The Heights September 10, 2018 by The Heights

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THE

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

EST. 1919

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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

BACKSTAGE WITH BC ADMISSION

FINALLY

SPORTS

ARTS

Field hockey beat Wake Forest for its first ACC win since Oct. 21, 2016

BC admission counselors Pete Caruso and David Weber talk about their band Lost Articles

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A18

OIP Limits Study Abroad Numbers CSOM recruiting timeline was a factor in the decision. BY JACK GOLDMAN News Editor

TAYLOR PERISON / FOR THE HEIGHTS

In Old-School Reunion, BC Dismantles Holy Cross A.J. Dillon rushed for 149 yards and three touchdowns in the ﬁrst quarter, and the Eagles went on to blow out their longtime New England rivals, see A11.

The Office of International Programs (OIP) announced in an email Wednesday that due to imbalances in the number of Boston College students studying abroad during the fall and spring semesters, the University has decided that limits will be placed on “each semester and program for students studying abroad.” “Our primary goal has been to give BC students the greatest amount of flexibility in choosing the program and semester that works best with their academic and personal needs,” Nick Gozik, director of OIP, wrote in an email to The Heights. “At the same time, we need

See Study Abroad, A3

Evans Looks for Mental Health Focus The new chief of BCPD joins BC after 30 years with BPD. BY JACK GOLDMAN News Editor You can find Boston College’s latest hire right smack in the middle of campus. “I want to be where the offices are, I want to be where the action is—this is where it is, Middle Campus,” says the BC Police Department’s new chief, Bill Evans. Entering his fourth week on the job after taking over for the now-retired chief John King, Evans is beginning to settle into his routine at his home in BCPD command. His walls are adorned with countless medals from his various escapades during his over 30 years of service to the Boston Police Department, right down to the many different literal hats he wore over his tenure, which led to a five-year stint as commissioner. “I loved my role as police commissioner, I miss it, but I think I left the city in great shape,” Evans said. “Crime went down almost 20 percent in my term there, our arrests went down almost 25 percent—I think our favorability was very high. “At the same time, this was a great

opportunity. I want to thank [University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J.] and everyone for bringing me in on board.” The University’s Catholic identity really appealed to Evans. A graduate of all-boys Catholic school St. Sebastian’s in Needham, Mass., Evans credits the Church with throwing him a lifeline that has eventually brought him to BC’s doorstep. Rev. Paul White, a Catholic priest, stepped in to help Evans after he lost his mother while he was an infant, his father when he was 14, and brother shortly afterward. Evans’s brothers took care of him, but it was the Church that changed his life. “I didn’t have the money, and I always say I didn’t have the grades either, but he gave me the opportunity of a lifetime … an opportunity that really saved me,” he said. Since his journey has been aided by religion, it has also shaped his policing philosophy. Evans saw himself in the inner city kids he was tasked with protecting and disciplining: kids coming from broken homes and very poor socioeconomic conditions. So the commissioner decided to approach working with such Boston residents from the perspective his mentors did: They aren’t bad kids—they’re kids who need an opportunity. Now, he’s responsible for taking care of

kids in a different situation, but he doesn’t look at BC students without keeping in mind the lessons he learned while in Boston. In his first month on the job, Evans said move-in and the football games have been the standout events he’s been on duty for. He expressed his excitement to be a part of the community, as well as his readiness to start making in a difference in the safety situations most pertinent to BC. “There’s different challenges in this job than this last job, but it’s been very good,” he said. “I’m a dad, I’m the police chief, but your safety is my utmost concern.” There are two perspectives Evans is approaching his new post with: the perspective of a police veteran who’s run a police department for five years after rising through its ranks, and the perspective of a parent who has sent his son through BC. He says his main concerns are helping students through alcohol-related incidents and incidents regarding sexual assault, and protecting students from the inherent dangers of hopping in Ubers late at night or inebriated. In order to serve the student body as well as possible, Evans believes emphasizing the idea of “community policing,” an idea he honed while in BPD, is tantamount to

See Bill Evans, A3

KAITLIN MEEKS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

BC Dining Explains Late Night Changes Dining cites student worker safety and focus group results. BY CHARLIE POWER Assoc. News Editor Amid the changes and revamps Boston College Dining Services has unrolled to start the fall semester, none has garnered as much attention as Late Night dining’s move from the first floor of Corcoran Commons to

Addie’s Loft on the second floor. This shift in location, coupled with menu changes, left many BC students confused and upset. “I think we didn’t do a very good job of messaging what was happening, how it was happening, and why it was happening,” said Megan O’Neill, associate director of restaurant operations. “I think there were a lot of rumors flying on the first weekend.” BC Dining employs student marketing

See Late Night, A3

’09 Memorial Grows into Support System Since 2005, BCVAN has expanded to help students and faculty. BY JACK MILLER Asst. News Editor

PHOTO COURTESY OF AP

Don’t Let Us Down

Singer-songwriter Daya will headline Stokes Set on Sept. 15, see A2.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

NEWS: UGBC Budget Increases

UGBC’s budget increased by over $1,000, to $329,138 this year....................................A2

On Veterans Day in 2009, Boston College dedicated the Veterans Memorial Wall to the 209 BC alumni who had given their lives in service to their country. Nobody knew at the time, but the ceremony also marked the success of a network of connections and relationships that would still provide support to veteran alumni a decade

FEATURES: Erik Weihenmayer

later. The Veterans Memorial Committee, formed in 2005 with the purpose of fundraising and researching for the wall, soon transformed into the BC Veterans Alumni Network (BCVAN). Initially, BCVAN was more focused on memorial and recognition, a logical extension considering its origin. The group continued to organize an annual Veterans Remembrance Mass, which still occurs every Veterans Day. Previously, it had been handled by another proto-veterans network: the alumni association of BC’s ROTC program. But about seven years ago, Dan Arkins, BC ’81, and George Harrington, BC ’80, took the reins as co-chairs and recognized

Weihenmayer, BC ’91, completed the Seven Summits and is completely blind..................A4

INDEX

that BCVAN could expand its scope. “It started with Vietnam-era veterans who are now in their 70s,” Arkins said. “George and I are about 20 years younger, and we were both currently serving, so we recognized that ‘veterans transition’ had become a big buzzword. It was just a natural evolution for us to start thinking more broadly.” Arkins and Harrington, both of whom had been senior officers, had seen firsthand the struggles that junior officers faced as they made their way back into civilian life. With so many veterans going back to college

See Veterans, A3

NEWS.........................A2 METRO..................... A6

The Heights

TOP

things to do on campus this week

CAB will host a Stuff-a-Bear event in O’Connell House on Upper Campus and the Stuart Yellow Room on Newton Campus at 5 p.m. on Monday. Attendees can make their own stuffed eagle, puppy, or penguin.

Monday, September 10, 2018

The Study Abroad Fair will be held at 8 p.m. on Wednesday in Conte Forum. There will be over 100 tables for foreign partner universities, program representatives, returning students, exchange students, BC faculty, and Office of International Program staff. Students can explore programs in over 30 countries.

Students can meet representatives from over 140 companies at the Fall Career and Internship Fair from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday in Conte Forum. There will also be opportunities to speak to career coaches.

NEWS BC Professor Sheds Light on Proposed Title IX Changes BRIEFS Daya For Stokes Set The Campus Activities Board (CAB) announced at halftime of Saturday’s Boston College football game versus Holy Cross that Grammy Award winning-artist Daya will headline Stokes Set on Sept. 15. Now in its third year, the fall concert will be held on Stokes Lawn, and doors will open at 5:30 p.m. Daya is an American singer-songwriter specializing in pop and dance music. Most famously, she served as the featured artist on The Chainsmokers’ “Don’t Let Me Down,” for which she won a Grammy for Best Dance Recording, and on RL Grime’s ”I Wanna Know.” She released a self-titled EP in 2015, as well as a full-length album entitled Sit Still, Look Pretty a year later. Although she hasn’t released a full project since then, she’s released singles in each of the last three years while also featuring on “Feel Good” by Gryffin and Illenium. Tickets went on sale Monday online through Robsham Theater at 8 a.m., according to a promotional video posted on CAB’s Facebook page.

