three months after Jarmond’s introductory press conference—one in which he announced his pillar-like platform, emphasizing passion, alignment, and competitive excellence—the Fayetteville, N.C. native hit the ground running.

Fully employing his vision, which he often refers to as P.A.C.E., Jarmond instituted the department’s inaugural Fan Council for the 2017-18 athletic season. The installment is composed of a 21-person team of donors, season-ticket holders, student-athletes,

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a year’s worth of innovation.

In late August, Jarmond announced that BC would expand its beer and wine sales to Alumni Stadium as part of a City-approved pilot program designed to explore the benefits of increased alcohol distribution. Previously, beer and wine had been sold to fans in premium seating areas—60 boxes, suites, and a tent adjacent to the stadium—but the decision allowed general-admission ticket holders to finally purchase the same kinds of beverages.

Then, two weeks into the regular football season, Jarmond entered a partnership with the ridesharing company Lyft. Coupled with the in-stadium alcohol concessions, Jarmond believed that Lyft would incentivize attendance, providing off-campus students, community members, and traveling fans a discounted trip, made easier by the creation of specific pickup/drop-off zones next to Alumni Stadium and Conte Forum.

One-by-one, Jarmond continued to roll out ideas, building momentum all the way. Neither finances nor his reputation were the underlying motivators.

“I don’t think his objective is to make his mark,” said Andy Boynton, dean of the Carroll School of Man-

BRADLEY SMART / HEIGHTS EDITOR

current undergrads, and local community members. Meeting four times during the fall, the council gave Jarmond a sense of what BC culture was like, all while suggesting potential improvements.

Right from the get-go, Jarmond wanted to set the tone—and others took notice.

Hailey Kobza, BC ’20, applied for a spot on the Fan Council, looking for a closer connection to the athletic department. She got way more than that in return for her service, thanks in large part to Jarmond himself. The moment she first met him, she was taken aback by his infectious personality.

“He just radiates energy, if I’m being honest,” Kobza said after recalling a praise-heavy phone conversation she had with her father following the council’s initial meeting.

Kobza noted that, due to Jarmond’s flooded schedule, he typically had to pop in and out of the Fan Council meetings. But when he was there, he gave them his undivided attention and even incorporated some of their suggestions into game-day festivities, namely a playlist for background music before, during, and after games.

The Fan Council was just the start of

agement. “I think his objective was to help make BC Athletics greater and really make an impact. He has a bias toward action, and that’s important.”

Working within the school’s parameters, Jarmond attempted to pave the way for increased fan support and improved facilities without making hasty decisions. Embracing BC’s tradition, Jarmond simply addressed the pressing issues that were pushing the department behind the rest of the conference.

“When you’re in the competitive world of college athletics, it’s never enough,” Jarmond said. “That doesn’t mean that we’re going to build the Taj Mahal, but we need to put our coaches and our student-athletes in positions where they can be successful.”

For Jarmond that meant doing all the small things, like putting names on the backs of the football jerseys, creating promo videos, and offering original game day giveaways, as well overseeing the larger operations— four major construction projects (the baseball, softball, and recreational fields on the Brighton Campus, and the indoor football practice facility), the hockey locker room renovations, and the newly installed student-athlete fueling station.

“We can’t wave a magic wand and, all of a sudden, become a state school with all this land, like Clemson where you can just tailgate everywhere,” he said. “That’s not who we are—we’ll never be that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make something better.” lmost always smiling, Jarmond is about as friendly as it gets. Someone who describes himself as a positive person, the first-year AD is approachable and understanding, even to strangers. At first, though, he wasn’t sure everyone at BC would take him for that. In fact, his primary reservation rested with his boss, University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J. “Coming in, if you would’ve told me there was one hesitation I had, it was how is my relationship with Father Leahy going to be,” Jarmond said.

“Just because I’m a kid from Fayetteville, N.C. who grew up a Southern Baptist, and I’m going to work for a Jesuit priest.”

Little did he know that the two would instantly gel and forge a friendship that ultimately transformed his greatest fear into what he says has been the best experience of his time at BC. In just a matter of months, Leahy has already given Jarmond his fair share of autonomy. This past month, Leahy allowed the rookie AD to hire Joanna Bernabei-McNamee as the new head women’s basketball coach without employing an executive search party.

It’s not just the University president either. According to men’s hockey head coach Jerry York—who has coached at BC for 25 years under four different ADs—Jarmond has galvanized all 210 people in the department.

“I think we all feel that Father Leahy and the people that organize the search hit a home run,” York said.

York’s observation comes as no surprise. From the start, Jarmond has made an effort to get to know everyone he’s met, even the reporters at his intro press conference, exchanging answers for names, free of charge. It’s logistically impossible to watch all 31 varsity teams in action on a weekly basis. So, Jarmond finds other ways to get his foot in the door, taking time out of his day to attend team meetings and workout sessions—anything he can do to back his coaches and players.

“You can’t just do it from your office,” Boynton said. “You’ve got to be out there. You’ve got to be in touch with people. You’ve got to be building those personal relationships at all levels. The only way to mobilize talent and inspire people is by being in touch with them. Great leadership is a contact sport, and I think Martin Jarmond understands that.” idway through the first half of BC men’s basketball’s March 7 second-round ACC Tournament matchup against North Carolina State, Nik Popovic, who was playing some of the best basketball of his career, found himself fighting for an offensive rebound. Simultaneously colliding with Ky Bowman and diving for the ball, Popovic appeared to tweak a muscle in his shin, achilles, or ankle.

The trainers and head coach Jim Christian rushed to the 6-foot-10 center’s side, inspecting the lower half of his leg. A couple minutes passed, and Popovic got up on his own, hopping on one leg to the bench—despite the unassisted effort, the Bosnian big man needed x-rays.

Before Mike Laprey—the team’s sports information director—could even reach the locker room, Jarmond, who made the trip to the Barclays Center for the annual postseason competition, was at Popovic’s side.

Keeping the sophomore company while he received his test results, Jarmond, perhaps unknowingly, was in

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uncharted territory.

“Nobody ever approached me that way,” Popovic said. “Nobody ever followed me to the locker room when I was hurt and talked to me, and stayed with me the whole time … It means that he cares about us—that makes me want to play more, play better.”

Popovic ended up returning to the game and finishing with 15 points and seven rebounds, as the Eagles avenged their regular season loss to the NCAA Tournament-bound Wolfpack, winning back-to-back ACC Tournament games for the first time since 2005-06.

The incident was hardly a fluke.

Seven months earlier, Jon Baker shared a similar experience. After being named a captain, the now-redshirt senior suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week One at Northern Illinois. Just like that, Baker—who played 10 or more games in each of his first three collegiate campaigns— was done for the year.

Not too long after the 300-pound center had his surgery, he heard from Jarmond, who asked him to stop by.

Baker had no idea what the meeting was about, but when he got to his office, he was greeted by a warm welcome and empathetic thoughts. In a time of pain and frustration, Baker was pleasantly surprised, just like Popovic.

“When he reached out to me after I got injured, I could tell, he’s the real deal—he really not just cares about the programs as a whole, but he also cares about us as individuals,” Baker said. t wasn’t until Dec. 12 that Jarmond and his team got another shot to immortalize an iconic moment in BC Athletics history.

BC men’s basketball was giving an undefeated Duke team all it could handle during the ACC opener. Conte Forum was packed, but people outside the confines of Chestnut Hill, Mass. were well aware of what was happening. The Eagles—a team that had totaled a combined two wins in conference play the past two years— were on the verge of taking down the top-ranked program in the country. Fittingly, the matchup was the lone nationally televised game in the noon time slot. All of the cards were stacked in Jarmond’s favor.

With seven minutes left to go, he gave campus police a heads up that, if BC pulled out the win, a court storming was inevitable. After that, he made sure that his photographers and IT guys were on site to perform their respective jobs—capture stills and present some sort of game-ending light show that’d grab television viewers’ attention.

In the waning minutes of regulation, Jerome Robinson drilled a pair of timely 3-pointers—one of which was the game-winner—and BC held on for the monumental victory. Then came the real test: the celebration.

This time there was no mixup.

Students coated the hardwood, jumping up and down in glee as both the department and ESPN thoroughly documented the upset. Smiling, Jarmond pointed to the picture of the pandemonium in the back of his office.

“There’s no picture of us beating Florida State,” he said.

It took a few months, but BC is finally reacquainted with winning at the highest level. And now the department is no longer selling hope.

Once again, the school is ready for the moment—an indication that Jarmond cleared the first hurdle of his ambitious tenure. He knows that he has a long way to go before BC stacks up with the ACC’s best, but that’s what he signed up for.

“I wanted to make an impact,” Jarmond said. “I came here to make a difference. I didn’t want to go anywhere where I was going to tread water. I wanted to come and make waves.” n

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8 | MOMENTUM AWARDS

THE HEIGHTS | MAY 3, 2018

KRATZ A Healthier Vision From UGBC to Students for Sexual Health, Connor Kratz works to create change—by going through the system and around it.

Abby Hunt Copy Editor

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itting in the lobby of a Planned Parenthood health center, Connor Kratz, MCAS ’18, felt a deep dread inside of him.

What if it comes back positive?

It was the summer after his freshman year of college, and Kratz, with his dad at his side, was waiting for the results of his first STI test. His mind was racing: What

realized that staying here and making a difference on campus and making it more inclusive and comfortable for students like me was the exact purpose I had sought for my undergrad experience the whole time,” he said. ratz’s activism experience at BC may have began when he joined SSH as a sophomore, but it was his junior year when he really became motivated to advocate for the rights and inclusivity of LGBTQ+ students.

That year, a parking sign in the Mod

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“It took him ... until this year to get some of that work done, but that speaks to his dedication, I think, to the ideal: not just checking something off a list, but being able to have these values that you feel strongly about and compassionate about and follow them through, not just in the moment, but for a duration.”

In December, Kratz posted a sexual health survey that he had initially created for a Research Methods project in each of the class groups on Facebook. And with the help of a grant from Planned Parenthood, he was able to offer gift card incen-

tives for students to participate.

The results of the survey, which received 393 responses from the student body showed that, while nearly 80 percent of respondents indicated that they are sexually active, only 42.4 percent said they always use a condom during genital or anal sex. Meanwhile, 70.2 percent said they didn’t feel comfortable reaching out to University administrators, counselors, and health services with questions about their sexual health.

“From that, I think really established our case that BC students are sexually active, they need better access to resources, and they need a climate on campus that is better suited to allowing them to have these kinds of conversations and be able to reach out to administrators,” Kratz said.

Realizing he was only able to reach a limited portion of the student body through the Facebook group, Kratz decided he wanted to give every student the chance to declare that sexual health was

swer,” said Tt King, the former executive vice president of UGBC, a close friend of Kratz’s, and MCAS ’18. “I think the best example of this is the sexual health referendum. I mean, he had many, many students and administrators tell him, ‘Sure, you can try to get an eighth of the student body, but like, it’s not going to happen,’ and he just like did it.

“As somebody who’s been in UGBC and who knows what it’s like to try to garner student support and student excitement about things, it’s really hard. But … he had a vision for it, he had a plan, and he just executed it so well.”

SSH succeeded in its signature gathering, and the question of whether the University should be allowed on campus was put on the ballot—where 94 percent of voters checked “yes.” While the University, nevertheless, responded that it would not be changing its policy on the issue, Kratz made it clear that he sees SSH’s initiatives this year as a success story.

“I don’t think any of the progress that followed the referendum would have been possible without it,” he said.

“We had the idea that administrators were not going to change their University policy because of a non-binding student referendum—that wasn’t actually the point. The point was to build that solidarity among the students, to help us realize amongst one another … that, yeah, we do all care about this, and if we come together, we can actually do something.”

BC wasn’t going to budge, but things still weren’t over for Kratz. Following the decision, he and SSH continued working to help students with their sexual health needs by going around University policy and implementing RubberHub: a delivery service, funded entirely by public health grants, that ships condoms directly to students’ on-campus mailboxes free of charge.

But, as many of the other members of Kratz’s group found themselves busy with other commitments around the time of the referendum passing, Kratz soon found himself with a huge undertaking in front of him.

“That was very overwhelming, when

tive social change even beyond his time at BC—by focusing on making an impact at the individual level.

“Somebody will [say] to me, ‘Oh I got the RubberHub order that was so cool,’” he said. “All of that really shows that we get so caught up with everything and ‘politics is just all in Congress,’ and it’s like, no, there’s so many opportunities to have an impact. And SSH has really shown me that.” ratz will be starting law school at Georgetown this fall, with the hope that becoming an attorney, or maybe even a policymaker, will one day give him the opportunity to be an advocate at the professional level.

“I’m really concerned by some of the present trends in our society—obviously, the polarization, but also the lack of empathy for those that have been historically marginalized and to this day,” he said. “One of the hardest difficulties in reaching those groups is their voices have just been silenced. And so that’s why I feel that one of my most useful roles, as a white male who does have a lot of privilege, is to help elevate those voices.”

Throughout his time at BC, Kratz worked toward creating an environment that is inclusive and welcoming of everyone—no matter their background, household income, race, gender, or sexual orientation.

“We have so many great achievements here at this University, but again, what do those mean if students of color, if queer students can’t feel safe, or welcome, and then do struggle?” he said.

“It’s so important to have that inclusive community and provide the opportunity for each other, and make sure that we look out for one another,” he said. “We’re all individuals, but we really can’t get anywhere without some sort of cooperation and working together. And I think it’s a real issue that we need to work on, in realizing our responsibilities to each other, to our neighbors, to our community.”

While Kratz believes many members of the BC community have indeed em-

important to them and to make known that more sexual health resources were needed on campus.

So in January, Kratz sponsored a UGBC resolution affirming that SSH should be allowed to meet and distribute on campus and petitioning a student body-wide referendum on the issue. The resolution passed, and the BC Elections Committee voted to accept the referendum question—but Kratz and SSH still needed to collect signatures from oneeighth of the student body before the question could be put on the UGBC elections ballot.

“When it comes to his advocacy, [Connor] just doesn’t take no for an an-

all of a sudden we got our first set of RubberHub orders and we had me basically to fill them, with three other members that volunteered to help, but basically me to help maintain the program,” he said.

“Luckily the referendum was able to give us that momentum to recruit so many new members. But it really just shows there’s a lot of challenges in running an organization—especially for full-time students.”

RubberHub was able to make it work, however—delivering over 1,100 condoms to students in its first three delivery cycles. According to Kratz, the work he has been doing with SSH has helped him realize that he has the ability to effect posi-

braced these ideals he expressed, he still encourages the University to promote these things not only in its words, but in its actions—believing that the school could be taking bolder steps toward inclusivity.

Nevertheless, Kratz acknowledges that while he has had his challenges with the University, it has also given him so much throughout his time here.

“I’m so grateful of this opportunity that I’ve had to really prepare myself to be able to make the biggest impact I can, and hopefully go out there and make the world a more inclusive and equitable place. So many avenues to do that, so much work to be done.” n

“I realized then … we needed an LGBTQ resource center. Had there been one when I was a freshman, I know without a doubt I would not have had such a challenging experience.” if he really did have an STI? What would he do if he had HIV? Forty minutes had passed when the physician finally called Kratz back into her office. The results were negative.

“It turns out I wasn’t even really at a risk, and that my fears were a little overstated—but nonetheless, they were very real at the time,” he said. “[The experience] helped me, to some extent, understand what so many college students, but especially LGBTQ students, go through.”

When Kratz heard the results, his relief was coupled with a realization of just how important it was for him in that moment to have a system of resources and support with regards to his sexual health—without which he doesn’t know how he might have handled the situation.

“When I was able to go get that test, have that taken care of, the sense of relief, the sense of comfort and renewed confidence in myself, I realized this is something I really want to help other students reach,” he said.

So when Kratz returned to campus in the fall, he joined Students for Sexual Health (SSH), the BC student-run sexual and reproductive health advocacy group that the University currently prohibits from meeting and distributing contraceptives to students on campus. The group gets all of its funding from outside grants and has traditionally distributed condoms from a table on College Road, as the location is public property—therefore, the University cannot prevent them from doing so. ut before he embarked on his journey of advocacy, Kratz— who at the time was questioning his sexuality and struggling to build up the courage to come out as gay—had had a rough time adjusting to life at BC his freshman year. He had wondered if he could stay at a place where his peers around threw around the word “faggot,” and where he had been told he couldn’t be offended by the term because, at least as far as they knew, he wasn’t gay.

Before long, Kratz was convinced BC was not a place where he could be comfortable in his own skin.

“There were just certain parts of the climate that I thought, ‘This place just isn’t for me, I have to transfer, I have to get somewhere else,’” he said.

As his freshman year continued, however, Kratz began to get more involved with student organizations on campus.

And after sitting down with his literature core professor Joseph Nugent, who affirmed to Kratz that he belonged here and that being unique at BC was really an asset, Kratz came to realize his potential at the school.

By the end of that year, Kratz came out to himself and to his family, which made him feel liberated and emboldened.

When he came back as a sophomore as a student fully out in his identity, he was no longer looking to transfer—instead he was ready to hit the ground running.

“To my relief—and actually delight—I

B

Lot was defaced one Saturday night, its letters being rearranged to spell a homophobic slur. While many viewed the defacing as no more than a single incident, Kratz, a UGBC senator, felt like the event illuminated a common experience for queer students at BC and, thus, could not take it take it lightly—so he chose to act.

“It really struck a chord with me, because it wasn’t just that one little act,” he said. “I just really felt that that one little act epitomized a lot of the culture, especially for first-year students.

“I realized then … we needed an LGBTQ resource center. Had there been one when I was a freshman, I know without a doubt I would not have had such a challenging experience, one, coming to terms with my own sexuality, but then also finding a community that I could connect to and really be a part of on campus.”

About a week after the incident, Kratz co-sponsored a UGBC resolution calling on the University to create an LGBTQ+ student resource center on campus—the first formal stance taken by the Student Assembly (SA) on the issue—and with an overwhelming majority, it passed.

While there indeed have been resolutions since that echo this support for LGBTQ+ students, Kratz expressed that, throughout his BC experience, a major difficulty has been that the progress often doesn’t come as quickly as he would like.

“With the LGBTQ resolution—it disheartened me that the University didn’t take a firm response to that one,” he said.

“I don’t expect them to respond to every resolution, but I would have wanted a little more University collaboration on that.”