New Alumni Relations AVP Leah DeCosta was appointed as the associate vice president for alumni relations at Boston College this past summer. She most recently served as the director of alumni relations for the New York University Stern School of Business, which has 110,000 alumni. Before that, she worked in various administrative and organizational positions in BC’s athletics and alumni departments for over 10 years in total, including the director of alumni affinity and chapter programs. DeCosta also served as director of programs for the Special Olympics of New York Capital and North Country Region. She expanded the program’s scope to 12 counties and oversaw all operations and recruiting. She will now take charge of the BC Alumni Association, which aims to communicate with its 182,000 members worldwide. Before her, the role was filled by Joy Haywood Moore, BC ’81. Moore held the position for five years before succeeding Barb Jones, who retired in August, as interim vice president for Student Affairs. “Having started my professional journey at BC 16 years ago, I’ve been very fortunate to work with nearly every division throughout the University, which allowed me to learn the landscape of BC in deep, meaningful ways,” DeCosta said in a University press release in August. “Coming back to serve as AVP for alumni relations is not only an honor but has truly epitomized the best next step for me career-wise. It feels very much like I’ve returned home.”

WSJ College Rankings Boston College ranked 67th in the Wall Street Journal’s 2019 college rankings, falling seven spots after last year. Relative to schools with a similar overall ranking, BC did well in outcomes and student debt after graduation, but poorly in engagement, environment, and academic spending per student. Fellow Boston-area schools Boston University and Northeastern University ranked 36th and 69th, respectively. Notre Dame was ranked 26th and Georgetown 30th. BC was also ranked the 109th “Best Value” school, which is calculated by dividing the school’s overall score by its average net price.

By Charlie Power Assoc. News Editor

Almost 18 months into her tenure as education secretary, Betsy Devos is formulating new policies around sexual misconduct and college campuses, according to proposed rules obtained by The New York Times. The proposals include “narrowing the definition of sexual harassment, holding schools accountable only for formal complaints filed through proper authorities and for conduct said to have occurred on their campuses,” the Times article reads. Melinda Stoops, associate vice president for student affairs and BC’s Title IX coordinator, acknowledged some uncertainties over the future direction of Title IX policy, particular as it relates to sexual assault. “But what I can say, as people enter this academic year, that if you look at our policies, if you look at our processes, this information that is in the news today, isn’t going to have us make any changes to that at this time,” she said.

While at this moment, any new policies are a long way from being implemented, these proposals signal a possible direction the Trump administration will take Title IX policy, and the potential implications for BC are unclear. “We’re really two steps away from regulations,” said R. Shep Melnick, a professor of political science at Boston College and author of The Transformation of Title IX: Regulating Gender Equality in Education, which was published last March. “We have not yet seen the proposal, all we’ve seen is the Times report, which I thought was probably a good article, a fair description, but we don’t know, we haven’t seen everything yet,” he added. “And once those proposals are out there, there’ll be time for comments, and they’re going to probably change in important ways between the proposal and the final rule.” Title IX, which prohibits discrimination by sex in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance, is best known for

increasing the participation of women in college athletics. The statute, however, has been expanded by the regulatory activity of subsequent administrations since its passage in 1972. It now covers issues ranging from how colleges must respond to allegations of sexual assault to the more recent battles over transgender rights. Last September, Devos rescinded a 2011 “Dear Colleague Letter” issued by the Obama administration, which detailed how schools should respond to complaints of sexual harassment. While some supported the Obama administration’s steps to increase accountability, others saw the rules as an infringement on due-process rights for the accused. Stoops mentioned that Devos has met with a wide range of stakeholders, including representatives of people accused of sexual violence, and those who have raised questions concerning the rights of the accused. On the subject of due process, Melnick mentioned that the regulation has been criticized by a wide

variety of people of every political leaning. “From what I’ve gathered from reports on what they’re proposing is they’re going to make some modifications in the guidelines, especially on the question of due process, which is really crucial,” Melnick said. “Especially to bring the Department of Education’s interpretation more in line with what the Supreme Court has said, and to give schools more flexibility.” The Supreme Court defines sexual harassment as “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it denies a person access to the school’s education program or activity.” The Obama guidance was more expansive in its definition. It defined sexual harassment to include “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature.”

See Due Process, A3

UGBC Sets Budget at $329K, Seeks to Promote Efficiency By Jack Goldman News Editor And Samantha Karl Heights Staff

The budget for the Undergraduate Government of Boston College is set at $329,138 for the 2018-19 year, a $1,162 increase over the 2017-18 budget. The main goals for this year’s budget are to allocate and spend money more efficiently and reach as many students as possible during UGBC events, according to Annika Li, vice president of financial affairs for UGBC and CSOM ’19. “Our budget is very similar in size to last year, and so, we are trying to tighten the budget so that the money is going further,” Li said. Li’s key takeaways from this year’s budget are to bring quality events to campus in an attempt to improve UGBC’s repertoire, while showing the student body what each division of UGBC brings to campus. Any money that each division saves, however, will be reallocated back into that division’s budget—UGBC wants to reward efficient and effective spending among each division. “Just because they are delegated a certain amount of money per event, doesn’t necessarily means they need to spend that much,” Li said. During the process of creating the budget, UGBC’s officers placed an emphasis on encouraging different divisions of UGBC to collaborate on programs and events. Collaborating will save money eand bring larger events to campus, but also aligns with one of UGBC’s budget goals: increasing outreach to the general student body.

With a total of 84 events, 27 of which are new concepts, Diversity and Inclusion Programming (DIP) receives the largest amount of funding at $121,450, approximately an $8,249.64 decrease from what the department spent last year. “For DIP, we are funding slightly less than last year, but on the basis that its revenue will be poured back into DIP,” Li said. DIP funds the AHANA+ Leadership Council (ALC) Boat Cruise, the GLBTQ+ Leadership Council (GLC) formal, the ALC Ball, and ALC showdown—all popular events that could generate some revenue for UGBC that could be put toward increasing DIP’s margins as the year goes along. The Council for Students with Disabilities (CSD), which has been allocated $11,300 for this year, is one of the departments UGBC is most concerned with. CSD is relatively new, as it was founded in 2015, and UGBC wants to focus on growing this division. Although last year’s budget allocated $13,128 for the council, only $8,982.58 was spent, leading to an increase in terms of funds set aside for CSD over what was spent, although a lower allocation than, last year. Li said that, to encourage effective spending, UGBC wants CSD and GLC, with the latter budgeted at $24,750, to collaborate on some events. UGBC wants the two divisions to pool their resources so that together they can reach more of the student body—specifically raising awareness of the lesser-known CSD. Another increase appeared in the Undergraduate Leadership Academy (ULA) budget: ULA will be expanding its scope to offer events for freshmen beyond the 30 students that will join the program. ULA also added director stipends, which are

part of the Executive Council’s budget allocation. The increase in funds allocated to the Executive Council, budgeted at $52,125 which is just under $12,000 greater than last year’s expenditures, is due to those added ULA stipends, in addition to a slight increase of about $125 in the cost of the UGBC fall retreat. A year ago, approximately $49,000 was earmarked for the Executive Council without the ULA stipends, but only $40,000 ended up being spent. The stipend for the graduate assistant who aids UGBC is set at $20,000. Reed Piercey, UGBC president and MCAS ’19, has a stipend of $4,000, and Ignacio Fletcher, UGBC executive vice president and MCAS ’20, has a stipend of $3,500—those numbers are unchanged from last year. Each vice president that is a part of the council will receive a $2,000 stipend. In the past, each division has functioned as its own organization, and this year’s retreat was the first step to unify the divisions of UGBC, according to Li. This retreat was intended to set the tone for the collaborative environment UGBC is trying to spread throughout the academic year. Divisions of the governing body plan to put on events with a similar emphasis on collaboration—this time between UGBC and the BC community—for the BC student body. Student Initiative (SI) programming, budgeted at $48,650, covers expenses for events the Student Assembly (SA) puts on for the BC community, according to Li. She also mentioned that Fletcher specifically had his eyes on making the SI budget as efficient as possible while placing emphasis on bringing in the best speakers for high quality events. SI spent $51,617.83 on events in 201718, so the 2018-19 allocation is a decrease,

but that decrease falls under the same lines as DIP’s: Events could generate more revenues that can go back into SI’s coffers, funding future events. The ALC budget operates in similar fashion to the DIP budget: Funding is mainly set aside for established programming like the community dinner and other events geared toward the AHANA+ community, such as AHANA+ Celebration Week and the AHANA+ Summit. A few new programs will be announced as the year goes on, but like DIP, the council will receiving slightly less funding than last year in the hopes that incoming revenues can be cycled back into the budget to cover the costs of future events. Communications will receive $17,540 in funding—virtually the same number as it spent last year. The department will focus on reaching the student body to improve UGBC’s presence on campus, while providing marketing for new oncampus programming and events that the student body won’t be as familiar with. Finally, the SA will receive $7,968 in funding, Student Organizations (SO) will receive $2,425, and Financial Affairs will receive $450. The SA requires funds to cover its meetings and has introduced new funding that will target aiding implementation of senator initiatives, as well as buses for students to travel to Logan Airport and South Station at Thanksgiving and the March Madness Policy Bracket intended to encourage students to vote for projects they’d like UGBC to take on. Financial Affairs is the lone addition to the UGBC budget: The department has to address the cost of its own meetings and has been allocated $450 to do so. n

POLICE BLOTTER: 9/3/18 – 9/5/18 Monday, Sep. 3

Keyes North.

2:22 p.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a medical incident at Campion Hall. 8:55 p.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a suspicious circumstance at

Tuesday, Sep. 4 3:30 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a medical incident at Kostka Hall.

10:50 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a suspicious circumstance at Gasson Hall .Wednesday

Sep. 5

12:22 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding an underage intoxicated person

at Keyes South 2:28 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding an underage intoxicated person at Upper Campus.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

CORRECTIONS What’s your prediction for the rest of BC’s football season? “It’ll keep rolling. We’ll keep getting better as the teams we’re playing get better.” —Zachary Yorio, CSOM ’22 “I think we’re going to slowly go downhill. I don’t think we’ll win the Clemson game.” —Natalie Almoravid, MCAS ’ 22

“I bet they lose two games. I’m thinking Clemson and Virginia Tech.” —Erik Banda, MCAS ’22 “I think they’re going to keep winning. A.J. Dillon will help them pull through.” —Mariah Belisle, CSOM ’21

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

The Heights

Monday, September 10, 2018

2018 Faculty Hires Target New BCPD Chief Settles Into Role Short-Staffed Departments Bill Evans, from A1

By Jack Goldman News Editor

Over the summer, Boston College hired 43 new faculty members, according to Vice Provost for Faculties Billy Soo. Twenty-one men and 22 women were hired, and of the entire group, 12 are AHANA+. In terms of visiting faculty, 25 new members were hired: 13 males and 12 females. Of that group, six are AHANA+. The 26 percent mark in terms of total new AHANA+ hires in 2018 is down from 2017’s number: 46 percent of new hires last year were of AHANA+ descent, which Soo credited to an increased emphasis on hiring AHANA+ faculty moving forward. According to previous Heights reporting, the AHANA+ number in the aggregate hovers around 33 percent. Each new faculty member was hired during the 2017-18 academic year, according to Soo. Only a few have not begun their tenures at BC—they will take their positions in January. Each spring, every BC department chair reaches out to their dean’s office and makes a request to fill faculty needs, according to Soo. Factors looked at include courses and credit hours offered and filled by students in a given semester, as well as retirements and departures in their departments. Based on this request, a recommendation is made by each dean to the Provost’s office in regards to how many new faculty are needed for each college—the recommendation includes the department chairs’ original request as well. Next, the Provost’s office determines how many faculty need to be hired, based on recommendations, student demand on departments, and whether

departments are launching initiatives that will require further faculty to staff it. Soo cited the Schiller Institute’s new engineering undergraduate program and its interdisciplinary programs as an example of an upcoming initiative. About 20 faculty members will be hired in the coming year or two to make up the staff of the program. The pressure applied from needing to hire over 20 faculty members for that program is being kept in mind as the Provost’s office makes hires, with certain positions that have been abandoned via retirement or departure being held in reserve as they will become a part of Schiller once the institute gets off the ground in the coming years. “It’s a whole balancing act,” Soo said. “It’s something we do every year—assessing which departments get to hire and which ones don’t.” The computer science and finance departments had faculty demands that needed to be met in time for this academic semester. Finance had to deal with new student demand stemming from the newly introduced Carroll School of Management minors made available to students outside of CSOM. Soo cited the theology department, the economics department, and the political science department as specific areas approved to search for new hires for the 2019-20 academic year. In the past, various departments have had to fight being understaffed. At the close of the 2017-18 school year, the University lost 23 faculty members to retirement. In 2017, The Heights reported that the computer science department was “the fastest growing” academic department on campus, and was also seriously understaffed. n

Housing, Recruiting Needs Force OIP Limits Study Abroad, from A1 to ensure that the number of students studying abroad remains balanced between the two semesters.” The reason for this change has to do with the semester-to-semester obligations of Carroll School of Management students. Many firms hiring CSOM students, as well as students in other schools at BC, have shifted their recruiting windows to the fall, according to Amy Donegan, assistant dean of undergraduate management advising in CSOM. The result has been over-enrollment in classes in the fall, since so many students have to be on campus to try to get jobs, and under-enrollment in the spring, as well as troubles in regards to providing every student the opportunity to study abroad exactly the way they want to. In addition, housing availability has been seriously affected: There are too many requests to fill openings in the spring and too few in the fall, leaving the Office of Residential Life scrambling to try to house students in the fall and left with too many open rooms to fill in the spring semester. “Our goal remains to work with all students going abroad,” Gozik said. “Those who do not obtain a spring placement will be given the option of studying abroad during the fall semester of junior year. “ We anticipate that groups of students may choose to be proactive and select the fall semester as their first option.”

Limits aren’t a new thing, though. Gozik said that certain programs offered through OIP have had limits before. The goal of the office is to aid students in finding the abroad offering that works best for them, through offering multiple options. Gozik urged students to take advantage of meeting with OIP advisers early on and throughout determining their abroad plans in order to have a better sense of what works best for them. “It often becomes clear that the most popular programs are not necessarily the best fit based on [students’] personal and academic needs,” he said. In addition, Gozik asked students to “spend time on their application essay” so that OIP can better understand why certain programs are a good fit for applicants. For the next deadline, which will be on Jan. 5, students will have to select three programs on their abroad applications—one of those selections much be for the fall semester. Gozik explained this was done so students will be considering options outside of a spring semester from the moment they begin formulating their plans. OIP’s work is far from over in terms of how the changes affect the department. Gozik’s office is working to increase capacity in popular abroad locations by creating new BC programs in addition to creating spots in existing programs. OIP is approaching the issue by working with “other academic units on campus,” according to Gozik. New choices will be available both next year and in the 2020s. n

showing students BCPD isn’t populated with a bunch of robots. Evans is starting those efforts by focusing his department on mental health. Students, especially freshmen, experience lots of anxiety due to leaving home for the first time. Evans wants his officers to be ready to deal with mental health issues being the inciting incident for calls they end up receiving in dispatch, citing a study he read that says mental health tends to be a bigger issue than people think. By taking a more educated tack in regards to such sensitive issues, Evans is hoping his officers, as well as students, can better understand that the role of police isn’t the same in 2018 as it was

when he first began his police work. “We always look at that warrior versus guardian image of police officers,” Evans said. “The image of warrior is long gone. Our role now is to be a guardian and make sure these kids get the social services they need and the safety that they deserve on campus.” “Across America in policing, that’s the whole idea: the image. The old way when I came on the department 38 years ago, we were warriors. Now we’re guardians. That’s the image that I want to stick. We’re watching out for the safety and well being of our students.” These days, Evans is trying to influence the image of BCPD much in the way he had to influence BPD’s influence in the early