While progress at BC may seem to only occur incrementally, Kratz said it’s important to remember that even those instances of incremental progress— which have achieved real gains—wouldn’t have been possible if no one made an effort to enact change. n his senior year, Kratz, now president pro tempore of the SA, helped develop the Interpersonal Health and Wellness Committee, which has given the SA a forum for addressing on-campus sexual health issues, such as expanding tampon access in University restrooms and raising awareness of the resources that are available for sexual assault victims. But this wasn’t enough for Kratz—who decided that the University community needed tangible empirical evidence that sexual health is a prominent issue for students.

Kratz had been interested in conducting a sexual health survey on campus since his sophomore year, but up to this point had had little success.

“I worked with him throughout [his sophomore year] to try to get the survey off the ground, and ultimately we weren’t able to accomplish it, but his dedication and his tenacity and his passion for it never let go,” said Mark Miceli, a former adviser to UGBC.

K

I

KAITLIN MEEKS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

MOMENTUM AWARDS | 9

MAY 3, 2018 | THE HEIGHTS

UNSUNG STAFF STORIES FROM BEHIND THE SCENES Few members of the BC community know the sacrifices and stories of long-time BC staff, but they have witnessed decades of BC’s progression and change.

Members of Boston College’s staff serve as the heartbeat of this institution. Our community is incredibly fortunate to have this team of “Men and Women for Others,” tirelessly working to ensure the standard of living we have become so accustomed to on this campus. We hope to recognize their impact through their stories.

Exceptional Sacrifice By: Jack Miller

M

anuel Miranda, BC ’92, has seen Boston College’s campus expand and its student body swell in his 32 years working, studying, and building a life on the Heights.

Since working the graveyard housekeeping shift all those years ago, he estimates he’s seen an average of one building per year pop up.

But to start his story with Boston in 1986 doesn’t do it justice. Instead, you have to start 12 years earlier and 3,333 miles away, in Cape Verde, then a colony of Portugal. When a government coup threatened instability, the 18-year-old Miranda packed up his things and moved to Lisbon, Portugal, a remarkable decision at such a young age.

“I always was responsible. I think just like an old guy, that’s my nature. If I decide to do things I explore the ups and downs,” he said. “I always analyze things.”

After 16 months in Portugal, he decided to pack up his family and head to the United States. He landed in Boston and looked for jobs all over the place, ranging from the Stride Rite shoe factory to Polaroid—which he was quick to point out used to be THE technology.

Eventually, he made his way to the Heights.

“I had a cousin that was working here.

He told me that there are a lot of benefits if you are a BC employee,” Miranda said.

“You can study at the location and your family, your daughter, your wife could also attend classes. That was one of the reasons that made me come work. I was taking classes at Bentley College so I transferred the credits to BC.” During his first 15 years, he worked the third shift of housekeeping, which spanned from 11 at night to 7:30 the next morning.

“It was terrible. Back then it was hard, hard work. Rough environment back then,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep in the morning, in the daytime.”

Despite this, he worked hard to capitalize on the opportunity presented to him.

From his arrival in 1986 until 1992, he fit in classes however he could, making progress on his finance degree slowly but surely.

“I had to work on the second shift so I could attend finance classes in the day. I’d sleep as much as I could, whenever I can,” said Miranda. “To study and work at the same time, especially when you’re married with two kids, is not an easy task. I had to do two classes per semester and then I had to go to summer school.”

During these early years he got to witness BC go under a great transformation.

“There was no Conte Forum, there was

no Campanella Way, there was no Voute or Gabelli, there was no Vanderslice or 90,” he said.

Since then, he also had the pleasure of seeing his own daughter pass through the University, earning her degree in 1999 alongside the children of many of his fellow employees.

Eventually, he made the move from housekeeping to the mailroom, where he resides today. While there, he’s been able to connect with students in a way he never could before.

“If you are happy, then I’m happy. If you’re coming in, I’m frustrated if I can’t answer your question or I can’t find the thing you’re looking for or your package is not here.”

Looking back on his journey, he doesn’t see anything too exceptional about the life he chose to pursue. He admits the culture shock and language barrier were tough and requires great sacrifice, but overcoming them was also very natural for any immigrant.

“I got high regards with anyone who’s not American-born. They come in with one objective, to do the best they can to make sure that their daughter to their son do better,” he said. “I did the worst for them. I did the job I don’t want them to do.

I sacrificed a life for them. That’s I think the human nature, you do the best for the next generation to do better.”

n 1976, Daniel Beaton began working as a custodian for Boston College as a 24-year-old father of three.

Now, as a truck driver for BC’s mail services, Beaton has sent four of his five kids to BC, and is in his 45th year of marriage while approaching his 42nd year as a BC employee.

He has seen four decades of BC’s progress as an academic institution, ensured an education for his children that he did not receive himself, and has grown to embody the institution’s challenge to its community: men and women for others.

“I had three kids, I had to grow up, and I had two kids while I was working here,” he said. “And as I matured, BC seemed to mature, too, so that’s something.”

Beaton came to BC looking for job security during a rough 1975 economy and started as a custodian.

“It was only going to be a brief stop, but it turned into something totally different,” he smiled.

Since 1987, Beaton has been one of three truck drivers who ensure that everyone at BC receives their packages. Every day, a bulk delivery of packages and mail gets dumped in the Newton central facility. And every day, the mail staff sorts the packages based on mail room locations across campus, which the three drivers haul to the stops they are responsible for.

College Road, all of Brighton Campus, the Career Center, and all of Hammond Street have Beaton to thank for their packages. Beaton also goes to the Chestnut Hill post office to pick up any packages and mail that require a signature. But, for Beaton, BC is more than an employer he transports packages for.

In 1982, Beaton enrolled in his first college courses, and continued his education for three years. While he did not complete a degree, a particular course taught by Weston (“Sandy”) Jenks, the founder of University Counseling Services who also

taught English composition classes, still stands out to him.

“He taught you how to construct paragraphs, which in my background, from high school, no one had taught us how to construct paragraphs,” Beaton said.

“I got so much out of the class,” he said.

“A kid like me, I grew up in Dorchester, near Roxbury, it was a nice feeling—to feel like you could achieve something.”

This humble appreciation seems to have permeated most aspects of Beaton’s life as he grew alongside the University.

“I’ve been very lucky to be at BC,” he said. “You know I’m probably going to be retiring in the next year, and when you look back on your life and you think about all the people that you’ve met here, who’ve influenced you, and who’ve helped you, just have a good day.”

While one of the main reasons Beaton stayed at BC was to give his children an education—his oldest is nearly 45 years old and his youngest 32—Beaton, at age 66, is still working 45 hour weeks here.

“Like I said, we had five kids,” Beaton paused. “I lost my son a year and a half ago.

And he’s the reason I keep working. It takes my mind off of him, but it also helps me remember him.”

Beaton’s late son did not attend BC. “Obviously when you lose a son, when you lose a child, you always say ‘what could I have done?’ And I often wonder if I had him come here, if he’d still be alive. But I don’t know that, and I never will,” he said.

“But I know how much BC and the education that my kids received here has bettered them.”

Beaton’s pride in his children and gratitude toward BC was weaved into how he spoke about them, rattling off the names of influential faculty in his kids’ BC careers.

Beaton’s son, also named Daniel, graduated in 1998, after rowing crew for four years. His daughter Kristen, BC ’97 and SSW ’99, 13 months older than Daniel, decided to stay home rather than live on campus. She and her older sister Jennifer, BC ’99, helped their parents, who were both working full time, take care of Lauren, who was then three years old.

“Kristen went to school full time, worked part time, 20 hours a week, and she took care of her 3-year-old sister, and she graduated and went on to go to the school of social work here and got a master’s in social work,” Beaton nodded, still impressed.

Openly proud of his children’s growth through BC, Beaton is modest about himself. Around the time his oldest daughter, Jennifer, BC ’99, started at the University, Beaton quit drinking. He is 26 years sober.

“It’s nothing to be proud of, it’s something you just do,” he said. “And it made me appreciate my life a whole lot more.”

As the father of four BC graduates, Beaton is very familiar with the turmoils of freshman year. It scares him every time he sees an upset freshman—especially in September.

“As a parent, I’ve been in those shoes when one of my kids was going to leave, and they’re having an anxiety breakdown and didn’t feel like they belonged here,” he said. “So yeah, I’ll go out of my way for kids.

It’s not that hard. How hard is it?”

Years ago, on Newton Campus, a student approached the mail window in hopes of finding a refrigerator that was never delivered to her. Her mother, naturally concerned, would call everyday, distressing her daughter.

“When she came to the window, she was so upset that I looked at her and said ‘you know what, I’m going to find this girl’s refrigerator and bring it right to her room,’”

he said.

And after a 10-minute search and another 10 minutes of delivery, the fridge was finally in its owner’s hands.

It was just a matter of putting himself in her shoes. And, while a simple action, it was backed by empathy for a student who had just left home.

That Christmas, Beaton received a card from the student’s mother saying “Thank you very much.”

“What I hear a lot around here is ‘What would God do about that?’” he laughed.

“He’d probably go find the refrigerator for her.”

Beaton’s impact in the BC community has not been limited to mail services. Michael Raffi, a fellow BC mail service truck driver, explained that Beaton has helped Facilities shovel during the winter snowstorms over the years, volunteering 20 hours of his time to assist the grounds crew and housekeeping.

“That’s something that a lot of people don’t know about him, that he does on the side,” Raffi said. “He’ll shovel here before his house.”

Beaton’s positive attitude, his frequent reflection, and his humble appreciation for life seem to truly align with the institution’s well touted motto: men and women for others.

“Life is life, life is tough. It really is.

We’re all going to have to go through losses and sicknesses, and there’s the other side too, on the other side there are weddings and graduations and parties, and all that stuff,” he said. “And I’ve lived it all. I’ve had a great life.”

Now, at 66 years old, Beaton is planning to retire and dedicate the rest of his life to helping others using his experiences.

“I’m probably going to work in the field of alcohol and drug addiction. Probably do some counseling. That’s how my son died, at 37 years old,” he said. “He was a great kid. A great kid. People have their own stereotypes of what drug addicts are—that’s a conversation for another day.”

While relatively few members of the BC community saw Beaton’s four-decadelong journey, Beaton has witnessed all of BC’s progression.

Describing BC as a “party school” in “dire straits” during the ’70s, Beaton came to BC in 1976 during a turning point in the University. Alongside countless other BC staff, he saw then-University President Rev. J. Donald Monan, S.J. guide the University into its current status. Beaton came to this school four years into Monan’s leadership, and now sees University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., following in Monan’s footsteps, growing BC into a more challenging academic University.

“I’m just your average everyday Joe, who came to work here when I was 24 years old and I found a home,” he said. “I found people who took care of me until I matured, and I grew up while I was here, and I can retire, and I can be happy.”

It’s a good day.

Tony Bianchi: Bianchi is the campus security guard, doubling as O’Neill Library’s unsung hero and jokester. He has served the BC community for 19 years.

Jeronimo Colon: Colon is the building chef for Carney Dining Hall. Traveling from Puerto Rico to Chestnut Hill, he has built a family in the kitchen. He has served the BC community for 30 years.

Bobby Breen: Breen works as the lead custodian for lower campus. For the past four decades, Breen has worked as a member of the maintenance staff at BC.

Just Have a Good Day By: Heidi Dong

I

Home Away From Home By: Jack MIller Most Boston College students don’t

Visit bcheights.com for the rest of the series.

give a second thought to the routine quiet “good, how are you,” they robotically repeat to the Boston College Dining cashiers, except to consider a quick “thanks, have a good one.” That’s why Sheila Walton, a cashier in the Rat, has gained fame among students for breaking up the monotony of waiting by her register.

The Brighton native prides herself on forging personal connections with everyone, and makes an effort to reach out to brighten people’s days however she can.

“I absolutely love my job. I love seeing all the students, I say hello to everybody,” she said. “There’s a lot of people whose names I know and we talk or chit-chat. I just love coming to work and talking to everybody, it’s so much fun, I don’t consider it work.”

Her friendly attitude has encouraged more and more students to break out of the routine they’ve grown accustomed to.

Whether it’s simply remembering their daily breakfast order or making the effort to learn about their class schedule.

“I have always made an effort to ask the dining hall workers how they are doing and tell them that I hope that they have a fantastic day,” said Dan Paulos, CSOM ’19.

“It has always bothered me that a bunch of BC students don’t wish the dining hall workers a good day or even ask them how they are—they just give them their card and take it back without uttering a word.

Sheila noticed this and began calling me by my first name every time I went up for coffee and such.”

Some of the connections she’s formed just from seeing people every day have grown beyond the lunchline and turned into unique, albeit unconventional, friendships. Students have even made a point of bringing their parents to the Rat during visits so they could meet her.

“Sheila is very close with some of the students at Boston College,” said Natale Schmitz, MCAS ’20. “In fact, I’ve seen her hugging and chatting with other students outside of her post at the cash register.

She’s more of a friend than anything to us students.”

Walton arrived at BC 20 years ago as a temp worker at Eagle’s Nest after leaving her job as an orthopedic surgical assistant. The next year, she was promoted to a part-time position.

“I needed mother’s hours because my children were young,” she said. ”I couldn’t go back to my profession because it was definitely a full-time job and I was a full-time mom.”

Since then, she’s moved around to dining spots all across campus.

She staffed Hillside Cafe in its fledgling years before landing in the refurbished Rat. She’s also seen her own two sons, who had brought her to the Heights in the first place, pass through the University as students themselves.

Given that she first arrived at BC with her sons on her mind, it’s fitting that many students see her as a mom-like figure for their home away from home. Her fans among the student body can effortlessly rattle off the countless, personalized ways that Walton has touched their lives.

“Sometimes, she’ll tease me about my food choices, or even give me a chuckle about my weird food combinations, but she lets it happen,” said Erika Schlagenhauf, CSOM ’20.

“She understands that college kids do crazy things, and she is a fun and calming presence in the always buzzing Rat.” n

The Heights

A10

EDITORIAL

Thursday, May 3, 2018

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Rise in AHANA+ RAs Positive For Inclusive Residence Halls

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

- A. A. Milne

The Office of Residential Life identify their race, gender, and presenting a more diverse body has experienced an 8 percentage ethnicity. The students who of RAs can give students an extra point increase in Residential choose to answer these optional resource they can go to. ResLife Assistants (RAs) that identify questions are the main metric by stresses the importance of reas AHANA+ for the 2018-2019 which ResLife can measure the sponsible RAs with whom stuacademic year. This past year, diversity of student workers. dents can relate to so that they 44 percent of RAs identified During interviews, they ask can be an identifiable resource as students of color, while next potential RAs how they would for all students. year will see an increase to 52 support and identify with stuIn light of the racially charged percent, as of now. Mike defacing that occurred in Lorenz, the associate diresidence halls this past fall rector for selection, devel- “It’s important that BC represents that incited the “Silence is opment, and formation for Still Violence” movement all student demographics ResLife, says that the peron campus, the increased centage will change very in leadership roles on campus...” amount of AHANA+ RAs little before next year as will hopefully diminish students fill the few extra the likelihood of a simiopen positions. dents who are part of underrep- larly offense event occurring.

On RA applications, students resented populations, showing It’s important that BC represents are not required to answer any that ResLife and BC are ensuring all student demographics in questions identifying them de- that RAs include a more diverse leadership roles on campus—an mographically. ResLife is legally representation of student lead- increase in RAs that identify prohibited from asking students ers, to whom students living on- as students of color presents a to identify their religious prefer- campus can relate. RAs can be solid foundation to ensure that ences, economic background, a liaison for students to express residents find their dorms comand sexual orientation. Student any difficulties and problems fortable and inclusive homes for applicants have the option to they experience on campus, so the year.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

In Response to: Over 200 Faculty Sign Letter Calling on Leahy, Quigley to Issue ‘Strong Response’ to B.o.B’s Stances

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There has been bad and good to come out of the spotlight on the Campus Activities Board’s (CAB) hiring of B.o.B. The bad: while CAB members did ultimately issue an apology concerning B.o.B, it was issued only after an initial rationalization that while they support him as an artist and entertainer, it didn’t mean he represented their views. The apology came after B.o.B’s hurtful and outrageous lyrics were pointed out in The Heights editorials and elsewhere, lyrics which CAB could easily have found online as part of what is supposed to be a vigorous vetting process.

Was this episode just about vetting or was it more broadly a case study about sensitivity? We hope both, with an emphasis on the latter, but given the initial reaction of CAB, one might wonder. The letters sent by faculty and students to members of the administration and to The Heights came after a lot of angst, because it’s not comfortable bringing attention to yourself when you’re part of a minority, and frankly, it’s not comfortable to acknowledge disappointment in

your friends and classmates. It’s hard to actually have to ask for respect and consideration, especially if you’re an undergraduate here.

The good that has come of it is the support that has been expressed by some students and faculty. It means a lot—it really does.

What might we have hoped would come of our letters? Learning, most of all. Of course it would have been nice if the contract with B.o.B had been terminated, but short of that (which we realized from the outset was unlikely), it would still be great for the BC student community to be “upstanders”—to just not show up for that part of the concert. How nice it would be to feel supported in that way. But at this point, the most we hope and ask for is greater emphasis on sensitivity to all groups in the community—in the teaching, learning, and reflection that is part of BC’s curriculum.

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

opinions@bcheights.com

CUSTOMER SERVICE Clarifications / Corrections

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

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Editorial Board. A list of the members of the Editorial Board can be found at bcheights.com/opinions.

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The Heights

Thursday, May 3, 2018

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The Final Investigation: Grass 69

69

Austin Bodetti ClichÉS - When life gives you lemons, am I right? Clichés are really reassuring. They’ll always be there, they’ll always be the same. All’s well that ends well. Change is scary, and there’s nothing that you can do to change a cliché. Every cloud has a silver lining. As an anonymous copy editor once said, “They’re called clichés for a reason: It’s because they’re true. Sorry.” Don’t get your panties in a bunch over it, though.

Reflective sunglasses - It’s never cloudy when you’re cool, am I right?! Besides the fact that reflective lenses look so cool while you’re wearing them, arguably the best part is that no one can see where you’re looking. How often do you see someone that you kind of know, but not that well, so really you don’t want to say hi to them because “hi” with this particular person will ultimately turn into a 20-minute conversation about how “tired” you are, or how much work this person has to do still, or the freaking weather?

Well, with reflective sunglasses they don’t know where your eyes are looking, i.e. they don’t know if you’ve seen them, so you can just scurry on out of their way and go about your day all by yourself just the way you like it. And they just look really cool.

69

realizing how much stuff you have to do that you just haven’t done at all yet - Speaking of work that hasn’t gotten done yet, you haven’t done any of yours, either.

You’re only taking five courses, how much did your professors really assign you to do for the last week of class? A lot, if you were actually looking for an answer. I’ve heard people talking about these things called “study days,” during which professors are apparently not supposed to make assignments due.

That’s just not true. But, let’s be real, you probably won’t actually start any of it until the night before it’s due. deceivingly wet grass - No, I didn’t pee my pants, I just sat on a patch of grass that looked dry, but the dirt was still damp from the rain yesterday, so by the time I noticed the moisture accumulating on my shorts, they were basically soaked. Thanks for asking. When the weather is so nice, it’s basically a sin not to spend the day outside.

When there isn’t a space on one of those concrete ledges around campus that’s big enough to sit in between two groups of people without being uncomfortably close to at least one of them, you’re doomed to the grass. And considering the care that BC places on landscaping, it’s likely that it’s been watered recently enough to ensure that your butt will be wet when you get up.

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Over the course of this semester, this column has brought you the answers to questions that no one has ever cared to ask, establishing a standard of investigative journalism that The Heights has never met before and never will again. Now, no one will ever have to ponder these mysteries: “Is Mattress Firm’s name a pun?”

“What the Hell is a Russian math school?”

“What happened to the 2,000 plates missing from Lower?”

“What does the Undergraduate Government of Boston College actually do?”

“Will Austin Bodetti, that devilishly handsome columnist for The Heights, whom I should really ask on a date before he graduates, finish his thesis?”

“Where does Rubinoff vodka come from?”

“Where can I subscribe to Austin’s email list about his awkwardness, how he deals with it, and also the Greater Middle East?”

That last question is just to promote my email list, Lost with Austin (LAUSTIN), but I count answering it as solving one more mystery. Wow. I can conduct investigations in my sleep.

I knew that my last investigation would need to top the others. In fact, it would need to surpass anything that The Heights had ever published, but, conveniently for me, The Heights has set an extremely low bar. I chose to determine how much money Boston College spends on grass every year.

Google told me that The Heights had never even attempted to answer this question before. Given the controversy surrounding the grass—BC resods lawns across campus in what many students assume to be an expensive enterprise—I would have thought that one columnist or another would have looked into it. Not for the first time, however, my expectations for The Heights had proved far too high.

In my four years at BC, I have heard several variations of the same rumor: A donor allocates a certain amount of money to the University every year with the condition that BC can only spend it on grass. Meanwhile, one acquaintance told me that local landscapers reapplied the sod without having to pay a penny because those landscapers see it as free advertising.

In one highly specific anecdote, a student explained that the parents of a rejected Chinese applicant to BC offered to cover all the University’s costs for landscaping in exchange for that applicant’s acceptance. That story, though, sounds both highly illegal and slightly racist. I knew that I could only get the truth from BC administrators, who might not take my grass-themed emails seriously.

At first, I emailed University Spokesman Jack Dunn. He had helped me conclude my missing-plate investigation, so the Dunnster—as I’ve taken to calling him—seemed a natural place to turn in my time of need. He answered neither my initial email nor the follow-up, however, bringing our friendship into doubt.

As the deadline for my last column approached, I knew that I would need to bring out the big guns: emailing literally everyone at BC that might know anything about the grass.

My email reached about a dozen staffers for the Budget Office, Campus Landscape Services, Facilities Management, and the Office of University Communications. The two respondents pointed me to Scott H. McCoy, associate director of Landscape Services.

“Thanks for the inquiry,” McCoy told me in his timely reply. “It’s always a heavily discussed topic this time of year. It’s not appropriate to share the details related to the cost but I can assure you that it’s a lot less money than most would think. I think the relative size of the operation and disruption to campus is somewhat misleading as it gives the impression that it’s a costly project but pales in comparison to much of what goes on here on a daily basis.”

Most student estimates of how much BC spent on sod range from

several hundred thousand to over a million, but I was about to discover how wrong they were.

“The managed turf areas on campus are roughly 3.8 million square feet and and typically we’ll replace just 1.25 percent of that in the spring which is generally the byproduct of the damage caused by de-icing materials used throughout the winter months,” McCoy continued, telling me more about grass in one short email than I ever could have hoped to know in two lifetimes. “The funds are drawn from a yearly operating budget set up for landscaping materials and supplies.

The sod is grown at a farm in Rhode Island and installed by a contractor based in Waltham.”

Based on McCoy’s math, BC replaces 47,500 square feet of sod every year. According to the website Sod God, meanwhile, professionally installed sod costs 46 cents per square foot. In other words, BC appears to spend between $6,650 and $28,500 on grass every year.

How disappointing.

I wanted a scandal. Sure, there are likely other factors that could drive up the annual price of the grass, but it still costs less than one student’s tuition.

How? How?!

Climate Justice, that ill-fated, extremely ineffective BC club, had wished me luck in my quest to discover the truth, but I still wonder whether the truth has actually been discovered. BC spending less than $10,000 on grass every spring sounds too ridiculous to be true.

When I posted, “How much money does BC spend on grass every year?” to the sticky-note question wall in O’Neill Library, the response basically quoted McCoy’s word for word. Perhaps it’s just my paranoia, but perhaps not: I sense a conspiracy afoot.

My time at The Heights has come to an end, thank God, but I hope that The Heights will ignore its better judgment and pass the torch to someone else, someone who will get the real truth about the grass.

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

Reiterating Dialogue’s Importance Matthew Kelly But a short time ago, I encountered a fair albeit short-sighted critique offering the idea that my column and opinion pieces have often drifted away from the needs of a common man and into lofty and extraneous presentation. And, further, that my rhetorical affluence consistently conceals the meanings of my aforementioned pieces. The spirit and epoch of my column has been such: to inspire dialogue and further an appreciation of the beautiful and sublime, of the undervalued and overlooked aspects of life. Thus, it is appropriate that my final piece underscores a commonality of all the others: what they all hint at but only the summation reveals.

The crux of it all lies within the importance of dialogue, of conversation, of thought, of reflection! Moreover, into the beautiful and sublime that results from the beneficiality of said verbal art forms. When dialogue and conversation are a common desideratum, formative experiences are then commonplace—university and student alike reap the rewards.

Alas, the finality of a column naturally will labor over the why, and why the themes and narratives are of such importance.

As Albert Camus states, “You cannot create experience, you must undergo it.” That is to say, the well-ordered externalities of dialogue lie only within the experience of said dialogue and cannot be brought to fruition without it. Certainly then, it must be said that dialogue is an encapsulating

term for the conversations we partake in with others, the ancients, and ourselves in reflection. Dialogue yields to us, who we are to become, via these interactions. When we are eager and willing to seek out that which we haven’t heard, we discern that which we wish to hear and that which we don’t. It is through conversation and reflection that our convictions and beliefs are recognized and formed.

It’s my hope that all my columns, both those previous and this included, held a flame to the latent tinder of words yet to be spoken within all who read them. Often it’s only within vexing and conjectual dialogue that any concrete discernment is found and convictions are built.

Dialogue further surrenders the reality of relationships to us, revealing which sprouts will blossom and which will capitulate to the baneful reality of the world. In a world where fornication is casual yet conversing over a meal equates to a marriage proposal, dialogue often becomes a secondary factor in friendships and relationships alike. It is dialogue alone that scrutinizes compatibility, yet is often employed only as a surface level means to a transient end—that is to say, getting to know each other has become a secondary facet of interaction. It is this temporal and futile reality of dialogue that I realized a yearning for more was not an overused banality, but an actuality worth pursuing. Invoking the witty Yogi Berra, I often felt, “It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.”

That is to say, often it is difficult to draw the substantial from the muck of illusory.

Finally, as it is dialogue that sifts from the paramount and insignificant, it is through conversation and

reflection that we find an appreciation for that which is beautiful and sublime. That, in life, which does not fade in the face of time, that which has permanently altered our path and formation towards what is good, that is what we must seek out. This appreciation derives from a newfound realization of what is important, a realization that finds its origins in dialogue with others and with ourselves.

In the bonds formed and interests discovered through dialogue, we begin to revel in a newfound appreciation of all that is around us. Conversations awaken us to maxims and truths that we took for granted, and the real world applications of witticism we long forgot. Reflections, likewise, awaken the latent parts of ourselves, and dialogue within yourself—discernment—reveals to us our dreams and goals alike.

“Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.” The latter half of this Dostoevsky quip underlines all that I have attempted to convey. Dialogue, conversation, and reflection are and will continue to be vital aspects of human formation. Certainly, it is my hope that this column has continuously sparked all three—and if not all, at least one. It was my aim to alter the culture around me, to invite all into an atmosphere of deeper and authentic pursuit of more. And the only veritable outlet for such expressions is exposure to dialogue in all forms and capacities. That is the summation of the spirit of my column, and I certainly hope that this particular one only serves as a reinforcement to that which has already been said.

Matthew Kelly is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. He 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.

Inspecting Fake News Robert Walmsley The phrases “fake news” and “alternative facts” continue to populate both the Twittersphere and CNN alike ever since the current president and his counselor began to use the term during the 2016 presidential campaign. These manipulated truths had a part in dictating the election, as many know, but they seemed to only affect voters on the right, I perceive, due to the right-centric targeting by Russian agents and the education gap. My assumptions were only partly true, and two years after they entered mainstream media, these oxymorons I previously thought ridiculous struck me lightly yet alarmingly.

I sat on the couch in my common room scrolling through Twitter, watching one of my roommates play Fortnite—a stereotypical day in most college dorm rooms.

The feed was made up of the usual variety: viral memes, quoted retweets, sports news, and politics. There was one tweet in particular that had 100,000 retweets and a video of Trump, so I stopped my incessant scrolling and took a look.

The video was about a minute, too long for my attention span, so I just looked at the comment above it. The President asked, “Are there any Hispanics in the room?” The author of the Tweet then put in parentheses “crowd boos.” Trump then responds, “Not so many? That’s okay…”

I immediately turned to all of my roommates in disgust and explained the event, and they reacted the same way I did. Then the only moderate in my room, who leans conservative, said it was ridiculous, and believed even someone like Trump wouldn’t be that overt. I responded defiantly and actually watched the video to confirm my reaction. It turned out the quote was taken completely and irresponsibly out of context. Before he asked the controversial question, Trump was talking about high unemployment rates for Hispanics, and meant to frame it in a positive context, even if his supporters didn’t.

I didn’t get it. Everything lined up. The reporter who was covering the campaign rally was verified on Twitter, (although it is easier to get than I thought), and worked for an established, yet left-leaning, news website. The only “fake news” I’ve ever seen was constructed through fake news websites such as Conservativebyte.com or Bostonleader.com—the latter was shut down. They used completely made up stories, not simple omissions of text.

I talked to one of my friends weeks prior to this little incident, and he was trying to figure out how one might reveal fake news on Facebook given the effects it had on the election. We mentioned the general ways fake news is generated above, but neither of us thought about omission.

It seems the only way to identify these cases is through our own discretion.

It could be said, of course, that this tweet wasn’t manipulative because the reporter posted it as a blip to summarize a point Trump made in the video, and any person who saw it should have watched the video themselves. But, the reporter knowingly misconstrued the information and counted on the fact that the digital, multiscreen generation’s attention spans are shortening. Obviously, this is not as dangerous as some other forms of false truths on platforms like Facebook, but it did prevent me from seeing the truth.

I am normally a skeptic, maybe even a cynic, so I always check the citations and the history of whoever presents information to me. But when something fits my perception of a person, like Trump, I immediately accept it without a thought.

It’s my own truth, but not the factual truth—as ridiculously redundant that sounds—in this case.

We get so carried away with our own ideologies that we can shape portions of a story to manipulate into fact. It is extremely hard to remove biases because most consider them a solidified truth. I’ve always been against riding in the middle and choosing to be a libertarian or moderate because I don’t believe it benefits society and is contradictory. But, when looking at information, it is important not to rush to judgement, even it furthers your party’s goals or beliefs. It is imperative be to impartial to facts, or else the very definition of truth corrodes entirely.

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

The Heights

A12

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Confronting Commonalities: Ten Students Take On Kuwait Intercultural Dialogue and Diplomacy course gives students a Spring Break study-abroad experience.

By Brooke Kaiserman Assoc. Magazine Editor When the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait apologized to Boston College political science professor Kathleen Bailey for not being able to host her and her students for the second year in a row, she took it with a grain of salt.

“We were even too busy,” she said. “They put on a program that’s five hours, and we didn’t have five hours.”

The one-credit course, Kuwait: Intercultural Dialogue and Diplomacy, culminates in a weeklong trip to Kuwait—this year, the trip took place from March 2 to 11.

Unlike many BC classes offering singular credits, this highly selective program offers a unique opportunity for immersion. At the helm is Bailey, an expert in the Muslim

percent of the population.

The other group originated as nomadic herders who remained in the comfort of the desert—they didn’t participate in travel, education, and weren’t integrated into Kuwait’s governmental system until the mid-1960s.

Between the merchant elite and the nomadic population, members of the former group tend to be wealthier, more globalized, and more contemporary than the contrasting tribal nomads—ancient, conservative customs such as polygamy, gender segregation, and nomadism are the norm.

Nowhere is this cultural cacophony more visible than in the country’s universities, two of which—Kuwait University and the American University of Kuwait (AUK)— Bailey and her students visited.

AUK is a liberal, private institution with English as the language of instruction.

“I saw a country trying to progress, trying to democratize itself ... they’re doing their best to balance between a chaos led by the tyranny of the majority of authoritarianism.

It’s a very tricky and delicate balance.”

- Echo Yiyang Zhuge, MCAS ’20 regions and the associate director of the Islamic Civilization and Societies Program at BC. The trip is made possible by The Omar A. Aggad Travel and Research Fellowship, which provides grants through donations made by a BC family to be used for the purpose of catalyzing connections with the Middle East.

In addition to hosting speakers at BC and funding the research projects of individual students, the fellowship covers much of the costs for the 10 students enrolled in Intercultural Dialogue and Diplomacy to spend their Spring Breaks on Kuwaiti soil.

“The Aggad family gave the gift with no particular insistence that it should be used for this or that or anything, but … [Aggad] really liked the idea of face-to-face diplomacy and dialogue,” Bailey said. “But no matter what it was, he wanted the students to be meeting counterparts, rather than being lectured to all the time—some kind of meeting of the minds.”

The Spring Break trip was Bailey’s creation—by condensing a study-abroad experience into a weeklong excursion, she combined immersion with accessibility, giving her students the unique opportunity to act as participants in Kuwaiti culture, rather than as stereotypical tourists.

Aiming for an all-encompassing excursion, Bailey organized activities under several different categories, from the development of Kuwait’s economy to the politics of its government.

As with the agenda, Bailey selects her students with care. She reads every application herself, and while high grades and a thoughtful essay are considered, Bailey makes sure to look beyond rank and rhetoric.

“One thing that’s a little bit unusual is [that] I want people who are engaged, so people who are really excited and very open, and good conversationalists,” she said.

To prepare for the journey, Bailey uploads readings and articles—a hodgepodge of historical, political, and economic documents—to Canvas. The students are responsible for preparing the material in advance of class discussions.

These conversations establish a necessary baseline to give students the knowledge they need to be active participants in Kuwaiti culture.

“Kuwait is a place where you really could get some cultural dissonance,” said Bailey.

“You might feel alien, displaced almost, like a fish out of water.”

Kuwait is starkly divided into two sociocultural groups, the first of which has existed since the state’s creation. In the mid-18th century, tribes emerged from modern-day Saudi Arabia and developed Kuwait as it exists today.

Before the age of oil, the early Kuwaitis were pearl divers, utilizing their proximity to the Arabian Gulf. They were traders, merchants, and shipbuilders, forced to find other ways to survive in the inarable desert—the cobalt coast morphed into their Mesopotamia.

Today, these early pilgrims are Kuwait’s merchant elite, and comprise roughly 35

Due to the university’s partnership with Dartmouth, the curriculum is taught in the American style.

“When you walk around AUK, you’re not in an American university, but it’s something that you can kind of understand and grasp, and there are common experiences,” Bailey said. Generally, children of the ruling, merchant elite are sent to this institution.

In contrast, Kuwait University tends to be frequented by members of the tribal population. As a state-sponsored university, tuition is not only free, but students are compensated on a monthly basis by the government for their attendance—approximately 2,500 Kuwaiti dinars, or $3.20. Students are also compensated for textbooks, scholastic materials, and study abroad trips.

The Arabic language of instruction, as well as the nonexistent cost and conservative culture on campus, appeal to many in this second sociocultural group.

“On the two different campuses we saw two very different crowds. The AUK students … are the most liberal students.

I talked to a Kuwaiti Muslim girl with blue hair, tattoos on her shoulders, and like 10 ear piercings,” said trip-goer Echo Yiyang Zhuge, MCAS ’20, who took Bailey’s Inside the Kingdom: Conversations with Saudi Women course as a freshman and heard about the Kuwait trip when she was working in Qatar last summer. “I asked her: ‘You’re Muslim, are you allowed to have tattoos?’ and she just shrugged. That’s the kind of student we saw on the AUK campus.”

The colorful, cropped clothing worn by most students at AUK reminded Zhuge of the apparel donned by students at BC, but at Kuwait University, every woman on campus wore a traditional hijab, as well as a niqab—a veil to cover the face.

“When we picture a gulf country or an Arab country, we usually think of women in black bundles,” she said. “But in Kuwait, we saw two extremes. Kuwait University honestly is the norm. AUK is what a very small minority would act like … the point is that they exist.”

Contrarily, the conversations BC students had with students from Kuwait University were all with men, who described their participation in polygamy and the self-segregation of genders in the classroom—women sit in one corner, and men in the other. This cultural chasm was much more narrow at AUK, where BC students were shown a music room where students of both genders crooned melodies and struck chords as they played what Bailey compared to Rock Band or Guitar Hero.

One BC student on the trip recognized the lyrics to a song the AUK students sang, and joined in.

To Bailey, this represents a unique element of progressivism AUK holds paramount.

“I doubt you could even play music at Kuwait University,” she said. “Music is not something that in the Muslim faith is really acceptable. So AUK defies that, KU stays with the more traditional interpretation.”

In addition to their planned group activities, the BC students were given opportunities to explore the state and engage with the

culture surrounding them.