2000s while he was a captain in AllstonBrighton. He found himself working on a daily basis with local universities on how to police football games and other sporting events, as well as dealing with various offcampus activities. In Evans’s opinion, in the 10 years since he became superintendent and eventually commissioner of BPD, the issues surrounding policing schools have vastly improved. Programs have been implemented to curb overconsumption of alcohol, and by maintaining a dialogue with local colleges, Evans believes he was able to approach their issues much more effectively. And he says that idea—open communication—isn’t something he’s going to abandon just because his office looks out on the Plex and Conte Forum these days. n

Dining Services Tweaking New Changes Late Night, from A1 interns, and the interns carried out a survey over Facebook in the student class pages. O’Neill and Emery agreed these responses contained good insights. “We did get a few hundred responses, and some of them were really useful. So we do really appreciate student feedback,” O’Neill said. The changes in Late Night dining actually stemmed from two issues that BC dining sought to address. The first was getting staff to work Late Night at Corcoran Commons, one of the busiest persiods for dining services every day. “We have some students that are not the most well behaved, we have a lot of students that are well behaved,” O’Neill said. “A lot of BC students do not want to work Late Night” This made staffing Late Night difficult. Reflecting safety concerns, as well the hope of decreasing wait time, dining services changed the order in which students pay for their food. At Late Night, students now pay and then hand their receipt to a server. In other dining locations, students get their food and then pay. Under the old system, students would queue to get into Late Night, stand in line for food, and then stand in another line at the cashier. Another factor that heavily contributed to the changes to Late Night was testimonials and data from student focus groups and

feedback, conducted by Student Affairs. “One of the things that came back was that they wanted more of a coffee house feel and vibe in locations around campus,” O’Neill said. On the operations side, O’Neill explained that it did not make much sense to open up another location for Late Night on Lower Campus, since there is not enough demand to fill two venues. Dining Services looked at putting specialty coffee drinks on the first floor of Corcoran Commons, but determined there was no space. These factors eventually pointed Dining Services to Addie’s Loft on the second floor, which actually was the site of Late Night for 12 years before it was moved to the first floor. “If we played with the menu, we could make sort of a pizza-coffee house vibe ... so we thought all those melded together and answered the needs we heard from Student Affairs, from our students, and from our staff,” O’Neill said. Another common question many athletes and students with evening classes asked in focus groups concerned the possibility of having dinner run later. By moving Late Night to Addie’s, Dining is able to keep dinner open until 8:30. The time between 8 and 8:30 p.m. has proved increasingly popular with students, according to O’Neill. In addressing some of the student dissatisfaction concerning the rollout of the

new changes, O’Neill again pointed to deficiencies in communication. “I think the people that got sad in the beginning, in their mind the tradition was changing … that we’ve completely changed it,” she said. “And I think the connotation of healthy annoyed a lot of people.” O’Neill saw that students didn’t want Dining Services telling them how to eat. But, Dining Services’ mission is to provide options, not to tell people what to consume, according to O’Neill. For her, it’s about moderation. “I know students on Saturday night were thrilled with their mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers, and they were happy to hear that it will be there on the weekends.” O’Neill mentioned the rumors that circulated at the start of the semester that Dining Services was getting rid of Late Night. “I don’t know where that started,” she said. “That would never be the plan, we’re here for the students.” The changes have taken some getting used to, and O’Neill said the lines have been flowing better recently. On the first weekend, however, there was some chanting by students at the staff, which O’Neill called unfair, since the staff members are BC students, too. The other locations for Late Night, Stuart and McElroy, are operating largely the same as last year. Stuart is unchanged, and McElroy has had no changes to its menu, but it now closes at 12 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, as opposed to 2 a.m. n

BC Veterans Amplify Campus Presence Veterans, from A1 through the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, it made sense to expand the scope of the BCaligned group that already existed. BCVAN went from hosting only the mass and memorial service on Veterans Day to creating a suite of events for veterans. Networking sessions and guest speakers headline the group’s available resources. Armed with a larger audience and mandate, it wasn’t long before BCVAN inspired similar groups for different parts of the BC veterans community. Today, BCVAN is just one of three pillars, joined by the BC Veterans Affinity Group—for faculty and staff—and the BC Student Veterans Association (BCSVA)—for current BC students. BC launched the affinity group in 2016. At the time, the University’s Human Resources division said that around 80 employees self-identified as veterans. The group operates as in-house advocates for veterans. In addition to joining BCVAN and BCSVA events, they also present in classes and panels concerning militaryrelated discussion. It is currently led by Michael Leone, capital construction project manager at BC, BC ’99, and CGSOM ’21. BCSVA is the latest addition to the BC veterans family, having been co-founded by several graduate student veterans in 2017. Lisa Smith, one of the organization’s

co-founders and GSSW ’18, began the program when she asked to join a veterans group and found out there was none upon her arrival on campus. She built on her experience gained in the Colorado State University Veterans Office in order to start a group that was geared specifically toward student veteran needs. According to Smith, BCSVA aims to help with professional development, bolster relationships, and generally raise awareness about student veterans on campus. Currently, they work with about 70 student vets. She emphasized the fact that veterans who return to their education have to grapple with the transition not only into civilian life, but also student life. “The veteran’s groups on campus serve an important purpose of providing a forum for veterans to get together, develop relationships with one another, share perspectives, and support one another,” Michael Lochhead, executive vice president, a veteran himself, and BC ’93, ’99, said in an email. “This is particularly relevant for our student veterans who, in many cases, are older than traditional undergraduate students or have a different life experiences that they bring to the BC Community.” Since being joined by the two new branches, BCVAN has been able to pursue its ambitions with a much more active schedule. Looking to the future, the leaders of each group aim to create a united front,

welcoming veterans on any path of life. “For veterans at Boston College that haven’t had an opportunity to connect with the employee, alumni or student veterans groups, I encourage them to reach out and get involved,” Lochhead said. “There is a great sense of community and camaraderie building among and between these groups.” The student group will host their flagship event, a kickoff party for all BC-affiliated veterans on Oct. 3 in the Cadigan Alumni Center. There are also plans for a veterans tailgate before an upcoming home football team. Of course, the Veterans Day mass and memorial service, which inspired the network all those years ago, still happens every year.These organizations have even extended their reach beyond BC and its alumni and into the broader Boston area. Through the ROTC program, BCVAN has been able to forge connections with veteran groups at Boston University, Northeastern, MIT, and Harvard. Despite their immediate focus, these groups don’t want to limit their message strictly to other veterans. “Both sides—veterans and non-veterans—have some stereotypical views of the other side, and it’s only with dialogue that you can understand that there are no real differences and we’re all pretty much the same people,” Harrington said. n

The Heights

Monday, September 10, 2018M

the midas touch

Erik Weihenmayer, BC ’91, has completed the Seven Summits and is completely blind. He’s dedicated his life to helping others overcome struggle and summit their fears.