One afternoon, Zhuge dragged her friend Matthew Hekmat Aboukhater, MCAS ’20, on an outing to a pre-Islamic art museum she had on her bucket list. Next to the museum, they saw the only Christian churches in all of Kuwait.

The two buildings—one an Evangelical church and the other a Catholic church— were filled exclusively with expats working in Kuwait, who had come from countries such as India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. As a monotheistic religion, Christianity is one of the only religions besides Islam tolerated to an extent by the Kuwaiti government—Buddhist and Hindu temples, for example, are nowhere to be found.

This tolerance, however, does not amount to acceptance. Visiting a little shop appended to the side of the church, Aboukhater was shocked to discover the sale of contraband keepsakes.

Pulling a pinky-sized object out of his pocket, Aboukater proudly presented a canary-yellow eraser, shaped like a cross and printed with the words, ‘Jesus Saves.’

“I bought something that’s illegal to buy,” he grinned. “In Kuwait, you’re not allowed to own a Christian cross, but I bought this.

A Christian, tiny cross that was sold, and the only way it was sold is because it’s a literal eraser. I bought that, and we hid it, and we transported it back to the United States.”

In addition to visiting the only two churches in the country, Zhuge and Aboukhater accompanied the rest of the group on a tour of the Grand Mosque of Kuwait. Normally, non-Muslims are prohibited from entering mosques, so the non-Muslim students embraced the opportunity to admire the towering central dome, hand-carved gypsum, and glittering chandeliers—each weighing about the same as a car.

“I’ve never been inside a mosque,” Zhuge said. “It is important for me because I study Islamic art, and I’ve only been able to look at mosques from the outside.”

Expanding on this unique opportunity, Zhuge noted Kuwait’s progressiveness relative to other gulf countries.

“I actually saw a lot more diversity in Kuwait than [when] I worked in Qatar over the summer,” she said. Just a short 40-minute flight from Kuwait, Qatar’s conservatism reaches beyond religion. “I really felt like I’m much more free to live as a woman in Kuwait than I was in Qatar.”

Zhuge also came to realize this sentiment when the group attended a diwaniya.

Traditional in Kuwait, diwaniyas are nighttime gatherings where friends and neighbors gather for an evening of delicious food and stimulating conversation.

These parties are held in rectangular rooms with couches lining the perimeter.

The middle is left empty—an homage to Kuwait’s nomadic culture.

“Everybody can let [their] hair down,” Bailey said. “You can have fun, and just talk, and talk about anything.”

One stipulation is that the guest list is strictly male, but for Bailey’s students, an exception was made. “My experience was completely different than Echo’s because I’m a guy,” Aboukhater said.

Bailey’s long-standing connections with the Kuwaitis didn’t decrease the novelty, however.

“When [the female students] told other Kuwaitis they were going to a diwaniya, they were always shocked, because it’s not a normal thing to do,” Bailey said.

Although Kuwait is a monarchy, it is a country constantly trying to grow and wel-

come new ideas. Bailey took her students to sit in on a session of Kuwaiti parliament so they could understand not only the politics of the parliament, but the government as a whole.

The Kuwaiti parliament is comprised of 50 ministers of parliament, or MPs. Kuwait’s oscillations between absolutist monarchy and parliamentary democracy are apparent in the makeup of MPs. While the majority of them are elected by the people, 15 ministers are chosen by the emir—the ruler of Kuwait, currently Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah—who also has veto power over any of the resolutions passed by the ministers.

During the session they attended, the students witnessed a heated ‘grilling session,’ in which one of the ministers was harshly interrogated.

This was followed by a vote on whether or not the minister should resign.

“A lot of what’s going on in Kuwait is just … political games being played from both sides,” Aboukhater said.

The students watched as he defended himself against the accusations, and the next morning, they opened the newspaper to read that the emir had made an appearance himself to praise the minister on his self-defense.

Ultimately, the man was allowed to keep his job, and the accusers were criticized by the press.

“For me it shows that there is a rigorous democratic debate going on in the government, Zhuge said. “Is it struggling? Sure … but I think a lack of struggling would be a much bigger problem.

The strife the students witnessed stems from a motivation to hold the ministers accountable for their actions, which the Kuwaiti newspapers can report on, condemning government authorities if necessary.

“I saw a country trying to progress, trying to democratize itself … they’re doing their best to balance between a chaos led by the tyranny of the majority of authoritarianism,” she continued. “It’s a very tricky and

include competitive application processes, all of them are trained by the director general for Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority, Sheikh Meshaal Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah, along with his staff of professors and practitioners.

Because the American embassy wasn’t on this year’s itinerary, Bailey called on an old friend she attended the Fletcher School with, Tshering Gyaltshen Penjor, the ambassador to Kuwait from Bhutan.

As a small, democratizing monarchy, Bhutan is similar to Kuwait in structure and provided an enlightening opportunity for the students, who conversed with Penjor regarding how Bhutan maintains its diplomatic relations in another difficult part of the world.

Kuwait’s diplomacy is strategic in the sense that its small dimensions and lucrative oil production make it easy and tempting bait for its larger, neighboring countries.

Hoping to enlighten her students regarding Kuwait’s economic development, Bailey took them to the Kuwait Oil Company.

With the extensive background knowledge provided by Bailey’s assigned readings and course discussions, the students were able to think critically about the future implications of Kuwait’s large reliance on a finite, and limited, resource.

“I think Kuwait’s great right now, but they don’t really have a plan for the future … for renovating their economy post-oil,” Aboukhater said. “When we asked [the tour guides] about potential other economic endeavors, they really had no answers for us.

All they talked about was how many barrels of oil they were producing.”

Given the freedom to construct her own itinerary, Bailey was determined to balance traditional activities with a few unique, exciting opportunities for students to immerse themselves in Kuwaiti culture in less formal settings.

“It’s an intense trip because we do an awful lot, I mean those first few days, they were so filled,” said Bailey. “I think we had maybe four or five activities … you need to mix that

“The Aggad family gave the gift with no particular insistence that it should be used for this or that or anything, but ... [Aggad] really liked the idea of face-to-face diplomacy and dialogue.”

- Kathleen Bailey delicate balance.”

Kuwait has expanded this dedication to development to the area of foreign affairs. As a textbook example of diplomacy, Kuwait has never initiated a war or conflict, and remains neutral in major international conflicts—even in the Arabic world.

From the Syrian Civil War to the Libyan Instability Crisis, Kuwait has embodied the highest standard of statesmanship.

A lot of times, Kuwait’s chivalry stems from circumstance, rather than choice.

“Kuwait is a very small country. It’s not easy to protect, so security is an issue. …

Kuwait has to be friends with everybody,” Bailey said.

It’s fitting that the first stop the students made was to visit the Kuwait Diplomatic Institute, where Kuwaiti diplomats are trained.

Rather than instructing future diplomats in various centers or graduate schools which

with more, well, fun things, so that you’re not always on the edge of your seat.”

To achieve this aim, Bailey took the students to a private beach chalet, an underground hip-hop class, and a treasure hunt searching for goods in a traditional Kuwaiti marketplace known as a souq.

She insists that these activities are essential to the immersive experience the trip provides, as it encourages participation in Kuwaiti society, rather than being detached in formal, classroom settings.

“I think [these activities tell] you a lot about other people, and it really brings out the commonalities,” Bailey said. “The people are concerned about the same things. You come halfway across the world to a completely different culture … you’re not in Europe, and yet, you could be talking to your sister and have the same conversation.” n

Sam Zhai / Heights Staff

Echo Yiyang Zhuge, MCAS ’20, and Matthew Hekmat Aboukhater, MCAS ’20, traveled to Kuwait with eight students over Spring Break.

WATTS

MOMENTUM AWARDS | 1

MAY 3, 2018 | THE HEIGHTS

LIVING GREATNESS Female Athlete of the Year

Daryl Watts didn’t just rewrite BC’s record books as a freshman, she also firmly positioned herself as the best player in the country.

Michael Sullivan Heights Senior Staff

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hen Daryl Watts and I first spoke about two and a half months ago, I was taken aback with how quickly she learned the “Boston College way.”

She learned it in how she talks about her skill and that of her teammates, and what makes her great. Watts cited everything but her ability—her coaches, her teammates, her practices. If you heard it from her, the best player in the entire country somehow can’t take any of the credit.

Of course, therein lies the other half of the BC way—she was, in fact, the best player in the nation. Over the last five years, Katie Crowley’s crew has dominated Hockey East. The program boasts alltime great Olympians like Haley Skarupa, Kelli Stack, and Alex Carpenter, who is BC’s all-time points leader and the winner of the 2016 Patty Kazmaier Award.

And no player Crowley has had dominated the sport quite like Watts with the speed she did.

Watts was the wire-to-wire points leader in the entire country—the only day she didn’t lead in scoring was the Eagles’ first game (one in which she had two assists, anyway). She corrected that the next day against Minnesota Duluth with a hat trick. At one point, she threatened to beat Carpenter and become BC”s single-season points leader. Carpenter notched those 88 points her senior year—by comparison, she had just 39 as a freshman.

Watts was even on pace at one point to become just the fifth woman ever to surpass 100 points in a single season.

That one will have to wait for next year.

Watts settled for a “mere” 82 points—42 goals, 40 assists. That total made her the first underclassman to ever win the Patty Kazmaier Award for the nation’s best player. Forget breakout awards: Watts is undoubtedly The Heights’ 2018 Female Athlete of the Year. atts didn’t follow a typical path for a BC women’s hockey player, one that might come out of Buckingham Browne and Nichols, New Hampton, Noble and Greenough, or any of those fancy

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New England prep schools. She comes from north of the border, in a small neighborhood just outside Toronto, Ontario, where hockey rules supreme.

Of course, even the sport’s birthplace hasn’t created equal opportunities for male and female players. Watts’s father, Michael, had to request for her to join her older brother’s house league team when she was 4—in part because there were no other options, but it didn’t hurt that it eased the minivan commutes back and forth from their house.

From the moment she first laced up skates, people noticed her. Michael recalled a local hockey equipment store seeing her walk around in a couple of pairs.

The manager, who had outfitted young players in Toronto for years, was stunned at the poise and steadiness she had on the blades. He immediately told Michael that his 4-year-old daughter would one day, at minimum, play at an NCAA level.

Over time, Watts’s scoring output became unfair. In those youth leagues, she averaged almost three goals a game, her dad said. Michael said that the league had a limit to how often kids were allowed to score in the games. So Watts became good friends with her male teammates, because she could pad their stats—if they could catch up to her.

“Daryl would skate to the end of the rink, and then she’d turn around, wait for the boys to catch up, and then she’d pick one and pass them the puck,” Michael said.

Sensing that pure speed that Daryl had on the ice, she and Michael decided it was time to refine her ability with a skills coach who could teach her how to score from different angles, one-on-one strategies, how to approach defenses, and so on. They felt strongly enough in Daryl’s skill that they didn’t want to settle for second rate: they approached Dusan Kralik.

A former Czechoslovakian junior player and one of the best hockey skills coaches in the country, Kralik was surprised at first. He worked with some of the best talents in Ontario, including Nashville Predators defenseman P.K. Subban and New York Islanders center John Tavares.

“He told me on the phone, ‘my daughter seems to have talent, but I’m a lawyer,’” Kralik said. “And I replied, ‘I don’t really

do that, but I’ll give her a chance.’”

The next day, Kralik saw Watts in a game, a girl playing with boys notching a hat trick, skating circles around them, without even looking like she’s trying. He knew he had the opportunity to add another special name to his long list of proteges. From then on, Watts would get up to meet with Kralik at 6:30 a.m., the only time they could make available, at least once a week through the rest of her time in Ontario, despite the fact that she didn’t even know what a slapshot was. Immediately, he could see that kind of fire that she had to be great.

“Daryl is an extremely competitive by nature and as a person—she understands that everywhere she went, she always proved that she was the best,” Kralik said.

“I can compare her to John Tavares because I was around him since she was a 6-year-old.”

Kralik says Watts has a particular talent few have: she eliminates the competition. Not just by skating around them— anyone can do that. But the way she plays, he says, is light. Her vision on the ice pales in comparison to no female player he had ever seen. She has the unique ability to remove the goalie and players in front of her from her line of vision, Kralik says, to allow her to only envision how best to get to the net. In noting who else has that kind of ability, Kralik dropped the ultimate comparison.

“That’s why Wayne Gretzky, like her, had such talent, it looked like he had no one in front of him,” Kralik said. “That’s what Daryl’s talent was right from the get go.”

No pressure, just a link between her and the greatest hockey player who ever lived. ighth grade was the first time Watts transitioned to girls’ hockey. She played for the AA Saugabrays Peewee, where they won the provincial title and she got the Silver Stick Award for the league’s MVP. Eventually Watts joined the Mississauga Jr. Chiefs of the Provincial Women’s Hockey League. There, she continued her gaudy scoring—65 points in 34 games her first season, 52 in 31 games her second season.

It was with Mississauga where she first caught the eye of Crowley and associate head coach Courtney Kennedy. Watts at-

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tended a summer tournament in Boston where the two coaches, who rarely scouted in Canada, got to see her play for the first time. It took just two shots on goal for them to extend a scholarship offer.

Naturally, with all the success she had, Watts had her choice of schools. But she really wanted BC because there, she could learn from two women who had been in her skates who have competed for—and in Crowley’s case, won—women’s hockey’s ultimate goal: an Olympic goal medal.

“There’s no other hockey school that gives you great coaches, a great city to

up in 1998.

Watts is just grateful for the experience to get that close, because it made coming to college level and joining a roster that included stars like Makenna Newkirk and Caitrin Lonergan, both of whom were top 10 in points, much easier.

“I’ve now played with the best players in Canada, so that helped me be not crazy intimidated by these amazing BC players that I’d heard about,” Watts said.

She was most excited about meeting her hero: Marie-Philip Poulin.

“ That’s why Wayne Gretzky, like her, had such talent, it looked like he had no one in front of him.

That’s what Daryl’s talent was right from the get go” - Dusan Kralik live in, it’s one of the best universities in America,” Watts said.

The Olympic connection is crucial, because that is Watts’s end game. She earned a spot on the Canadian U-18 National Team as a 16-year-old, competing for the two-time IIHF silver medalists.

She even earned an invite to the fall festival for Team Canada’s national team where they would decide the roster for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. She quickly learned that the bid was to get her ready for the 2022 Winter Olympics—Canada’s roster was simply too backlogged with talent for the young Watts to find a spot.

Maybe that’s something Team Canada regrets. Because, while Canada stayed pat with its older players, the United States picked apart BC’s defense—seniors Kali Flanagan and Megan Keller, and incoming freshman Cayla Barnes—for its roster. That team was good enough to lift the Americans to a shootout gold medal victory over Canada, the first since the U.S. team Crowley was on won gold in the inaugural match-

The fact that Poulin is Watts’s favorite player shouldn’t be a surprise. She is to Canadian women’s hockey what Mike Eruzione was to that legendary 1980 United States Olympic gold medal-winning team—just two times over. Poulin scored both goals in Canada’s 2-0 victory over the U.S. in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics gold medal game, as well as the game-tying and go-ahead goals against the United States in Canada’s 3-2 gold medal victory at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

The only problem, of course—as I reminded Watts—is that Poulin played her college games down Commonwealth Ave. at Boston University.

“Oh, well. She’s the Sidney Crosby of women’s hockey,” Watts said. “She’s my idol.”

Idolizing a Terrier? Okay, so maybe Watts hasn’t mastered the BC way quite yet off the ice. But as a freshman who’s already the sport’s best college player, it’s hard to argue that she won’t have time to get that part settled on her path to leading BC to a national title. n

KAITLIN MEEKS / PHOTO EDITOR

DILLON

2 | MOMENTUM AWARDS

THE HEIGHTS| MAY 3, 2018

BIG MAN ON CAMPUS Call him a perfectionist, but A.J. Dillon will do whatever it takes to be the very best.

Breakout Male Athlete of the Year

Ben Thomas Asst. Sports Editor

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or fans of Boston College football, the turning point in the season—maybe in all of coach Steve Addazio’s tenure as head coach of the Eagles—came on Oct. 14, 2017. The team was in Louisville, and no one outside of BC’s own locker room gave the underdogs from Chestnut Hill a chance at coming away with a win.

Just a year earlier, Heisman-winner Lamar Jackson ran all over the Eagles to the tune of seven touchdowns, blowing out BC, 52-7, on its own home field. That game though, was without A.J. Dillon.

At that time, the soon to be BC running back, still in high school, was busy nursing a season-ending injury. Three weeks prior, before fracturing his right fibula in the game’s final seconds, Dillon, wearing No. 22 for the Lawrence Academy Spartans, had gone for three touchdowns and 172 rushing yards in a win over St. Sebastian’s.

“Our coaches always tell us freshmen that it’s hard for you to be the man on your team after getting all the accolades in high school,” Dillon said. “Because when you get to college it doesn’t really matter. You start all over again.”

If that’s true, the freshman running back many be the only exception, because that day against St. Sebastian’s was nothing compared to what Dillon was set to unleash against the Cardinals. Exactly 364 days after his final game in a Spartan uniform, down two touchdowns in the second quarter, the Eagles needed to prove they still had a pulse in Louisville. A year ago, they certainly didn’t, but this time around, they had a secret weapon.

“I remember I got a lot of touches early,” Dillon recalled. “On the sideline [running backs coach Brian White] came to

me and said ‘you gotta take over this game, and you’ve gotta just start playing loose.’”

The contest was a turning point in Dillon’s collegiate career. Colton Lichtenberg’s game-winning field goal capped BC’s first win against Louisville since 1994, and what was a career day for the relative-unknown freshman. Dillon went off, besting his high school self with four touchdowns and 272 yards—most notably a beastly 75-yard touchdown run that exploded on social media.

The freshman would go on to receive ACC Rookie of the Year honors, adding eight more touchdowns in the six games left and helping turn a 2-4 start into BC’s first winning regular season in four years.

For this reason alone, he is The Heights’ 2017-18 Breakout Player of the Year.

However, Dillon’s mother, Jessyca Campbell, sees his turning point differently. Although most national fans first heard the name “A.J. DIllon” after the Louisville game, Campbell believes Dillon proved he had what it took two weeks earlier against No. 2 Clemson. Although you wouldn’t be able to tell it from the final scoreboard, a 27-point loss, the Eagles were tied with the Tigers through three quarters. That BC score? Clemson had allowed its first touchdown of the season at home to none other than Dillon.