photo courtesy of Manrico Dell’Agnola

Joan Kennedy | Magazine Editor

n May 25, 2001, Erik Weihenmayer, BC ’91, summited Mount Everest. He was standing on top of the world—but he didn’t look around. When Ed and Ellen Weihenmayer first laid eyes on their newborn, they saw a little bit of each other in his face—he had his father’s nose and his mother’s lips, and his ears looked a bit like his older brother’s. But when they looked into his eyes, they couldn’t see that there was a battle being waged. A few months later, while Ed was holding a pint-sized Erik in his arms, he noticed the baby’s eyes were shaking. Thus began the Weihenmayers’ search for an answer as to why his young eyes were twittering. They received extreme recommendations for the unusual condition—one prestigious doctor said they should freeze parts of his eye—and only after 10 specialists did the Weihenmayers get a real diagnosis. “We were blindsided by Dr. Brockhurst, we had no idea that this was a disease—or a condition I should say—that was going to lead to blindness,” Ed said. Erik was diagnosed with juvenile retinoschisis, and Ed and Ellen were told that their newborn had about 12 years left to see the world. Their drive home was disturbed by a desperate visit to a church. The couple fell on the pews, and their baby—ignorant of his imminent loss—smiled as his parents pleaded with salty tears. After their trash bins were flooded with tissues and their eyes were too dry to whine anymore, questions flooded their minds. Erik was about to be the first blind person they had ever met, and they had no idea how to raise him. The Weihenmayers read all the books, then burned them. Despite recommendations, Erik’s parents did not enroll him in a school for the blind—instead his mother marched into his classroom, furious that he had been given an A+ on spelling work that was B- quality, and demanded that he be treated as any other second grader who wrote in orange highlighter and ignored the golden rule: “i before e except after c.” While other kids grew up on nursery rhymes and excuses, Erik ate the words “don’t quit” for breakfast every morning. And from second grade to sixth, his fading eyes devoured the popping color and bright lights of 1970s Hong Kong, markedly, at that time, not a part of China. During a hike one day, the Weihenmayer family came to a fence with a sign that would elicit a 180 from normal passersby—saying something along the lines of “STOP HERE, DO NOT ENTER”—but Erik followed his Marine father over the barbed wire and thus began their illicit romp in mainland China. A movie montage-worthy scene ensued as they scoured a market in a tiny village, with inhabitants that were fascinated at the sight of Westerners. Eventually though, like every good movie (Titanic wouldn’t have been one of the highest-grossing movies of all time if the ship hadn’t sank), the plot thickened. A squadron of police surrounded the tourists and offered them a firm escort to the border—a service that didn’t come without a fee. “My dad said it was the best 50 bucks he ever spent because we had this great adventure,” Erik said. As soon as adventure was shot into Erik’s veins, it coursed relentlessly through his body until he was filled with it up to his eyes. As he pulsed with new excitement, his field of vision became smaller and smaller. His retina’s neurosensory layers never healed their rocky relationship, and their intention to divorce became clearer and clearer. It’s a fact of life that people will pay more for an apartment with a view. An apartment on the top floor in Back Bay overlooking the Charles costs millions. People put marble, not linoleum, in their kitchens if they have a choice, and wake up an hour earlier than they have to before work to watch espresso paint a little white cup dark, as they gaze at the city from their castle—the visible proving their worth, their collection of things making it obvious they’ve done something with their lives. They go to brunch and take pictures of their food for 10 minutes before tasting it, letting it get cold so that they can upload it for others to spend hours feasting their eyes on. For most people, the visible creates the real.

At first, Erik denied the undeniable—his blind fate. There would be no looking out over the city and watching the sun rise. And as day turning to night ended more and more in permanent night, he made up excuses for why he couldn’t see, saying “maybe I didn’t eat enough breakfast” or “I’m just a little under the weather.” He concealed it well though, as his father didn’t even understand the tremendous anger and frustration he was harboring within him until he was editing his first book, Touch the Top of the World—reading the words filled with self-loathing and desperation that marked this part of Erik’s life. “You don’t really know what to think,” Erik said. “It’s like a brick wall that’s in front of you, and you can’t really see how to get through it, or what’s on the other side.” Then the day came when Erik couldn’t argue with himself anymore. Stories and postulations could no longer conceal his loss. He wouldn’t be the first human in history to pull a Houdini on destiny, to screw over nature, or to create his own non-metaphoric reality. “At first you retreat into this senselessness, like a racoon or something,” Erik said. “You’re cornered and trapped and don’t know what to do, so you just lash out at everyone around you.” “Eventually I worked through that,” he added with a chuckle. Erik’s father watched his son plunge into fear—not fear of becoming blind, but fear of not being able to have a dream, and thus fear of having a life lived for nothing. As if being a freshman in high school wasn’t scary enough, Erik went in totally blind, and his classmates only made his life harder. Someone would give the signal for everyone to get quiet when he walked into the cafeteria so that he also walked into utter confusion, and when he finally found a table, he sat alone thinking about what his life was going to be like, and the emptiness that was sure to fill it. “I wasn’t comfortable with blindness. I wasn’t comfortable being blind. I hated being blind,” Erik said. He realized he would have to learn to use a cane and read braille. Blindness was as much a part of him as his lungs and his toes, and if he wanted to survive, he would have to learn to live within new parameters—then he could push them. “People reflect you like a mirror,” Erik said. “The way you see yourself, people see you. … Once I got comfortable with myself, others did too.” Erik joined the wrestling team, and when things started to look up, tragedy smacked the Weihenmayer family once again— this time, a fatal one. Erik’s mom, who grew up in the epitome of rural Florida, having been crowned “Miss Soybean Queen” in high school, was killed in a car accident. “Not to get too deep, but when somebody dies, they’re like gone, you know,” Erik said. “Like they’re this corpse, but they’re gone, and it’s so bizarre.” Erik went into his mother’s closet, crazed by the pain, and smelled her shoes—sniffing her booted, heeled, and open-toed memory. She was buried in Florida, and Erik never stopped trying to feel a connection with her. He recalls visiting her grave site, searching for some sort of spiritual junction. “It was really hot, and there were mosquitoes, and gnats,” he said. He sat beside her grave and waited to feel his lost mother. “My guide dog was sitting there panting, stinky breath in my face, drooling on me … There were noises off in the distance like a lawn mower or something,” he said. The hot-stickiness of Erik’s dog’s slobber and his own sweat on his leg was not the long awaited union he was hoping for among the headstones. Erik felt frustration, and annoyance— but not his mother’s presence. Then he realized that the connection he was searching for was engulfing him. “The connection is with the world,” Erik said. “it’s with the stinky breath of my guide dog drooling on me, and you know,

that lawnmower off in the distance and the trees and the mosquitoes and the grass and the heat.” Erik called his mother the dustpan to his father’s broom. The Weihenmayers’ parenting philosophy was to treat Erik as normally as possible—painting his bike ramps orange so he could continue to jump them for as long as possible when he was losing his sight. Ed acted the part of the broom—sweeping Erik out into the world, and Ellen was the dustpan, picking him up when he came home battered and scarred. In the wake of loss, Ed, knowing he could never replace the love of a mother, decided to start taking his family on bonding trips during the summers— an attempt to add glue to their broken pieces. After Erik’s senior year of high school, the Weihenmayer family set out to see the vast constructions of Andean dwellers in modern-day Peru. They visited precise stone buildings and 14,000 miles of open road hiking the Camino Inca, marked by four days of snaky-severity in the Urubamba Valley, to a mysterious city two miles above sea level: Machu Picchu. On the last day of the jaunt, Erik, using trekking poles and listening to someone jingling a bell in front of him, came to the Sun Gate, or Inti Punku, where modern travelers pause in ancient traveler’s footsteps and get their first glimpse of Machu Picchu, thousands of miles below. While most see, Erik hears. “You learn to use your ears,” Erik said. “Some people call it ‘echo location,’ where you click and you listen to the sound of space … and I could hear the city below me—a rock city. It was a really dramatic sound.” He could hear the way rock structures tiered down the valley, until the valley morphed into river hundreds of thousands of feet beneath him. From heights that would cause some to cower, Erik felt the wind whipping against his face, and the spirit of Hiram Bingham within him—as if he was finding the lost city for the first time. ttending a football game was all it took to get Erik chanting “For Boston! For Boston!” for the next four years. He and his guide dog, Wizard, learned how to navigate from class to class on weekdays and from Walsh back to Fenwick on sweaty freshman weekends. He finished off his time at BC in a Mod (“I loved them but they got a little gross.”) and then marched back four years later to Alumni Stadium, where it all began, to give the Commencement speech to the Class of 2003, telling them “A winner plays the game once, a champion understands that the game never ends. Life is an ongoing process of reaching into the dark not knowing what we will find.” Growing up, Erik took I-84 up from Connecticut (where he moved after living in Hong Kong) straight to Boston to either climb in Newton or visit retinol specialists. His first rock climbing trip sparked an interest—it was a sport like wrestling where he could use his sense of touch to end up on top. His hands loved figuring out the puzzle of the rock face, his body craved the dynamism. “It was kind of for me the opposite of what I feared blindness would be,” Erik said. “It wasn’t like a prison, it was like freedom … really beautiful you know?” So when he got offered a job at Phoenix Country Day School in rock-climbing country (where he taught Meghan McCain English), after getting his master’s degree in middle school education on the Crimson side of the Charles, he grabbed his gear and began his migration to a school that saw him as an asset rather than someone to accommodate, in a direction that’s always driven people mad with excitement. Erik broke away from the East Coast, with its prep schools and chastening winters. “That was his first bold decision, to go west,” Ed said. On one of many climbs in Arizona, a bold friend catalyzed the biggest pivot in Erik’s life since his diagnosis—another knife cutting the fabric of his existence, and a new frontier.