“For him to get that touchdown against a team like that meant a lot for his confidence,” Campbell said. “Everyone else saw the Louisville game, of course, but I think for him to know he could compete at the college level meant a lot.”

Whether it was in fact that game against Clemson in which Dillon broke out of his comfort zone or not, one thing was certain—the freshman was ready to compete, and opponents were put on notice. hile college scouts throughout his high school career quickly la-

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beled Dillon as “freakishly athletic” and “a bruising downhill runner,” the freshman running back could only describe the start to his year with one word: timid.

The expectation was never that Dillon would put up staggering numbers right off the bat, as junior Jonathan Hilliman was getting most of the carries. Still, it’s telling that the first-year Eagle was able to recognize he wasn’t at the level he wanted to be.

“If you look at the front few games against the last six games, my entire running game is timid where I’m taking an extra split second on decisions,” Dillon explained. “Once I really started to come into my own, I realized that I belong here too and that I’m just as good as those guys across the field.”

Despite running for 120 yards and a touchdown against Central Michigan, he still wasn’t satisfied, putting in extra time whenever and wherever he could.

After four fumbles through the first seven games of the year—only one of which was lost to the other team, he describes walking around the BC campus with a football tucked snuggly in his arm, making sure to get his carrying technique down pat.

His focus on keeping the ball high and tight did the trick. The 240-pounder didn’t lose the ball once throughout the Eagles’ final seven games.

The decision to put in extra time off the field is obviously nothing new for Dillon. His stepfather, Charles, recalls that even throughout high school, Dillon would wake him up asking for a ride to the gym. Jessyca, too, would face those wake-ups, with Dillon needing to go do track workouts.

It wasn’t hard to motivate him either.

Charles Campbell tells a story in which Dillon, then a sophomore, opened up the sports section in a local newspaper, only to find that his name didn’t appear on the

list of “most notable backs to watch in the state”.

“He felt slighted by it because he had a really good sophomore campaign,” Campbell explains. “He put that article up in his locker and printed copies. It was the first thing he saw in the morning and the last thing he saw at night, and by the end of his junior season he was the number one back in Massachusetts. he high expectations Dillon places on himself are arguably unprecedented for any running back that has played for BC. The most successful in recent memory—2013 Heisman-nominee Andre Williams, may have had over 2,000 rushing yards his senior season, but as a freshman he shared the backfield with another Eagle legend in Montel Harris and scored just two touchdowns. Dillon is essentially starting his legacy where Williams left off, and currently boasts a pace that would shatter the current program record for career rushing yards.

Unlike his predecessor, though, Dillon is all alone now and will shoulder a larger load—Hilliman recognized the talent and made the obvious decision to transfer to Rutgers next fall. Still, the upperclassman’s departure means the loss of a mentor, something Dillon highlighted as extremely valuable to him as he made his transition to the collegiate level.

“He was the most seasoned back on our roster and he just kinda took me under his wing. It was the little things too,” Dillon said. “Like how to deal with situations if the coach is yelling at you or if you make a bad play—how to shake it off and get better acclimated.”

It’s safe to say that Hilliman did his part, guiding Dillon to the highest season rushing total of any underclassman Eagle ever and setting him up to be the face of the program for years to come. He refers

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to it as “the Boston College brand,” knowing that when it comes to the nation-wide image of Division I schools, one of the first things that catches the eye of a prospective student is the culture surrounding athletics.

“Somebody from Montana may have no idea what Boston College is, but if me or Lukas Denis or Chris Lindsom happens to pop up on ESPN, and they say ‘Oh. What’s this?’ it shines a light on everyone else here,” Dillon says. “It feels great being able to represent Boston College in that way.”

More so than the national spotlight, though, is the importance Dillon has assigned to both family and friendship throughout his journey, especially with his 6-year-old sister, Olivia, who he FaceTimes with at least every other day.

“It’s amazing in the midst of everything,” Jessyca said, “he’ll still have a 20-minute conversation with her about her day” Dillon is this year’s champion for breakout player of the year, but to Olivia he still goes by the same name: Bubby.

“It means ‘brother’ in our own secret language,” Olivia said. here’s no telling what Dillon and the Eagles will be able accomplish next fall.

Those close to him describes Dillon as a “goal-oriented perfectionist,” and they’re not wrong. Dillon recently posted a screenshot from his phone on Twitter in which he outlines his target milestones going into next season. Top on the list?

An ACC Championship.

Even as Dillon’s goals change from the desire to be featured in a local newspaper to being crowned king of one of the most prolific conferences in all of college football, he’s still that same kid from New London, Conn., bulldozing over defenders for Lawrence Academy. n

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ARSENAULT TRADING PLACES

In her first two years at BC, Dempsey Arsenault was a star defender.

Now, she helps pace the offense.

Breakout Female Athlete of the Year

Jack Goldman Copy Editor

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ith a minute left in a tie game against Syracuse in the final game of the regular season, Dempsey Arsenault found herself with a free-position chance and Boston College lacrosse’s undefeated regular season on the line, looking for the lead. The team’s leader in free-position goals, Arsenault seemed like the perfect candidate to hand the Eagles the lead.

She wound up, firing a near-perfect shot toward the corner. Syracuse goaltender Asa Goldstock didn’t have a chance.

Yet, somehow, the ball just slammed against the crossbar—and it slammed against it. The net shook, as if it was stunned the ball hadn’t found twine, but the white orb just bounced away harmlessly.

This is not a story about that shot.

It’s about what came after—an impressive season that warranted The Height’s Breakout Female Athlete of the Year award. o help frame how remarkable Arsenault’s 2018 season has been, let’s return to the free-position goal tally: 16 on the year.

Relatively impressive on its own, but in the context of the lacrosse player she’d previously been for the Eagles, it’s shocking.

In all of 2017, Arsenault scored 15 goals. In 2018, she has more than that from a single specific game situation.

The junior from New Hampton, N.H. has been one prong of the offensive trident that has fueled BC’s program-defining season. She, Sam Apuzzo, and Kaileen Hart have combined for 259 points.

Apuzzo and Hart were both expected to put up excellent numbers, but Arsenault had just 23 total points a year ago. This

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season she has 81 and the NCAA tournament hasn’t even begun yet. So—what changed?

“Last year, I started all through the fall as a midfielder, and after the [first] Maryland game [my coaches] were like ‘We need you more on the defensive end,” she said, switching back with ease. “But this year, [head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein] said ‘We’re really going to need you to play midfield.’”

Both Arsenault and Walker-Weinstein cited a preseason meeting as the critical point when she completely realized how drastically her role was about to change.

“We need you to step up and actually go for it,” Arsenault recalls her coach saying. “Cause [not scoring] is kind of like being selfish,’” Arsenault said. n the past, Arsenault had thrived on making the right pass and serving as a ground ball hawk on the defensive end. Her point totals failed to convey how important to the the team she was: Instead of taking shots, Arsenault was piling up ground balls and draw controls that led to offense.

At the coaches meeting, assistant coach Jennifer Kent framed the situation as such: Her daughter, Kenzie Kent, had to learn that scoring was what was best for the team, even if it meant she needed to concentrate on scoring rather than just focusing on creating for her teammates.

This was eye-opening for Arsenault.

“As [Kent’s] teammate, it kind of opened my eyes,” she said. “I don’t ever see her as being selfish. So this year was a switch, where I needed stop thinking of it as [selfishness], and just like as doing what is best for the team.”

Walker-Weinstein sees it the same way. When both parties shared their visions for what the season would be, how the coaches felt really surprised Arsenault.

“We shared each others’ visions,”

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Walker-Weinstein said. “They didn’t quite match up just because she’s so humble, but we told her that she is one of the best players in the country alongside her best friend [Apuzzo], and she looked at us like we were crazy.”

Assistant Coach Kayla Treanor played a key role, urging Arsenault to switch her mentality when it came to shooting the ball.

“Kayla came up to me and was like, ‘We need you to take a lot more shots,’ ‘cause I never really wanted to be that person who scored all the goals, so every time I could I would always try to get the assist or pass it,” Arsenault said. “So she kind of said ‘You need to switch your mentality, we need you to step up,’ and I trusted her, and she believed in me.”

It turns out, Arsenault didn’t compromise on her more selfless vision, either, as she’s evolved into a two-way monster.

Despite the shift to a more offensive role, she’s still scooped up 51 ground balls to lead the team and won 86 draw controls— Apuzzo is the only Eagle with more. This season has completely unlocked every aspect of Arsenault’s game. rsenault—a three-sport star in high school—has always been athletic, but she tore her ACL at the end of her junior lacrosse season. Instead of allowing it to serve as a setback, she dedicated all her time to playing wall ball every day to improve her stick skills and refine her abilities even though she was sidelined. Kent and Treanor had to work with Arsenault to push her to another athletic level in preparation of moving to the midfield, but in a sense this was the culmination of the junior’s recovery from her injury.

The results of her hard work over the offseason speak for themselves. Arsenault kicked off the season with a hat trick against Notre Dame and has since had 12 games with at least three goals, notching

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at least five points in 10 games. On the defensive side, she’s had countless games with at least four ground balls or at least four draw control wins.

Arsenault ultimately identifies herself as a grinder from her previous roles—that of ice hockey and field hockey stardom in high school—which helps explains how prolific a passer and ground ball player she is. In the end, though, she credits Walker-Weinstein with always pushing her to reach her potential on both ends of the field.

The other two prongs of the trident have play a big role in her success as well. “[Sam and Kaileen] are both so good, and so smart, so they’ve just taught me so much,” Arsenault said. “They’ll be like ‘You need to go to goal.’ They’re just really good at firing me up and just telling me— kind of what to do so that it’s really easy to play with them. They’re both so unselfish and so awesome, so it’s really fun to play with them.” he ultimate fuel for Arsenault’s breakout, though, is the trophy she can see on the horizon.

“My single goal is to win a national championship,” she said. “We got there last year, but we obviously didn’t win.

Getting that close and tasting it—I was like we need to get back there.”

Walker-Weinstein understands better than anyone just how much is asked of Arsenault on both ends of the field.

“She was so successful [on defense], and then we had to push her into midfield and then we had to push her into goalscoring,” Walker-Weinstein said. “I think those two years on defense really cemented her confidence, which I think is what has allowed her to be the player she is now.

“She’s exactly the player we thought she should be, and she’s an honor to coach.”

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iven all of Arsenault’s success in 2018, the free-position miss against Syracuse was shocking. Unsurprisingly, her mentality is the reason she rebounded so quickly.

After coming so close to sealing an undefeated season, Arsenault didn’t let the crossbar prevent her from taking her moment of glory. After an exchange of timeouts down the stretch, a mistake by Goldstock finally gave the ball back to BC with 21 seconds left. A timeout from Walker-Weinstein left Arsenault double-teamed against the sideline at midfield needing to get the ball to the goalmouth as quickly as possible if the Eagles were going to avoid overtime.

So, as the ref prepared to begin play, Arsenault began to cradle the ball as if she was going to pass it back to her defenders. When the whistle blew, she faked the pass, and both Orange defenders completely bit on it.

Arsenault was gone in a flash, streaking toward goal. She didn’t score—she didn’t even end up with the assist on Apuzzo’s game-winner. After two years of grinding on the defensive end, chasing ground balls and draw control wins, the biggest success of her career wasn’t the goal or even the assist—if it had been it almost would’ve been disappointing. Few players are willing to commit themselves so completely to their role, no matter what—never mind being so committed regardless of how much glory they receive for their work.

Arsenault has played every position on the lacrosse field except attack—she’s embraced being a defender, embraced being a defensive midfielder, and, once it became clear her teammates needed her, one of the Eagles’ most potent weapons.

Even as a vital part of one of the most prolific offensive teams in the country, it’s the little moments that have defined her career and her breakout 2018 season. n

WALKER-

MOMENTUM AWARDS | 3

MAY 3, 2018 | THE HEIGHTS

WEINSTEIN LEAPS AND BOUNDS Coach of the Year

When Acacia Walker-Weinstein first arrived at BC, she talked about winning a national championship. Now, six years later, it’s a nationwide expectation.

Bradley Smart Assoc. Sports Editor

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fter last year’s heart-wrenching loss to Maryland in the National Championship, a narrow 16-13 setback, Boston College lacrosse coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein sat at the podium alongside Zoe Ochoa and Kenzie Kent with tears welling in her eyes but a proud smile on her face. For some coaches, making it to the national championship game might be a oncein-a-career thing. Each year, new teams emerge, paths wind and are complicated, players get hurt, and a window can close. For Walker-Weinstein, it was just another step in her path to bringing a title to Chestnut Hill.

So, as she looked out at the assembled reporters, she didn’t speak of disappointment, instead speaking about how the senior class had “changed everything.” She spoke about how the culture had developed, how the players she had were now battle-tested, and, in emphatic fashion, that she was “looking forward to the future.”

What the future has brought, simply, is the next step in her years-long plan to bring BC’s program into the elite tier of college lacrosse teams.

Walker-Weinstein has managed this through a unique coaching style, one of embracing an underdog mentality, even when her team is no longer regarded as one in the country’s eye.

There’s a special sort of power that an underdog brandishes, whether in sports, politics, or assorted contests.

What ends up happening, almost inevitably, is that the favorite’s strengths are exaggerated, while the underdog’s are underestimated.

Walker-Weinstein’s teams are fully tapping into this power, exploiting it to drive a program that has spent the last five years steadily climbing toward the pantheon of the sport. It’s for that reason, as her team prepares for the NCAA Tournament with a near-perfect 19-1 record, that Walker-Weinstein is the deserving recipient with The Heights’s 2017-18 Coach of the Year Award. fter two years as an associate head coach, Walker-Weinstein was handed the keys. With Bowan Holden at the helm, BC tied the season wins record and booked its first-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament, but regressed soon after, prompting a coaching change—hence Walker-Weinstein’s promotion.

Walker-Weinstein was the youngest coach in the ACC, hadn’t been a head coach before, and was better known for her illustrious playing career than her fledgling coaching career. Describing herself as “in over her head,” Walker-Weinstein still was able to produce a vision of a program climbing to great heights, overcoming the underwhelming expectations surrounding it.

The team quickly bought in, helping to make her debut coaching season a tremendous success, tying the wins record (12) and returning to the NCAA Tournament.

“All I knew was to try and get the girls to understand what my vision was—to win a national championship and become a powerhouse,” she said, reflecting on that first year. “I was lucky enough that the kids got on board immediately, and that started everything.

I really just took it from there.”

Walker-Weinstein was lucky enough to inherit two exceptionally talented players in Covie Stanwick and Mikaela Rix, but the growth of the program from there rested solely on her shoulders—and grow it did. hen Kate Weeks, BC ‘17, talks about her former head coach, you immediately sense the love and joy she experienced during her fouryear collegiate career. You also sense the respect and admiration she has for Walker-Weinstein, gushing about her time at the program, starting from the beginning.

When Weeks was in the recruiting process, her sister was attending BC, so she initially looked elsewhere, including national powerhouses like Duke and North Carolina. The Eagles were ranked 10th in the country, but were still very much a team on the rise.

Weeks visited BC last.

Walker-Weinstein and her staff immediately hooked her, as Weeks identified a drive within them that she hadn’t found elsewhere.

“In my heart, based on the coaching staff, I felt that they were the ones that with everything in them wanted to win a national championship,” she said.

“More than anywhere else I visited— it was just something in my gut and I went with it.”

Four years later, Weeks was wrapping up an prolific career. The 5-foot9 attacker finished with 132 goals and 36 assists, comfortably joining the 100-point club, and was a part of the first BC team in program history to not only reach the Final Four, but to make a championship appearance.

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None of it would’ve been possible without her passionate and caring head coach, though, as Weeks remembered the steady improvement she made under her guidance. Her first two years on the Heights? Just 17 total points in 32 games, a number that reflects how she hadn’t been able to really find her footing in the college ranks. That’s where Walker-Weinstein’s coaching style came in, she says.

“Acacia has a way of being a really, really tough coach, but then always putting your personal health and happiness above it all,” Weeks said. “She does both perfectly so you’re a successful athlete, and I don’t think people realize how hard that is.”

It worked wonders for Weeks, who described a moment when she found herself slipping into a slump. The then-rising junior felt off and couldn’t shake it, worried about how the upcoming season would go. Walker-Weinstein took her aside and said something that has stuck with her to this day.

“Kate, outside of the field you’re this confident, loud, crazy person, and if you don’t play like that with your personality, you will not play your best lacrosse.”

That flipped a switch. Weeks went off for 43 goals in her junior year and only furthered that in her senior year, piling up 76 in the 2017 campaign alone, a remarkable rate of improvement that reflected the ability of Walker-Weinstein to get the best out of her players. arah Mannelly, BC ‘17, was a freshman when her new coach came in, but had played under her in the Eagles’ winter camp, and as an under-recruited high schooler, felt incredibly grateful when Walker-Weinstein took a chance on her. Her new coach quickly wore off on her.

“When you have someone like that as your leader, it is infectious and as a player you want to match her level of intensity and passion all of the time,” Mannelly said. “She genuinely cares so much for each individual and wants everyone to be successful both on and off of the field.”

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Like it had for Weeks, her coach’s impact brought out Mannelly’s best, propelling her into the record books.

Mannelly scored early and often in her career on the Heights, piling up 173 goals and over 250 career points.

Being part of Walker-Weinstein’s first year, Mannelly was in on the ground floor, and had a front row seat

Weeks.

“Acacia, in my opinion, is hands down the best coach in the country,” she said. “Past Cathy Reese with her four national championships. Past that.”

Walker-Weinstein has steadily built up a program that deserves plenty of attention on the Chestnut Hill and

Acacia, in my opinion, is hands down the best coach in the country. Past Cathy Reese with her four national championships. Past that.”

- Kate Weeks, BC’ 17 to watch the program grow. By her senior year, the Eagles were consistently winning games, impressing with season-defining moments, like the team’s first win over Duke. And she’s continued to watch the team develop over the past two years—a hobby that brings her plenty of satisfaction.

“Now, as alumni, it is just as exciting to watch Acacia and the team continue to create program first moments and achieve everything she has always imagined for the program,” she said.

“Her core values have played such an important role in the team’s success and it’s something that goes beyond the game of lacrosse.

“Both on and off the field she is always going out of her way to help take the program to the next level.” eeks and Mannelly are just two such examples of players that Walker-Weinstein has helped to mold into successful collegiate athletes, both who saw themselves grow as people too. Walker-Weinstein credits the BC atmosphere for enabling her to recruit, but her underdog mentality of modesty is an equally powerful force attracting talented student-athletes—just ask

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Newton campuses, one of remarkable consistency and an attitude of always needing to be better. It’s not often you see a team win 17 games in a row in the regular season and still feel like the underdog, but that’s how the Eagles play.