Monday, September 10, 2018

The Heights

“He was like, ‘Hey we should try something bigger!’” Erik said. “And I was like, ‘What, like a little bit higher rock face?’ ... We had mostly been doing a one rope length’s climb, but I was thinking maybe a two ropes’ length climb. And, he goes, ‘No,

could receive 90 percent of funding for the cost of his dream. ee who at the time was getting his Ph.D. in bioengineering from Erik took on a new job title, “vagabond fundraiser,” as he popped MIT and now builds the most sophisticated prosthetic legs in from outdoor show to outdoor show, asking for gear and atten- the world) for a film project by Mark Wellman (the first paration, and assembly to assembly, talking his way to more mon- plegic to climb El Capitan, who did 7,000 pull ups up the rock ey for his voyage. His face in eight days). They were, as Erik describes, a “full disabled wife, who he met at team.” Erik carried Wellman, while Herr did the pitches. Phoenix Country Day, “It was at the top of that rock face for me where No Barriers continued to teach, began because I thought, ‘Okay I want to surround myself with keeping them afloat. these people like Mark and Hugh,” Erik said. “You get completeTo make matters offi- ly shattered in life, some more than others, and how do you kind cial, Erik began pen- of rebuild yourself, so you don’t get stuck?” ning his first book, Erik described how, after failure and trauma, a crust is creTouch the Top of the ated around the body, holding it back from moving forward— World. which is why after Everest he sought to treat a universal ailment: “It was a little struggle. He wanted to understand the processes that people premature because who face great tragedies use to move forward. Wellman called I hadn’t actually him a year later with a similar idea, and thus the nonprofit No touched the top of the Barriers began, under the budding idea in science called “neuworld yet,” Erik said. “I roplasticity,” or the ability of the brain to change throughout a was investing in myself person’s life. I guess.” In a talk last year for Agape Latte Erik talked more about his As people tossed friend Wellman, who broke his back on a climbing expedition, Erik a few bucks and then conceived of a pulley system, through which he pulled himshoes or a pack here self up mountains six inches at a time, so he would never have to what about Denali.’” and there, they watched him walk to a silent beat, possessed by stop reaching higher. He calls Wellman an “alchemist,” because Erik hardly knew what Denali was, and after his friend ex- passion and determination. Those who could look couldn’t keep he managed to transform the weighty lead life had piled on him plained it to him, his confusion morphed to laughter, which their eyes off of him. into gold, recalling that “he said the greatest breakthrough of his soon turned to curiosity. “Being a blind climber is sort of like being a Jamaican bob- life was when he looked at where his legs were supposed to be “I’m very impressionable, so I was like, ‘Well this guy believes sledder,” Erik said. and instead of seeing loss, he saw a blank canvas.” it’s possible.’” Erik said. “And I’m very linear, so I was like, ‘How No matter how many people were rooting for Erik, a single “It’s really tricky for people to do,” Erik said. “It’s not turning do I create a plan to get from A to Z?’” fact cast a shadow over the mission: Most people who attempt lemons into lemonade or all of these silly expressions. It’s really So, he set out for the American Foundation for the Blind. to climb Everest don’t. It’s a perfectly lethal cocktail of scalding saying, ‘My choice is to either let this thing crush me or to figure “They sponsored us, and I was like, ‘Oh God, now I’m cold, rationed oxygen, and exalted elevation trapped—I’m committed,’” Erik said. standing between Nepal and Tibet. In preparation for the punishing cold and extreme self suf“There’s no valor to being shot against ficiency in Alaska, Erik had to learn how to cook meals, set up the canyon—success is if you live,” Ed said. tents with gloves on, rope together, and build snow walls—all Nonetheless, Erik ascended with a team activities which are hard, but harder given that he was blind of 19, led by Pasquale Scaturro, who had aland stripping another sense from himself by wearing gloves. ready led seven other Everest expeditions. The trip was unbelievably hard, especially for a blind person Erik, who claims to love the normalcy of slipping and sliding through boot marks eight hours a day—just sidewalks, skidded through the ice, wontrying not to fall. dering if instead of having the mountain His team ended up summiting on June 27. As Erik sat in an within him, the mountain would have him igloo that had been built in their high camp, catching his breath, within it. he had time to think through what his body had just done. After climbing Everest, everything ex“I remember … going ‘this is a part of me now,’ like this crazy, ploded. Though his neurosensory layers severe, austere landscape, and this difficulty, all this challenge— had long parted, a new splitting occured on it’s inside of me, somehow I’ve taken it in, I’ve like digested it,” the top of the world—the splitting of disErik said. “You never conquer a mountain, but the thing be- ability from a blind man’s shoulders. After comes a part of you. Like nobody can take that away from you.” his worn feet touched the ground—once On the icy ground, a switch flipped. After taking another again confronting busy streets, hardwood hit of the sense of adventure he felt trespassing in China, cliff floors, and grass—instead of applause Erik diving in Connecticut, and hiking in Peru, he realized he didn’t heard only the words of Scaturro: Don’t let want to stop. Everest be the greatest thing you ever do. “I realized I wanted to keep doing this as long as I could … “What I learned is the tricky tenuous and that just led to the next adventure and then Everest and process of growth and how easy it is to get the seven summits, and hundreds of mountains all around the sidelined, how easy it is at any step of that world since then,” Erik said. journey to get stuck at the side and kind of He thought about making a life for himself in the mountains stagnate,” Erik said. constantly—as red ink crept onto poorly done homework, and Not allowing himself to stagnate, in grades were carved onto loose leaf, Erik was thinking about 2014, after training for six years, Erik solo drawing his feet through mountain pathways. kayaked every inch of the 277 miles of the “In some ways it’s kind of preposterous, because it’s like, Grand Canyon. Much more difficult than there aren’t that many blind, you know, like professional ad- climbing Everest, requiring more grit, and venturers in the world,” Erik said. “It’s not something like, you with a higher mission of proving that his cover courtesy of didrik johnck/corbis sygma know, a venture capitalist would be invested in.” mantra of “what’s within you is stronger Erik Weihenmayer graced the cover of the Time Magazine on June 18, 2001 One man took a risk on him though: his father. Early on in than what’s in your way.” Now a professional life, Ed had decided he would act as Erik’s partner, not the par- speaker, Erik didn’t want to be the guy still ent limiting him beyond his condition. Ed recalls when Erik told talking about climbing Everest at his funerhim he wanted to train to solo skydive, and despite being the al. He set out to reinvent himself with the persistence of the out a way to harness that energy.” leader of an adventurous family who tandem parachuted and river. No Barriers has a curriculum of alchemy and elevation that sledded down mountains in India, Ed was concerned. But, be“It was a more immediate fear, just in your face fear,” Erik it brings to people in its annual summits and programming. In fore his lips could emit a negative, Erik brought out the blue- said. “You can’t stop. There’s no catching your breath.” 2010, the organization added “No Barriers Warriors” through prints and showed his father his thoroughly contemplated plan, Standing before the roaring waters of the Colorado—home which veterans from all branches of the military participate in proving to Ed once again that what he needed was a partner, to some of the world’s most dangerous rapids (Class V)—Erik, events (like trekking through the Rockies, skiing to the South not a discipliner. Nearing retirement, Ed told Erik he would give before even getting his toes wet, had to confront a demon try- Pole, and rafting in the Grand Canyon) and conversation about him the expertise and experiential backup he needed to run a ing to destroy him from within, who began planting the idea in their past, present, and future. No Barriers and the lifestyle it his head that he had has created will impact 12,000 people next year. gotten lucky on the Erik doesn’t shy away from a challenge or a conversation—he mountains. Hum- doesn’t half ass either. He’ll talk for hours, his voice perpetuated bling and fear induc- by some seemingly otherworldly energy. He talks about climbing, the seedlings ing, working, thinking, literature, his kids, his wife, his friends, of self-doubt were his guide dogs, his mistakes—he’ll talk until he comes to a gentle soon over-watered pause and his voice begins to quiver. The quieter he becomes, by the whitecaps of and the slower words drip from his tongue, the closer you listen. the river—never to When asked whether he thinks sight is integral to experibe made to rise out ence, Erik described hovering 2,000 feet off the earth, on a verof the dirt. tical, frozen waterfall. Feeling nothing beneath him, he floated Erik made it out for a minute, engulfed by the air. Though his mission was to of the hell-bent wa- the top, something pulled him to stop, take off his glove, and ters alive because he run it across a mass of ice in front of his face. The trunk of the forced himself to let ice felt like that of a tree because of the atmosphere’s periodic go, to put himself at pushing against the ice, causing it to billow down, then drip tothe mercy of the riv- ward earth. er’s fast pace and use The ice was smooth as glass, running vertically down, then its energy. Though dropping into space. There were occasional stalactites, and both the 10-foot tall sometimes pockets that he stuck his hands into to feel little and lateral waves crystals of ice growing within. As his canaled fingertips touched slammed into him, the tips of the ice, the ice played a symphony for him, noisily spitting him out re- chattering at his stroke. peatedly, he kept “I just remember thinking, that’s stunning, like staggeringly diving back in. beautiful. Just the touch of the ice, the sound of the ice … so “It’s fun build- yeah, you can get great beauty and connections from your other photo courtesy of Luis Benitez ing yourself into senses,” he said. “I don’t know if one is better than the other.” n Weihenmayer, Jeff Evans, and Eric Alexander on the summit of Mt. Everest on May 25, 2001 something that you weren’t, and I wanted to have that river business, to be the first-ever blind professional adventurer. within me,” Erik said. The die had been cast, and bags darted to be packed—soon Erik doesn’t define himself by personal adventure, though. Erik and his wife moved to Colorado. His father, being the After summiting Everest, the man on the cover of Time magaco-chairman for the American Foundation for the Blind, helped zine, was invited to climb with Hugh Herr (a double leg amput his son present his expensive proposition to them so that he