She might not think her team is an underdog anymore, but her coaching style reinforces core concepts like never taking a minute for granted, breeding an attitude of us vs. them, of an upstart program hellbent on disrupting the entrenched hierarchy atop the college lacrosse world. When BC took on Maryland in last season’s national championship and lost, Walker-Weinstein said in the postgame press conference that it was “like slaying a dragon.”

Now, after five years on the Heights, Walker-Weinstein appears to have created a dragon of her own—one poised to have an impact for years to come.

Just look at next year’s recruiting class, which will be one of BC’s best ever, adding several of the countries top talents, to see just how far the Eagles have come under her watch.

“I want to be coaching in an environment where the girls are happy, hard-working, and honest, good people,” she said. “That’s the culture we’re trying to create, and I think we’ve done a really good job with that.” n

ROBINSON 4 | MOMENTUM AWARDS

THE HEIGHTS | MAY 3, 2018

THE PIONEER Male Athlete of the Year

Jerome Robinson lost a total of 34 ACC games as an underclassman—rather than transferring, he stayed put. He wanted to be the one to turn the program around.

Andy Backstrom Sports Editor

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oston College men’s basketball combo guard Jerome Robinson was in the middle of another pre-draft workout. Practicing in Thousand Oaks, Calif. at the ProActive Sports Performance Center, alongside a bevy of NBA prospects, the junior turned to a few North Carolina guys. The now former Tar Heels gave Robinson a hard time, and reasonably so. After all, UNC handed the Eagles an embarrassing 30-point loss in Chapel Hill this past January, one in which Robinson mustered a “mere” 15 points.

But before Robinson could even clap back, Grayson Allen walked into the gym and dropped a one-liner that rang true with the Raleigh, N.C. native.

“Oh, but y’all beat us though,” the Duke guard said.

The statement was all of seven words and lasted no more than three seconds of the eight-hour session, but spoke to the ever-changing perception of BC basketball.

Two years removed from their infamous 0-18 ACC season, the Eagles recorded seven conference victories, en route to their first postseason appearance since 201011. For the first time in five-plus years, the program garnered respect.

Throughout the best season of his career, Robinson, The Heights’ 2017-18 Male Athlete of the Year, discovered a newfound confidence—not only in his game, but also in his school. The program is no longer rebuilding—it’s competing with the best teams in the nation. For Robinson, who won just two ACC games as an underclassmen, the transformation is satisfying to say the least.

“It’s a good feeling to have that BC pride, and now I have something to talk about,” he said. “There is no hiding behind BC now. It’s all out in the open.” *** That was hardly the case a few years ago. In fact, Robinson didn’t even want to wear BC basketball gear around, especially back home.

“For Jerome, where he is from in Raleigh, people seeing him [wearing] Boston College [apparel], are like, why you got that on,” teammate and fellow North Carolinian Ky Bowman said, recalling Robinson’s underclassmen years.

Robinson was doomed from the start.

Coming out of the heart of Tobacco Road, the 6-foot-5 guard was overlooked by the state’s biggest basketball programs—Duke, UNC, North Carolina State, and Wake Forest. Regardless of where he went to school, he was going to hear from his peers in Raleigh. The fact that he ended up at BC made the return trip all the worse.

Some of Robinson’s friends and family members questioned why he was still in Chestnut Hill. Others simply belittled the program, throwing out insults like “You guys blow” and “You guys suck” without considering what Robinson was trying to accomplish.

“He had enough negativity [surrounding him] that I was waiting for him to ask me to transfer,” Robinson’s father, Jerome Sr., said.

He wouldn’t be the first.

Following BC’s 2015-16 season, four players—Sammy Barnes-Thompkins, Matt Milon, Idy Diallo, and Darryl Hicks—including three in his own class, transferred away from the program, leaving head coach Jim Christian and assistant coach Scott Spinelli with

a gaping hole in the roster. To make matters worse, Robinson had to sit out a half the ACC slate, suffering a wrist injury and contracting norovirus during a team trip to Chipotle. But he never thought about leaving the program.

“I knew when I was coming to BC, they weren’t on the right track at the time, and we weren’t even on the right track freshman year but I still wanted to be a pioneer,” he said.

All along, Robinson knew that he had a fallback. As a student in the Carroll School of Management, the alumni network and post-grad opportunities were well within in reach. Jerome Sr. thinks that having that kind of balance helped his son weather two-straight seasons of losing. On the court, though, Robinson had something to prove. He was tired of being made fun of— so much so that there a came a point where he just started using the scorn as fuel, as motivation.

“It was just something that drove me every day,” he said. “I got tired of it.”

Robinson went to work, gearing up for a summer full of training, with nowhere to go but up. Rather than getting caught in the swirl of the media, he took to the court.

Somehow, some way, he had a feeling that everything was going to come together— he just didn’t know when.

“It’s important to have people with vision,” Christian said. “You have to see what is going on, behind the big picture of it, not just what is happening in one term, both individually and collectively.” nfortunately for Christian and his staff, those kinds of players are at a premium in today’s college basketball climate. Last month, Pittsburgh—the most recent ACC team to finish the season without a conference win—watched eight players request transfers, following the firing of second-year head coach Kevin Stallings.

Losing half the roster to the transfer market and graduation, the Eagles had to completely restructure their team. Even Robinson was a bit skeptical.

“I had no clue how we were going to rebuild a team when we had five players left at 6 a.m. lifts,” he said.

For a team picked last in the ACC preseason poll, BC did remarkably well in the transfer market, pulling in guys like Jordan Chatman (BYU), Mo Jeffers (Delaware), and Connar Tava (Western Michigan).

Christian and Spinelli had to sell hope more than anything—and Robinson was a big part of their pitch. As convincing as it was for some of the old guys, it was arguably more effective for players like Bowman.

“I mean it was the most important thing for me, even to make my decision to come to Boston College, just having a player on my team that I knew came from the same background, that I knew was going to help me succeed,” Bowman said.

As soon as the eventual All-ACC

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Freshman got to campus, Robinson took him under his wing. At first, it almost looked as if the college game was too fast for Bowman. But when the team made the trip to Madison Square Garden to play Auburn in the Under Armour Reunion Game, the fiery guard came into his own—fittingly, so did the whole team.

Nik Popovic tipped in the game-winner at the buzzer, securing BC’s first win over a Power Five opponent in 643 days. Robinson recognized that everything was finally paying off.

“It’s a new beginning for us, and that’s what we were telling everybody in the huddle,” he said in a Fox Sports postgame interview. “It’s going to be a whole different team.”

Less than a month later, Robinson and Bowman teamed up to take down Syracuse—the reigning Midwest Regional champions—snapping the program’s 666day ACC losing streak. Although BC went on to lose its final 15 games of the season, the guards established themselves as one of the best backcourts in the conference.

Robinson wasn’t stopping there, though. ight after finals, he flew out to Santa Monica, Calif. Robinson spent seven weeks at Integrity Hoops—an offseason personal development program for college and pro players. Six days a week, he logged countless hours in the gym, working on both his body and his game. Perhaps best of all, he got to go up against prospective and current NBA players like Emmanuel Mudiay and Bismack Biyombo, not to mention the valuable conversations he had with the reigning league MVP, Russell Westbrook.

Bowman joined his partner in crime for the last two weeks of the session, getting his own taste of the Association and further refining what was a lethal one-two punch. It was clear that Robinson was upping the ante on the practice court, to the point where he was outplaying everyone else on the floor. His father says that there were days when his son performed so well that he started getting phone calls from people in California.

In Christian’s eyes, the trip out West shaped Robinson internally more so than it did physically. The results were a byproduct of how he rewired himself up top.

“You can’t get that much better at basketball in two months, but your mentality can change, and I think that is really what happened,” he said.

But, come fall, Robinson didn’t hit the ground running. Actually, he did the opposite. Unlike his sophomore year, the premier scorer averaged just 10.25 points per game over the course of the first four games of the season. Robinson hit rock bottom against Sacred Heart, shooting a putrid 1-of-14 from the field. Jerome Sr. didn’t even call his son after the game like he normally does—Robinson took the initiative and promised his father that he

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wasn’t going to have a game like that again.

Despite some frustration, he realized that a rolled ankle and the return to a college-sized court factored into his slow start. Soon enough, all of the work he did over the summer started to pay off. It just so happened that Robinson flipped the switch when his team needed him most, doing his best to make up for the loss of Teddy Hawkins, who went down with a season-ending knee injury at Nebraska in the Big Ten/ACC challenge.

Three days later, the All-ACC First Teamer strung together the first of threestraight 20-point games in a victory over Hartford. But what he did the next week was all the more significant. Pulling off one of the biggest upsets in program history, Robinson drilled back-to-back 3-pointers in the waning minutes of the Eagles’ ACC opener against Duke—the undefeated No. 1 team in the nation, at the time—catapulting BC into a two-point lead—one that it’d never relinquish.

The first triple drew the Eagles within one. The second nearly caused Conte Forum to erupt. Dancing around the top of the key, Bowman toyed with Trevon Duval before driving toward the free throw line and ultimately swinging the ball to Robinson behind the 3-point line. From way downtown, the team’s leading scorer drained the NBA-range shot over none other than Grayson Allen himself.

“I knew Ky would be throwing me the ball at that time, I knew it would be there, and I knew I was going to be shooting it, and I knew it was going to go in,” Robinson said. “And to see all that come together right there was amazing.”

As soon as the ball fell through the net, there was a sense that BC was actually going to do it—the Eagles, once the laughing stock of the league, were going to beat Duke. Right then and there, the program took the next step toward greatness, and so did Robinson.

“When he hit that shot, in my mind, I said that he has arrived,” Jerome Sr. said. obinson had shown flashes of greatness in his first two years on the Heights. Consistency, on the other hand, was hard to come by.

After watching his numbers dip against ACC opponents as a sophomore, Robinson made a point of playing his best each and every night. Besides, that was the only way he’d ever reach the NBA. Week-by-week, he impressed, topping the 20-point mark 14 times in conference play. As far as ACC-only stats are concerned, Robinson was the cream of the crop: The junior led the conference with 24.3 points per game—3.1 more than future lottery pick Marvin Bagley III—on 55.1 percent shooting, including a 44.5-percent clip from beyond the arc.

Arguably even more impressive, Robinson converted 83 percent of his free throw attempts, an 18.7 percent increase from his freshman year mark.

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The junior was turning heads. That said, it wasn’t until he traveled to South Bend, Ind. that he saw his name pop up on a few NBA Big Boards. Robinson was dialed in from the moment he stepped in the Edmund P. Joyce Center. Effortlessly, he knocked down an array of shots in the first half. When he walked to the locker room at intermission, he looked up at the scoreboard and saw that he already had 18 points—he thought to himself, “that’s kind of high.”

Not compared to the numbers he’d put up in the back half of play. Robinson exploded for 28 second-half points, scoring from everywhere on the floor. When he realized that he had already eclipsed the 30-point barrier with a significant portion of the game remaining, he heard graduate assistant Stevie Taylor chirp something from the bench.

“Stevie said go get 40, and I said, no, 50!

I am about to get 50!”

Robinson didn’t quite hit the 50-spot, but his 46 points were pretty darn close— the third-most by a player in a losing effort since 2010-11. BC lost the game, but the effects were immediate. The next game—a home matchup against No. 25 Miami— Danny Ainge, general manager and president of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics, made the trek to Chestnut Hill to watch a handful of prospects—Robinson presumably included.

As the combo guard continued to climb the ranks, his team earned a reputation as one of the toughest outs in the ACC. When Robinson, Bowman, and Chatman were on their game, BC had the firepower to contend with just about anyone. That alone was enough to draw flocks of students to games. Conte Forum—an arena that was a ghost town for much of last year—was rejuvenated.

Picking up seven wins in the ACC and locking up the program’s first winning season in seven years in the process, BC was finally back on the bubble. Ultimately, the Eagles fell short of the NCAA Tournament, in spite of a three-game conference tournament run—one in which Robinson bounced his hometown team, N.C. State, with another game-winning shot, securing back-to-back ACC Tournament wins for the first time since 2005-06 and quite possibly playing his way into the first round of the 2018 NBA Draft.

Still, BC’s return to the NIT was monumental in itself. Robinson may not have reached the dance, but he accomplished what he set out to do when he first came to BC: leave the program in better shape than he found it.

“To be a part of team that went from nothing to something, it’s awesome,” Robinson said.

The junior endured two-consecutive years of infamy and shame while several of his teammates jumped ship. He served as the foundation of a multi-year rebuild that has revitalized the Eagles’ program.

Robinson—BC’s fifth-ever AP All-American—was the pioneer that he set out to be three years ago.

“I don’t know anyone who has paid the price and done as much for our program,” Christian said.

UNC draft prospects can poke as much fun as they want—after all, they have a national championship under their belts. But Robinson has something on them, too: the reputation as the player who saved a program that had people questioning whether or not BC should

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Malone’s ‘Beerbongs’ Pushes Traditional Boundaries

BY MAXIMILIAN PAPILE For The Heights Post Malone released his muchanticipated sophomore album, titled Beerbongs and Bentleys, on Friday after previewing it with three singles, “Candy Paint,” “Rockstar,” and “Psycho,” each of which garnered tremendous success on the Billboard charts. The 18-track album runs for slightly over an hour, and incorporates features from Swae Lee, 21 Savage, Ty Dolla $ign, and Nicki Minaj.

After his incredible rise to mainstream stardom, catalyzed first by the release of “White Iverson” and then his multi-platinum album Stoney, Malone’s

sophomore effort presented him with an opportunity to push himself into a completely new understanding in the music scene. Prior to the release of Beerbongs and Bentleys, Malone had found himself in a weird space of stardom. He had acquired a large base of passionate fans, but was mainly known to the mainstream public through a few smash hits and his unique physical appearance.

Further, he was often categorized as a rapper, but Malone rejected this notion, saying he would prefer to be stripped of labels and simply be referred to as an artist. This comment initially garnered criticism, notably from pop culture magazine Complex, but Malone

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BEERBONGS AND BENTLEYS POST MALONE PRODUCED BY REPUBLIC RECORDS RELEASE APR. 27, 2018 OUR RATING

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is right in his claims. He has released music that has crossed into the realms of folk, alternative rock, and hard rock in addition to his more traditional, hip-hop inspired songs.

This is Malone’s true strength. Despite his mainstream characterization as simply a rapper, Malone is a far more dynamic and variable artist than is widely known. I deeply implore any who is reading this to listen to any of his covers of Nirvana, Greenday, or Bob Dylan. He is able to handle a guitar, and has a voice that really differentiates him greatly from pretty much anyone else in music, especially the mainstream. He has crafted himself, through both his music and physical appearance, as the ultimate sense of individuality and selfacceptance.

Malone’s sophomore album, thus, presented him with a unique opportunity to embrace the variety he is capable of in his music. He could have captivated his devoted fans and swaths of new ones with his stylistic variations and uniqueness.

Unfortunately, Beerbongs and Bentleys does not fully live up to the amazing potential that Malone is truly capable of. That is not to say that the album is not great, it is. It is a fun, enjoyable, and highly repeatable album that demonstrates much of Malone’s ability as an artist. Beerbongs and Bentleys shows a

much more vocal Malone than “Stoney” did, as it is full of demonstration after demonstration of Malone’s range and highly melodic style.

The problem for Beerbongs and Bentleys lies in its repetitive nature.

Many of the songs on this record were clearly created strictly for gaining a high volume of streams and perhaps radio play. Tracks like “Spoil My Night,” “Zack and Codeine,” “Ball for Me,” and “92 Explorer” are all songs that feature a trap instrumental, high amounts of funny pop culture references, and are highly forgettable. These songs are clearly the product of label influence, something which is potentially disastrous for the ultimate impact and creativity of an artist as dynamic as he is. Regardless, these songs will achieve their objective, however, as they will still garner an enormous number of streams and catalyze many new listeners.

The true highlights of Beerbongs and Bentleys comes on songs like “Paranoid,” “Rich and Sad,” “Over Now,” “Otherside,” and “Stay.” Each of these songs shows the more authentic and less mainstream side of Malone that defines who he is as an artist. They demonstrate his wide musical tastes and his integration of multiple eras of sound into each song, resulting in a refreshing sound that truly pushes traditional industry boundaries. 

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Continues Despotic Narrative

BY KAYLIE RAMIREZ Assoc. Arts Editor The Emmy Award winning first season of The Handmaid’s Tale left viewers wondering if a second season was feasible and perhaps even desirable. While viewers may have wanted to see June (Elizabeth Moss) break out of the show’s dystopian theocracy United States, the book ended where the first season did: with June being whisked away from the home of her commander by a black van as punishment for inciting an act of defiance among the handmaids.

Season two of the hit show picks up where the cliffhanger left off : June stares emotionlessly into the camera in the back of the van’s steel trunk, numb to the ruin the theocratic higher ups have inflicted upon her once normal life. Throughout the first two episodes viewers get a closer look into June’s pre-Gilead life. Flashbacks depict June as a mom, picking up her daughter from the hospital when she is sick and shielding the young girl from the terror on the news. Flashbacks additionally detail the nation’s descent into disorder: As June is cuddling her sick daughter, the two can hear the TV through the open door as newscasters detail an attack at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Memories serve as June’s escape during the second season, and often come when she is faced with violent threats or coercion. June remembers when she and her husband (O.T. Fagbenle) were deciding to try for a second child, warm light from the kitchen window pouring in on the loving couple. June is ripped out of her momentary recollection

and thrust back into her despotic reality: She holds a rock in front of her in the pouring rain, arm shaking from the cold water and muscle ache.

Audiences also get a look into the past life of Emily (Alexis Bledel), the handmaid who was removed from her commander’s house in the first season for taking part in the information sharing network of handmaids. The second episode shows Emily, formerly known as Ofglen, giving a biology lecture about bacteria to university students dispersed throughout the lecture hall. The flashback scene hints at how homosexuality began to be attacked in the age of Gilead: The professor loses teaching privileges due to the screensaver of her partner and child.

The following scene shows Emily in the colonies—the wasteland where women who cannot conceive labor to clean up the destroyed planet. She puts her biology background to use in the colonies as an undercover doctor who distributes pills and bandages to the sick laborers.