“In some ways it’s kind of preposterous, because ithere aren’t that many blind professional adventurerers in the world. It’s not something a venture capitalist would be invested in.” -Erik Weihenmayer, BC ’91

The Heights

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things to do in Boston this week

Starting on Friday, Brookline will host its annual Greek Festival. The festival will run all weekend, and feature Greek food, music, dancing, boutiques, and films. Admission is free, and all are welcome. For children and families, a Pumpkin Festival will also be held with games and activities.

Monday, September 10, 2018

On Saturday, the Mayor’s Office of Tourism and Entertainment will host its 3rd annual Social Fitness Festival. Held in Boston City Hall Plaza, admission is free, and people of all ages and fitness levels are invited to come and break a sweat together.

On Sunday, the Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts and Boston Local Food will host a Local Food Festival. Held at the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the festival will showcase fresh eats from farmers, local restaurants, and food trucks.

On Tuesday, Primary Elections Drew to Close in Massachusetts By Jack Goldman News Editor

And Chloe McAllaster Assoc. Metro Editor

At 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the polls closed for the Massachusetts primary, sealing the results of the state’s most contested elections, most notably the upset in the 7th District that left Ayanna Pressley victorious over 10-term incumbent Michael Capuano, Boston College Law ’77. Pressley, the first African American woman elected to the Boston City Council, will become the first person of color to represent Massachusetts in the House, according to The Boston Globe. With the Republican party’s lack of a nominee, she will face no challenge to the seat in the Nov. 6 general election. “We did everything we could do to get this done,” Capuano said in his concession speech, according to WBZ’s Carl Stevens. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out … but this is life. … Ayanna Pressley is going to be a good Congresswoman.” Some of Massachusetts’s most prominent politicians once served in the 11th District—which has been redrawn to become the 7th District—including John F. Kennedy and Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr., according to Matt Viser. Pressley’s victory was surprising in light of Capuano’s backing by key members of the Democratic Party, including Boston mayor Marty Walsh, BC ’09, and the fact that Capuano raised nearly double the funds Pressley did, according to The Boston Globe. “I knew I would be demonized as

entitled and what no woman can ever be—ambitious. But change can’t wait,” Pressley said to her supporters at the electrical workers’ union hall in Dorchester after her victory was announced, according to The Boston Globe. Walsh did note the morning after the primaries during a scrum with reporters that despite the fact that three—and depending on the outcome of the 3rd district primary, perhaps four—of the candidates he endorsed did not win their primaries, he was still thrilled for Pressley and was excited to “come together” with the politicians he didn’t endorse in the primaries. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who unexpectedly won a New York congressional primary in June, congratulated Pressley on Twitter, aligning herself as an ally on the issues of Medicare for all, tuition-free college, and living wages. In District 4, of which BC is a part, incumbent Rep. Joe P. Kennedy III easily secured the Democratic bid against Gary Rucinski with 93.4 percent of the votes. Kennedy has held the seat since 2013, and currently faces no GOP challenger in the November election. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker triumphed in his primary: The most popular governor in the country defeated opponent Scott Lively by about 50,000 votes. In the November elections, he will go up against Democrat Jay Gonzalez, who defeated his primary opponent Bob Massie by a similarly large margin. Incumbent Secretary of State William Galvin defeated Boston City Councilor Josh Zakim in what was his most com-

petitive primary since being elected to the seat in 1994. He will face Republican newcomer Anthony Amore in November, which Galvin has said is likely to be his last election, according to the Globe. In the race for U.S. Senate, Republican nominee Geoff Diehl defeated John Kingston and Beth Lindstrom to face incumbent Senator Elizabeth Warren. Moments after Diehl’s triumph, Warren’s campaign issued a press release where the incumbent senator accepted three debates against Diehl. The GOP candidate has aligned himself with President Donald Trump during the election process, having previously co-chaired his 2016 election efforts in Massachusetts. “The Republican primary debate process was a sham and, as a result, Massachusetts voters were robbed of real discussion and discourse on issues that affect their lives,” Warren’s campaign manager Roger Lau said in the release. “We’ve accepted three general election debates because Massachusetts voters deserve serious policy conversations as the balance of the Senate is on the line.” Holly Robichaud, a Diehl advisor, said the “nominee would participate in all three debates as well,” according to The Boston Globe. Matters are more complicated in the race to represent the 3rd District. Lori Trahan won the Democratic bid for representative in Congress in the 3rd District by 43 votes over competitor Dan Koh, according to the Associated Press’s tally the morning after the election. Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office told The Boston

Photo courtesy of associated press

Pressley is poised to become the first person of color to serve Massachusetts in the House.