The second season departs from the first season’s implied violence in favor of gory, stomach-turning scenes. Rather than showing the hysteric aftermath of mutilations, the first episode gives a clear view of the burning of a rebellious handmaid’s hand.

An especially bloody scene during the first episode shows June cutting the tracker chip out of her ear with a pair of scissors as blood runs down her neck and white shirt.

The Handmaid’s Tale crafts stunning scenes with beautiful cinematography. During the first moments of the first episode, June stares up at the rope of the noose

around her neck on a stage in the outfield of Boston’s iconic Fenway Park. Her watery blue eyes pierce the screen as the bright light from the baseball field pours in around her face.

Season two also takes greater measures to place the show in the context of Boston.

Aside from the scene in Fenway, June takes cover from government officials in the headquarters of The Boston Globe while on the run.

The first two episodes answer many of the first season’s questions. Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) reveals June is pregnant, but the father of her child remains ambiguous.

June began engaging in a sexual relationship with Nick (Max Minghella) toward the end of the first season. He returns in the second season as June’s liberator, using his power

as an eye to fly under the radar and help her escape Gilead. The two reconnect in passionate scenes, underscoring the depth of their connection.

In the final moments of the second episode, Jeanine (Madeline Brewer) makes a reappearance. The one-eyed handmaid is brought to the colonies on a yellow school bus and is greeted by a relieved Emily. The last scene finds June praying in front of a memorial she made in memory of the country that once was.

While there is clearly room for expansion on the plot of the book and first season of The Handmaid’s Tale, the first two episodes leave viewers wondering if the narrative of the present is doomed to be continually fractured by disruptive memories of the past. 

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THE HANDMAID’S TALE REED MORANO DISTRIBUTED BY HULU RELEASE APRIL 25, 2018 OUR RATING

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‘Graffiti U’ Highlights More Easy Hits for Urban

BY EMILY HIMES Asst. Arts Editor

Keith Urban’s latest release, Graffiti U, features a mix of new styles and sounds consistent with his previous music. The album is long—it contains 15 songs, lasting a total of 52 minutes—giving it room to experiment with a variety of different stylistic approaches. Some songs sound strange, others are absolutely fantastic, others are slow but contain engaging lyrics. If there is one characteristic common throughout Graffiti U, it’s the blatant display of Urban’s sheer talent on the guitar, which is prevalent in most of the songs.

The album starts off on an unexpected note. On “Coming Home (feat. Julia Michaels),” the guitar intro sounds uncanny

and awkward. This might be the first time that Urban’s guitar skills actually made a song sound worse. The good news? This is just the first track on the record, and it’s all uphill from here. “Never Comin Down,” the second song on the album, features a solid rhythm and interesting vocal effects.

Urban is so famous for his guitar playing that people often forget that he is a skilled vocalist as well—this song, as well as the entire album, serve as a reminder that his voice plays a major role in the quality of his music. Another song written with summertime in mind is “My Wave (feat.

Shy Carter).” The song is packed with stripped-down guitar licks and laid-back, relaxing lyrics to make for a tropical sound. Although Carter’s rap at the end of the song seems random, it does mix well

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with the track’s overall sensation.

Following “My Wave” comes “Parallel Line,” which is easily the pinnacle of the album. With Ed Sheeran as one of the co-writers, the ballad features lyrics that progress and flow in an organic manner and are strikingly honest in the best way possible. “Parallel Line” has the perfect amount of simplistic electric guitar to complement the well-written lyrics. The only issue with this song is in the title—you can’t have just one parallel line—but if you can get past this comedic minute detail, you might agree that it’s one of the best country songs released this year. Another standout on the album is “Gemini,” a mysteriously groovy song featuring clever lyrics and a pop-sounding beat. To close out the song, Urban breaks into what might be the best guitar solo of the album—it’s catchy, smooth, and complements the rest of the song completely.

Although many of the tracks on the record would more easily be categorized as pop than country, “Texas Time” is an exception. The song is a solid country song in every aspect: It has a steady rhythm, simple chord progression, and feel-good lyrics praising the South’s best attributes.

Lyrics such as “135, Dallas down to Austin / We can fine a world we can get lost in” are found throughout the song, exalting the Lone Star State and all that can be found there.

“Love the Way It Hurts (So Good)”

sounds the most like Urban’s previous music. It’s catchy and reminiscent of past summer memories. The last song on Graffiti U, “Steal My Thunder,” features a rhythm so engagingly steady it could put the listener into a trance. The lyrics are happy and sweet, but the real standout characteristic is the song’s length—it’s over seven minutes long.

The penultimate song on the record, “Female,” became wildly popular after it was released as Graffiti U’s lead single.

The track, written by Shane McAnally, combats the stereotype of country music as a male-dominated genre with lyrics inspired as a response to the plethora of sexual assault scandals that have pierced the lives of Americans across the country.

Intuitive lines such as “When somebody talks about how it was Adam first / Does that make you second best / Or did He save the best for last?” flow in a rolling motion throughout the entire song, which takes an important stance on an issue that needed to be addressed by the music community.

Graffiti U is the perfect mix of the unexpected and the reliable. At some times, the listeners are thrown into a state of perplexity at the sounds that are coming out of their speakers, but more often than not they are relieved to find that another classic Urban guitar lick—most likely the reason they picked up the album in the first place—is right around the corner. 

SINGLE REVIEW AUSTIN HORD

‘FAMOUS’ MASON RAMSEY

A few weeks ago, 11-year-old Mason Ramsey took the internet by storm with a YouTube video of him giving an impromptu solo performance in a Walmart in his unique yodeling style. Since then, the video has gone viral, turned him into meme-worthy material, and sparked the release of many remixes. To give all the new fans more of what they’ve begun to love so much, he released a new single, “Famous,” this past Friday. It’s a country love song, but with more of a ballad feel than the viral YouTube hit. His youthful voice is accompanied by a full band, with drums, fingerpicking acoustic guitar, steel guitar, and banjo. The catchy chorus captures his feelings for his love interest while simultaneously capturing what he thinks of his rapid rise to fame: “If I’m gonna be famous for somethin’, I wanna be famous for lovin’ you / If I’m gonna be known around the world, I want it because of you girl.” This song serves as a statement that Ramsey is a serious artist with a bright future and serious talent for someone of his age. 

MUSIC VIDEO KAYLIE RAMIREZ

‘COME THROUGH AND CHILL’ MIGUEL

Miguel slows down life in the fast lane for the “Come Through and Chill” video. The video opens with a smiling woman sparkling in a silver sequin outfit under bright stage lights. Miguel sits in a seat in front of the stage while watching the woman behind a pair of stylish round sunglasses. The singer takes a full bite of an apple, perhaps a signal of the promiscuity that is displayed throughout the video. J. Cole stands in front of a red stage curtain while talking into a phone booth as he begins his verse with “Pick up the phone, show me it was real.” Shots of the woman performing sultry dance moves in front of a dance studio mirror are sprinkled throughout the video.

“Come Through and Chill” features a sublime color palette, complemented by lighting effects. The attention to color is obvious in shots that feature Miguel sitting on a bed in front of a tree covered in pink flowers. The inclusion of black women of various complexions also highlights the beauty of the color in the video while affirming the beauty of all shades of skin. A ringing telephone interrupts Miguel’s interaction with a different girl on a pier in front of the New York City skyline. The dancer sets up an appointment to see the singer, to the disappointment of the other woman.

Sultry scenes show the two rolling around in bed, the woman biting into Miguel’s arm at one point. An especially daring shot shows a revealing view of a third woman’s butt as she crawls into bed with yet another woman. The sexual encounters in the video eventually progress to reveal Miguel tangled up in bed with multiple women. The passionate indulgence depicted in the video is fitting for the sexually explicit lyrics of the song—Miguel croons “I wanna f—k all night” throughout the chorus of the song.

Miguel is known for sensual songs like “Adorn” and “Sure Thing,” but the risque scenes in his latest video seem ignorant. While the scenes are done tastefully, focusing on skin-to-skin contact and luxurious lingerie, girl-on-girl scenes that produce pleasure in the male subject produce the effect of commodifying female sexuality for a male audience. Miguel’s use of several women in the video perpetuates the objectification of women and places undue value on the sexuality of the women in the video. The video’s artistic value is disparaged by the uncomfortable relationship between men and female sexuality video. 

THE HEIGHTS

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2018

B7

Shaping Up the Songs, Shows, and Movies of Summer ‘Avengers’ Summer, from B8 more, A Prayer Before Dawn was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and at South by Southwest, and everyone who has reviewed it has thought it was great. Get pumped.

The Equalizer 2 - Jack Goldman Hey, remember that movie that came out in 2014? Well, you should, because Denzel Washington could kill an infinite amount of people in like 15 seconds while timing it, and if you didn’t see it, it’s called The Equalizer.

Are you a John Wick fan? Are you a John Wick 2 fan?

Well, if so—and if you’re not, you are not welcome in this paragraph—come join me on a journey that is picking up the story after Denzel beat like 10 guys with guns with just a nail gun in a glorified Home Depot. Not interested yet?

Well, how about you watch this trailer where Denzel stabs a man with a corkscrew, shoots four guys—one of whom he decides needs to be shot with a harpoon instead of a g un A S ONE DOES WHEN ONE IS DENZEL WASHINGTON— stabs three people, and throws a guy off a very high building. I mean … what more needs to be said? If you don’t watch this movie when it comes out on July 20, Denzel is probably going to come and kill you and

all your friends in eight seconds. That would be disappointing.

Solo: A Star Wars Story - Jack Goldman Oh, get off your high horse, America.

You’re not sold because Harrison Ford’s earring isn’t making an appearance in this movie? You’re nervous Alden Ehrenreich isn’t going to be the exact same level of performer that Ford is? Guess what? A Han Solo movie is being released on May 25, and you’re going to watch it because Han Solo is the f—king shit. Want to know who else is awesome? Chewbacca. Lando Calrissian (played by Donald Glover’s incredible facial hair in a delightful development).

Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones, a show I don’t watch but is apparently about dragons and p o r n o g r ap hy a n d Clarke just annihilating everyone, rounds out the cast. Take my money, Ron Howard.

(Ron Howard voice: I will.)

Ant-Man and The Wasp - Jack Goldman Wasn’t Ant-Man enjoyable? Michael Douglas is way better at roasting people than I anticipated.

Michael Peña is a delight. Paul Rudd is a much better superhero than I would have thought. But, most importantly, Evangeline Lilly is here to kick

your ass in the sequel after being criminally underutilized for storytelling purposes in the first film—and I am here for it. Also, Rudd’s kid being the vehicle this trailer uses to reintroduce us to our favorite characters is a wonderful touch. Peña is getting shrunk in this movie, vans are being used to tip over other vans (I love vans), and it looks like we’re going to be finding out more about the quantum realm based on the villain’s ability to [checks trailer again] walk through walls. This movie may not end up satisfying you in the way Mad Men does, but allow me to assure you that Ant-Man and The Wasp is going to be another exciting addition to the Marvel Universe—at worst, it’ll be an extremely fun lark, at best it’ll shrink to the size of an ant and beat everything bad about the world out of your life. How could you pass up that kind of opportunity?

The Tony Awards - Shannon Kelly Are you as ready as I am to watch the number one event of the year—when the finest performances on Broadway are celebrated with more song, more dance, and more laughs, all on CBS, baby? No? All right.

Well, the Tony Awards are on June 10, and it’s going to be great. Sara Bareilles and Josh Groban are replacing the now-creepy Kevin Spacey as hosts, thank God. Groban is one of the funniest people on Twitter, and Bareilles is one of the most talented people ever—she wrote the music and acted in the Tony

Award-winning Waitress—so it’s going to be a good few hours of slightly dorky television.

It’s also probably the best year to get into theatre, with the nominees featuring adaptations of mainstream classics like M e a n Girls,

SpongeBob SquarePants, and Frozen.

The Tick Season 2 - Caleb Griego He’s big. He’s blue. And he’s back.

The quirky and often times ludacris The Tick is back at Amazon for the rest of its first season and 2019 sophomore season.

The first half of Season 1 was rife with sharp wit and a likeable cast that made this comedic-superhero tale stand out from its contemporaries.

This was in part thanks to the rapport between its stars. Peter Serafinowicz as the Tick, and Griffin Newman as Arthur, developed an uneasy friendship that led them in and out of trouble with an assortment of equally as colorful villains and anti-heros.

Without a doubt, The Tick breathes life into the oversaturated genre by allowing forces other than drama and action dominate on screen. As the Tick squares up against the menacing Terror in the latter half of this first season, fans will feel refreshed, not because of the fantastical stakes, but because the show never takes itself too seriously. 

Mulaney Off His Game for ‘Kid Gorgeous’ Special

BY SHANNON KELLY Heights Senior Staff

There’s simply nothing funny about child murder. John Mulaney knows this—which is why he instead chooses to tell you about J.J. Bittenbinder, the Chicago detective assigned each year to teach Mulaney’s school about “stranger danger.” In this, and his overall bit about school assemblies, Mulaney excels.

It’s so oddly specific that you’re thrown back into that exact moment when you were a kid and a former crack user is telling you drugs are bad.

Unfortunately, the rest of Mulaney’s newest standup, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City, ventures into territory outside his wheelhouse, resulting in an effort that just isn’t as funny as his past specials.

It’s almost immediately apparent when watching Kid Gorgeous that this Mulaney is far more confident and comfortable onstage than in New in Town or The Comeback Kid. Perhaps this is because he’s become more mainstream and experimental with the comedy he’s produced lately—his animated series Big Mouth and Broad-

way show Oh, Hello!, both with Nick Kroll, reflect risks that undoubtedly paid off. It’s nice to see him move around the stage and get into characters more boldly than before, but it can also take away from his act. He’s built up a lot of his brand about how he’s awkward—his lanky body and voice meant to be made fun of, not to be telling the jokes.

A large portion of his past standups were so funny because Mulaney told them like stories. They’re easy to memorize as narratives—even now most fans could probably conjure up most of his bit on the Salt and Pepper Diner from 2009. But in Kid Gorgeous, there may still be extended jokes, but they’re not really connected to stories.

In one bit, Mulaney talks about how college wasn’t worth going to. In another, he tackles Donald Trump, whom he describes as “a horse in a hospital.” They’re both fast-paced, one joke after the other, but the lack of a story to ground either of them makes it feel like any other comedian’s work, not something that’s signature “Mulaney.”

Another disappointment in his

work is that this came out on May 1, but he told many of the same jokes in his Saturday Night Live monologue weeks ago. It’s tough to come up with jokes, I get that, but for someone who wrote for Saturday Night Live, it seemed weird that he was giving away most of his set before the special came out. It felt like you could skip most of the back half of Kid Gorgeous because you’d already heard it before.

Kid Gorgeous returns to Mulaney’s

usual style at the end, detailing his experience at church as a kid and his wife’s confusion over the reason for the meal in Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It unlocks a memory you buried deep in the back of your mind of stale carpets and dusty old people who sang psalms at Mass. It’s hysterical—Mulaney at his peak. Hopefully in the future, he’ll get back to more of the stuff, like this, that made him so funny to begin with. 

COMEDY

KIG GORGEOUS JOHN MULANEY DISTRIBUTED BY NETFLIX RELEASE MAY 1, 2018 OUR RATING

NETFLIX

‘Chamberstock I’ Turns Back Musical Clock

BY COLLEEN MARTIN JACK GOLDMAN

AND

Copy Editors

Chamberstock, the spring concert series for Boston College music ensembles, featured three groups during its first segment, Chamberstock I, on Monday in Gasson 100. BC Irish Fiddle, BC Cello Ensemble, and the BC Flute Ensemble each put on a showcase of the pieces they have been working on this semester.

Kicking off the evening was the musical styling of BC Irish Fiddle, led by director Sheila Falls-Keohane. The group, which consists of four students—Francesca Crutchfield-Stoker, GSSW ’18; Claire Feeney, CSON ’19; Fiona Henry, MCAS ’19; and Elizabeth Marston, CSON ’19—as well as one University Communications employee, Sean Smith—put on a show of traditional jigs, slip jigs, and reels. FallsKeohane explained to the audience that her students learned all of the pieces by ear—none of it was written on sheet music.

She said that although this method of learning is incredibly difficult, it ensures that the players will never forget the tunes.

After their last fast-paced reel, the fiddlers moved off to the side as the BC Cello Ensemble took the floor, playing two traditional Irish songs: “Trip to Dingle” and “Denis Murphy’s Slide.” The fiddle group came in as guests to play in sections of both songs, adding a fuller and more lively component to the low tone of the cellos. BC Cello Ensemble director Junko

Fujiwara credited Falls-Keohane for helping the group learn the songs.

After its first two pieces, the Cello Ensemble moved closer to the audience as the BC Irish Fiddle members took their seats.

For its last performance of the evening, the ensemble played Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104, a long piece written by A. Dvorak. The tune ebbed and flowed as the students alternated between long bow strokes and quick plucking of the strings.

To finish off the event was BC Flute Ensemble under the direction of Judy Grant. The all-female group played seven pieces—two of which were performed only by the three Honors students and Grant, and one which featured solos for the four seniors in the group. The ensemble started off with a beautiful tone that was full, but light, as the lower flutes provided a stable base for the higher pitched melody to float on top. The songs in the performance progressed in chronological order, beginning with the Baroque period and extending to the 1980s.

To kick off the 8 p.m. Chamberstock performance, Daniel Lott, CSOM ’19, and Amy Huh, MCAS ’19, played Johan Halvorsen’s “Passacaglia” from George Frideric Handel’s Suite No. 7 on the violin and cello, respectively. This piece required extreme transitions in speed and technique, as the two went from higher speed playing to slowing down and plucking at the strings of their instruments with ease. In a sense, it was almost as if completely different players were playing each section of the music, but

Lott and Huh managed the changes masterfully, showcasing their diverse skill sets.

Next, violinists Ekaterina Mironova, a graduate assistant, and Minki Hong, MCAS ’19, joined Walsh Kang, MCAS ’20, who played viola, and cellists Annie Hawes, MCAS ’19, and Junu Han, MCAS ’21, to play Alexander Borodin’s Quintet in F minor. This piece was more consistent in its pacing, but the musicians’ strength here was how in sync they were. Each part was very different, but the harmony of each aspect put together was extremely well executed. When the instruments finally came together as the piece came to a close, the plucked ending left a lasting impact on the audience.

The third performance featured violinist Nova Wang, MCAS ’21; cellist Robert Laidlaw, MCAS ’21; and pianist Tian Ye, MCAS ’20. They played Ludwig van Beethoven’s Trio in C minor. An extremely fast piece, the three performers’ hands were a blur as they moved along their respective instruments. Wang was practically dancing with his violin he had to do so much movement, Ye somehow was able to keep his fingers from straying to the wrong keys at an incredible speed, while Laidlaw calmly set the tone with long, strong movements along his cello—but even his bass line required speed. The trio managed to pull everything off without a hitch, despite the high degree of difficulty.

The penultimate performance of the night was far different: The flutist jumped into action for the first time during this

hour, with cellist Emily Zhao, MCAS ’19, and a pianist joining her to perform Charles-Édouard Lefebvre’s “Ballade.” The leisurely pace made for a great transition from the loud, brisk Beethoven piece. The three instruments are so different that it must have been difficult to pull the pieces together, yet the three musicians pulled off the feat with aplomb, striking a perfect tone to contrast with the previous energetic performance.

The final piece was two movements from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quartet in C minor, also known as “Dissonance.”

Violinists Gabriel Valle, MCAS ’20, and George Bailey, CSOM ’21, were joined by Brigette Merriman, MCAS ’20, on the viola and Yulee Kim, MCAS ’20, on the cello. The first movement was somewhat patterned: Three of the musicians would perform in sync, while one moved away from the bass line and added metaphorical frosting to the cake foundation the other instruments were baking. Each musician nailed each transition from being in the background to moving into the foreground.

The second movement was much different: The instruments would be harmonizing very different parts, before coming together momentarily to perform in beautiful unison, followed by a transition back into organized chaos. The increased speed of this movement required careful volume control between the different instruments, but the four musicians pulled it all off, closing out the night with an abrupt, loud, and impressive ending. 

Vengeance JACOB SCHICK

So, like everyone else, I saw Avengers: Infinity War this weekend. In a stunning turn of events, I didn’t write the movie review. Adam Mehal did, and it’s great. I encourage you all to check it out. While I agree with many of Adam’s points, I think that there is more to be said about this movie—and what better way to say it than to inundate my copy editors with more columns? There is no better way. None.

Also, this will be a spoiler-free Avengers column, in case that matters to anyone.

I have two main criticisms of this movie.

One: This movie is both too long and not long enough. Avengers: Infinity War slouches in at 160 minutes. This is way too long for almost all movies. It’s simply way too much time for a movie to spend telling a story. Avengers just never stops. There are probably four or five places this movie could end, yet it just keeps going. There are exceptions to this length rule for movies, but this is a case where the exceptions prove the rule. The Lord of the Rings movies, Spartacus, Schindler’s List.

These are all movies that necessitate run-times of well over two hours. But these exceptions prove that most movies shouldn’t be over two hours long.

These are great movies. More than great. They are classics. Most movies are not these movies, and therefore should strive to stay under two hours.

Most movies don’t have the pacing, the plot, or the content for that length of time. But Avengers: Infinity War is also not long enough to be the movie it wants to be. This movie consistently struggles to fit all of the information and screen time it wants to give each character into its already bloated runtime. It’s not a bad thing for movies to have lots of plotlines—it can often be an interesting narrative device. Yet it is a bad thing for a movie to have so many plotlines just because it wants to convey so much information. Watching Avengers: Infinity War, I constantly had to remind myself what was going on with each hero, who they were with, and why they were there. The movie then ties all of these narratives together at the very end, and it just isn’t earned. There’s too much for this movie to do, and it’s already only one half of a whole story.

Two: This isn’t really a movie either. Obviously movies can build on films that have come before them— that’s how sequels work. And sequels can be great movies too! But movies have to be evaluated on their own as well. If I can’t walk into a movie in a series and understand at least basic plot or characters because I don’t have the requisite knowledge, that is a failing on the movie’s part. Let’s look at an objectively great sequel: The Dark Knight. You can watch The Dark Knight with little to no knowledge and still really enjoy the movie.

Having seen Batman Begins, having seen the previous iterations of Batman in film, having read the comic book all provides greater context for The Dark Knight, but the movie is intelligible without this. Avengers: Infinity War, on the other hand, doesn’t do this. If you walk into this movie with little to no knowledge of the previous 18 movies, Avengers isn’t going to make any damn sense. This movie doesn’t stand on its own in any way at all. And I know what a lot of people will say to this. “Maybe that’s just the way movies are going now.” No. No it is not. Every other franchise that has tried to do this has failed. And it shouldn’t be the way movies go now either. Marvel is a shining example of when this works, and it’s still full of flaws. These movies are really fun and enjoyable, but this does not mean that every other movie should be striving to kickstart a franchise 20 movies long.

Anyway, have a great summer everyone.

Catch me writing movie reviews whenever I’m in town.

Jacob Schick is the arts editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@ bcheights.com.

ARTS

B8

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2018

@BCHEIGHTSARTS

Sights and Sounds of Summer Heights editors and senior staff shout out upcoming summer entertainment

BY HEIGHTS EDITORS AND STAFF Tranquility Base Hotel+Casino Kaylie Ramirez Arctic Monkeys, the British alternative rock band that thrust hard rock riffs and cryptic lyricism back onto popular radio stations with their 2013 album AM, is set to release its sixth album, titled Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino on May 11. The band released a short sound clip hinting at a modern take on a retro spacey sound for the new album. The clip featured a twinkling synthetic keyboard lead into the Arctic Monkeys’ signature creeping drum beat and an airy electric guitar riff. Both the album’s title and the grand black and gold artwork suggest an element of spy movie mysticism.

While the clip contains no lyrics, the eclectic tracklist opens up the album to the lyrical creativity of Alex Turner, the band’s mysterious frontman. Track titles like “The World’s First Ever Monster Truck Flip” and “The Ultracheese” exemplify the playful seriousness with which the band approaches music: Arctic Monkeys affords eccentric subject matter serious musical attention on previous tracks such as “Brianstorm” and “The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala.” The tracklist also includes a track titled “Batphone.” Given Turner’s experimentation with movie themed songs on The Last Shadow Puppets’ “The Bourne Identity,” listeners can expect the same fresh perspective on a well-known film franchise Turner brought to his side band for Arctic Monkeys’ stay in Gotham City.

Hot Summer Nights - Kaylie Ramirez Timothée Chalamet, who skyrocketed to stardom after appearing in two Oscarnominated films (Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird) last year, stars in Elijah Bynum’s upcoming Hot Summer Nights. Set for a July 27 release, the actor finds himself in the same bad boy pot-smoking heartthrob role for a summer set in Cape Cod, Mass.

Co-starring Alex Roe as Hunter Strawberry, Daniel (Chalamet) and his older friend get caught up in drug dealing at the famous vacation spot during the 1990s.

Hot Summer Nights will be Elijah Bynum’s directorial debut, but audiences can expect the familiar indie character of films such as Moonlight, Lady Bird, and The Disaster Artist as a film produced by independent production studio A24. The trailer features striking cinematography with bright neon lights originating from carefree carnival scenes and car chases involving the cops. While the film’s plot may

seem simple and predictable, the film appears to have the right combination of rising actors, balance between heart-pounding action and romance, and production oversight to make it a summer blockbuster. Having been released at SXSW festival in 2017, the film already has an 80 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is sure to heat up theaters this summer.

Kids See Ghosts - Kaylie Ramirez In an April 19 Tweet, Kanye West announced his seventrack upcoming album will be released on June 1. The rapper also informed followers that the album would feature Kid Cudi, and would be called Kids See Ghosts. Since the initial

INSIDE SCENE

announcement, West released two singles titled “Ye vs. the People” and “Lift Yourself,” but West has not confirmed whether the singles will appear on the album.

The first single seems to embody the artist’s views that have caused controversy in recent days with lyrics such as “Actually, wearin’ the hat’ll show people that we equal” and “All blacks gotta be Democrats, man / We ain’t made it off the plantation.”

West recently made headlines for tweeting a picture while sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat, a symbol of the Trump campaign and presidency.

“Lift Yourself” continues the theme of political commentary with the opening lyric “The hang ups we have today-ay-ay / Said we need to strive for more liberty.” While the song is experimental with samples of “Boom Boom” by Dezz and “Liberty” by Amnesty, the rapper’s verse comes off more insane than enlightened: It is solely composed of gibberish lyrics like “Poopy-di scoop / Scoop-diddy-whoop.” Regardless of the artist’s unconventional approach to his latest album, it is certain the world will be hanging onto every lyric, searching for meaning and message in each word.

Ocean’s 8 - Bradley Smart Especially in this day and age, moviegoers are often confronted with the battle of balancing opinions about movies from before the 1990s with those on the modernday, rebooted versions. One can only imagine the feeling someone who grew up a few decades earlier has when they look at a list of upcoming releases and are confronted with an onslaught of reboots, sequels, prequels, and so on.

Enter Ocean’s 8, a spin-off off the iconic Ocean’s Eleven movie from 2001, which was in itself a modernized remake of Ocean’s 11, which starred Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin way back in 1960. Take a breath, continue.

This year’s heist movie, coming to theaters June 8, centers around criminal mastermind Debby Ocean (Sandra Bullock), who, like George Clooney’s Daniel Ocean, spent several years in jail planning a perfect heist. Joined by Lou Miller (Cate Blanchett), Ocean rounds up a crew of six other female thieves to rob a $150 million necklace at the New York Met Gala. The cast is starstudded, featuring Rihanna, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, and Mindy Kaling to name a few.

Arrested Development Season 5 - Jack Miller This summer, Netflix is expected to release the most ambitious crossover of the year: Arrested Development Season 5.

After being torn apart by some light treason, the financial crisis, and a massive wall spanning the the U.S.-Mexican border (the producers called their shot back in 2013), the narcissistic and eccentric Bluth clan will finally reconvene. And if

you haven’t seen the show before, have no fear— Netflix has all four seasons available. The show is at its best when it sets up seemingly small jokes that return with a vengeance episodes or even seasons later, and its new easily bingeable packaging can only help.

The show follows the Bluths, hilariously played an absolutely star-studded cast: Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, Jeffrey Tambor, Tony Hale, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, Jessica Walter, Jeffrey Tambor (again), David Cross, Alia Shawkat, and the omniscient Ron Howard. The latest season suffered a little simply because it was difficult to bring

‘Chamberstock’

so many busy but Bateman interview would be

names back together, promised in an that season five a return to

the original dynamic, twist of a m u r d e r or make a huge,

f a m i l y with the added good ol’ fashioned mystery. Tune in tiny mistake.

Christopher Robin - Mary Wilkie Winnie-the-Pooh is back and (hopefully) better than ever in Disney’s new live-action film, Christopher Robin. Kind of like Ted but also not at all like Ted, the family-friendly film stars Ewan McGregor as Christopher Robin, Hayley Atwell as his wife, and Jim Cummings as Winnie-the-Pooh. Cummings has voiced characters from animated TV shows and movies for years, from CatDog to Princess and the Frog. As he did in The Tigger Movie and a 2011 film called Winnie the Pooh, Cummings mimics the voice of the original Pooh Bear, Sterling Holloway, to a T in the trailer for Christopher Robin.

Although the new, liveaction Pooh looks old and dingy—nothing like the bear from the cartoon—this film has such great potential to bring joy to the many generations that grew up with WinniethePooh and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood. In this reboot of a timeless crowd favorite, Winnie-the-Pooh returns to his old friend Christopher Robin, now an adult with a family of his own, in post-World War II Britain. All of Christopher Robin’s old friends from the Hundred Acre Wood will be coming back to the big screen on Aug 3—maybe we’ll even get to see some heffalumps and woozles.

Fahrenheit 451- Colleen Martin H B O i s s e t to rele a s e Fahrenheit 451—a film based on the Ray Bradbury novel following the inner turmoil of one “fireman” (Michael B. Jordan) as he tries to navigate his way through a world where he is ordered to burn books and the government rewrites history—on May 19 at 8 p.m. The film, which was written and directed by Ramin Bahrani, will star Jordan as Guy Montag, Michael Shannon as Captain Beatty, Sofia Boutella as Clarisse McClellan, and Lilly Singh as Raven.

“I have always loved Ray Bradbury’s prophetic novel Fahrenheit 451,” Bahrani told HBO. “Two years ago, as I looked at the world around me, it seemed like the ideal time to do a modern interpretation.”

Along with McClellan, Montag begins to question his role in society, as well as the relationship his own wife has with the technology that permeates everyday life.

The film follows Montag as he begins to resist the orders of his captain, Shannon, in order to explore the written works that are banned in his society.

PUPPY - Kaylie Ramirez On April 30, BROCKHAMPTON’s Kevin Abstract announced that the band will be releasing its fifth album in June 2018 and tweeted a picture of the album artwork.

The artwork is a photo collage of different features of a yellow sweatshirt-clad Matt Champion with the word “PUPPY” in the

A evening of chamber music was hosted by Boston College’s own Chamber Music Society on Monday night..................B7

center. The band, which describes itself as the “best boyband sice One Direction” in the SATURATION III song “BOOGIE,” skyrocketed to fame after it released three albums in 2017 alone, gaining the band an invitation to festivals like Coachella and Boston Calling.

BROCKHAMPTON’s fifth album follows a record deal with RCA that will yield six albums over three years and is reportedly worth $15 million.

With eight vocalists and a large creative team that produces the band’s succinct image, it is possible that the band will create quality tracks in spite of the record label’s tall order.

BROCKHAMPTON demonstrated the band’s ability to evolve over short periods of time by moving from relatively simple beats on tracks like “STAR” from SATURATION to the dynamic, original party beat of SATURATION III’s “ZIPPER.” Given the band’s past autonomy over its music, it will be interesting to see how RCA’s oversight will reshape and refine the rowdy sound.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again- Emily Himes A decade has passed since we saw Sophie and her mother, Donna, in Mamma Mia!, and a lot has changed. The popular musical’s long-awaited sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, will focus on Donna’s past. Sophie is pregnant with Sky’s child, and she also runs the inn where her mother worked in the previous movie. She learns to navigate her newfound responsibilities with the help of her

mother and grandmother (who hasn’t appeared in the storyline until now).

The cast has remained constant—Here We Go Again will star Amanda Seyfried as Sophie and Meryl Streep as Donna—but there is an unexpected appearance as well.

In a surprising twist of events, Cher will play Sophie’s grandmother. (It’s hard to imagine Cher being Meryl Streep’s mother.) Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again will again feature the music of ABBA on its soundtrack, which will surely make for a lively, memorable summer box office hit. It will be released on July 20.

The Mountain - Emily Himes Dierks Bentley headed to the Rockies in Colorado to record his upcoming album, appropriately titled The Mountain. Bentley’s ninth album is expected to be released June 8. He released the album’s stripped-down and sweet lead single, “Women, Amen” in January, which has garnered radio airplay success. Bentley helped write the majority of the 13 songs on The Mountain, all of which

‘Kid Gorgeous at Radio City’

SNL writer and comedian John Mulaney returns to Netflix with his new stand-up special...................................................B7

were created in the middle of nowhere to ensure honest and simple lyrics. The album features an array of guest artists such as Brothers Osborne, famous mandolinist Sam Bush, and bluegrass musician Tim O’Brien, among others. By the look of the featured musicians, listeners can expect a solid country sound on this album. Many of them are famous bluegrass musicians, which will add a welcome traditional country sound to today’s world of pop-country crossovers.

Bentley is also touring to promote The Mountain. The tour begins in Maryland in late May and will span the entire summer, closing up in California in October.

Music for Cars - Connor Murphy The 1975 is not known for subtlety.

Their music is self-absorbed and often overwrought; their lead singer (Matty Healy, a.k.a. Truman Black online) philosophizes obnoxiously on social media and has a weird habit of wearing suits with no shirt on stage, wobbling around with a glass of wine; and their second album, I Like It When You Sleep, For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It, is a complete sentence. And yet that overwrought music can so often be spectacularly entertaining and deeply introspective, somehow hitting all the notes at just the right times in the way you always hoped music would. For months Healy has been hinting at a third album to be titled Music for Cars, the same name as an early EP, and then earlier this week the band blacked out all its social media (hardly the first time), tipping fans off that something was coming. And so emerges, on their website, a countdown ending May 31. June 1 is an important day in the band’s lore, which gets its name (the last in a virtual litany for a group that’s been together since 2002) from a book Healy once found at a market in Spain that said “1st June, The 1975” on the inside cover. May 31 might be the release day for a single, or the entire album—it’s tough to tell—but I’ve got one hope for whatever comes out: for it to be as bold and original and flawed and derivative and catchy and grating and stupidly, wonderfully earnest as everything else.

The Incredibles 2 - Connor Murphy I saw The Incredibles in theaters, with my cousins, because The Spongebob SquarePants Movie was sold out (or something like that).

There are some things I’ve never quite understood about it, like the time period (it feels like the ’50s, I guess, but also later?), and, more importantly, why Pixar ended the movie with perhaps their most obvious sequel lead-in ever (The Underminer) and then never made a sequel. Why now? And that’s what worries me. It’s like how Finding Dory is a better movie, technically speaking, than Finding Nemo, with its beautiful animation, a smarter plot, and a funnier script. But that in some ways sucked the life out of the movie—the emotional appeals were too overt, the jokes a little too focus group-approved. Finding Nemo felt organic and pure—Finding Dory felt like the money play, and even though it’s better than Finding Nemo, it’s not as good. In the same way, I don’t think The Incredibles 2 (June 15), which, based on its trailers, has much better animation and probably better jokes than its predecessor, is going to be as good as The Incredibles. It’ll be like the Go Set a Watchman to The Incredibles’ To Kill a Mockingbird, except ideally without the racism. And that’s because in the age of the reboot-sequel, it doesn’t matter how good the movie is—if your source material is truly iconic, steer clear.

A Prayer Before Dawn - Jacob Schick Guys. A24 is releasing a martial-arts movie. Guys. It’s based on a true story.

Guys. About an English fighter named Billy Moore who was locked up in a Thai prison for years and had to fight to stay alive and to eventually earn his freedom. Guys. It’s based on a book of the same name that Moore wrote himself after he was released.

Guys. It stars Joe Cole, from Peaky Blinders.

So, in summary: A great studio is releasing a movie about a great story starring a great actor, and it’s a martial-arts movie. Oh boy.

August 10 can’t come soon enough. What’s

See Summer, B5

‘Beerbongs and Bentleys’............................ B6 ‘Handmaid’s Tale’.......................................... B6 ‘Graffiti U’................................................. B6