Globe that provisional votes are still being counted. Galvin ordered election officials to seal all counted ballots as a precautionary measure in case of a recount. Trahan declared victory, but Koh is yet to concede, and his campaign said in a statement that no concession is coming, according to a statement given to The Boston Globe. His office is also “reviewing the process for a recount,” according to that statement. The eventual winner will face uncontested GOP candidate Rick Green. The 3rd District’s primary drew particular attention after current Representative Niki Tsongas unexpectedly announced her retirement in early August from the position she held for a decade, according to The Boston Globe. The 71-year-old representative hopes

her departure from public life will grant her more time to spend with her family. Koh was considered the favorite to replace her, given his association with Walsh and his larger financial war chest. Not every House of Representatives incumbent fell in their primaries in the Bay State. The 1st District’s incumbent Representative Richard Neal defeated primary opponent Tahirah AmatulWadud. In the 8th District, Representative Stephen Lynch defeated his two primary opponents, Brianna Wu and Christopher Voehl. In the race for attorney general, Republican Jay McMahon defeated opponent Daniel Shores. He will challenge incumbent Maura Healey, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary. n

MBTA to Replace Signals, Lay New Track Along Green Line By Chloe McAllaster Assoc. Metro Editor

America’s first subway is getting some improvements. More specifically, 25,000 feet of track and 6.5 miles of signal infrastructure on the MBTA Green Line D branch are being replaced in a $102 million project. The project runs through the heart

of Newton and will impact the town’s busiest stations over the course of the 30month contract. The construction is set to begin this October, with an expected end date of December 2020. Beth Larkin, MBTA assistant general manager for capital delivery, gave a presentation on Thursday at Newton Free Library to inform the public and address concerns regarding the disruptive nature

Chloe McAllaster / Heights Editor

The MBTA will replace 25,000 feet of track and 6.5 miles of signal infastructure in Newton.

of the project. “We recognize the importance of both balancing the needs for our state of good repairs improvements to keep our trains running and the service provided at the level which can but reliable,” Larkin said. “But we also want to understand and be respectful of the fact that this is going through a fairly densely populated community.” She emphasized that construction is necessarily disruptive, but the MBTA is striving to minimize any inconvenience and annoyance the project may cause for those living near the tracks or who utilize the D branch. “Our goal is to make it tolerable,” Larkin said. Track replacement will occur in six segments between the Beaconsfield and Riverside stations. Five sections are located in Newton, with the remainder in Brookline. Signals will be replaced for the entire length spanning Reservoir to Riverside. According to Larkin, the primary goal of these improvements is to modernize infrastructure and centralize the signal system equipment for easier access.

Some of the components being replaced have been serving the MBTA since World War I. The project will also provide a redundant power supply system, upgrade crossovers and track switches, and rebuild pedestrian crosswalks and truck pads. The combined effect of these improvements will result in increased reliability for Green Line riders. Modern signals will result in fewer delays, and the new track will increase rider safety. Additionally, all speed restrictions caused by poor track condition will no longer apply to the D branch. Larkin clarified that this does not mean the trains will run faster, just that they will not be made to run slower than normal due to track disrepair. The bulk of construction will occur at night for the duration of the project. On a typical night, work will begin at 9 p.m. and end at 4:30 a.m. in one of the six zones. From 9 p.m. until 12:30 a.m., bus service will replace train service for these hours in which the T would typically serve customers. On weeknights, 14 buses will be provided, while on weekend nights 24 buses will be available wherever service

is disrupted. Larkin specified 8-minute headways for these buses, and estimated bus service will add about 15 minutes to the average commute. Fifteen weekends have also been allotted to complete special trackwork, such as where crossovers occur. These weekends will not be specified until later, but contractors must give a 30-day notice before they plan to use one of the weekends. Again, buses will be provided to compensate for disrupted train service. Noise is one of the major public concerns regarding the project, especially for those who live near the tracks. According to Larkin, the loudest aspect of construction will be cutting the rails. This will occur within the first two hours on any given work night. Another major issue raised at the meeting was where contractors will be accessing the MBTA right of way. On the west end of the project, Riverside will serve as the primary access point. In zone 2 from Newton Highlands to Reservoir, the primary access point will be Reservoir. Contractors have also indicated they may need access at the Chestnut Hill station at some points. n

Globetrotter Notes: A Non-Academic Case Study of Global Transit Systems Alessandro zenati It’s 5 in the afternoon. Record-high temperatures are sweeping across Europe. Workers sling their blazers and messenger bags fastidiously over their shoulders as they shuffle through the microplug doors of a Victoria-line train car, with dreams of a blissful air conditioner festering in their minds. In the bowels of London’s labyrinthian Tube network, familiar announcements reminding travelers to mind the gap between the platform and the train echo through space. The transit soundscape is unique and distills much of what it feels like to move around in an urban setting. In a cultural context in which efficient systems save people time and provide positive knock-on effects, particular attention should be placed on how spatial design influences

the viscerality of commuting. I wanted to use my summer to begin developing an understanding of how these transit systems, and the sensations experienced in the act of moving through them, served country-specific urban challenges such as traffic and pollution. Using London as a base, I hopped on low-budget flights to Geneva, rented bicycles to get around Copenhagen, and visited Malmø by train, passing over the Øresund Bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden. Since all associated travel expenditures were to be paid with my own hard-earned money, I generally elected to use the cheapest—and perhaps the slowest—transportation means in order to dedicate more of my budget toward haute accommodation: a hostel with four dorm-style bunk beds, shared bathrooms, and uncomfortably little regard for personal space was the luxury I treated myself to. Despite this, it occurred to me that with every passing day spent in a foreign land I was becoming less of a passerby and more of a temporary citizen,

endowed with a firm connection to each unique milieu. As a result of my tight budget, it was often the case that I would travel from point A to point B rubbing shoulders with each country’s social and cultural footsoldiers. It’s no wonder this feeling of release from the lukewarm experience of tourism came about. A firm belief among globetrotters is that the best way to experience a new landscape is to move as the locals move: ride India’s rickshaws, zoom around on Italy’s Vespas, shift gears on Denmark’s bicycles, and hail London’s black cabs. I am proud to report that this has a solid grounding in the truth. On the whole, Europe and the United States enjoy—read: tolerate— dramatically different subway systems. In general, trains in London and Geneva are cleaner, quicker, and more deliberately designed than those in Boston. For example, the London Underground trains (henceforth called “the Tube”) have very limited capacity, with low ceilings and tight corridors much to the chagrin of flash mob performers. What the Tube lacks

in individual train car size, however, it makes up for in frequency and timetable consistency. Rarely will you spend more than three minutes waiting between arrivals on the platform, which is a godsend on hot days when you’re desperately trying to validate your decision to forego a pricey cab ride home. For Bostonians, the T is decidedly more spacious and air-conditioned than the Tube but the space is impressively underutilized. Both traincars feature handrails above the seats lined along the perimeter, encouraging an unfortunate encroachment on the personal space of seated riders. Yet, the T falls short on effectively utilizing the corridor vacancy, as it lacks sufficient poles for those standing to hold onto as the train noisily lurches along the tracks. That reminds me: the noise! You’d have to casually be carrying a pair of industrial grade air traffic control earmuffs to protect yourself from screeching of the T’s wheels against the steel tracks! Good luck having a smooth conversation, or at least one in which you don’t have to ask

for clarification. But who am I to complain if public transit systems do what they’re meant to do and get me where I’m going? Am I being snobby in asking for a rider experience that offers more than the bare minimum? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. It’s possible that, at the current rate of innovation within the mobility industry, my observations—and yours!—will help to inform the future of what urban travel looks and feels like. The concept of connected, shared resources is gaining traction and an encouraging dimension of this future is that it just might bring us back into honest contact with each other. We should take this opportunity we have to collaborate purposefully by examining the shape of our cities, communicating our desires, and informing the design of

our environment to efficiently support the activities borne out of human capital. Because, in the end, the city is ours.

Alessandro Zenati is the metro editor for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

The Heights

EDITORIAL

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Explore Pilot Programs to Avoid Student Backlash

In an email to students sent on Wednesday, the Office of International Programs (OIP) announced that it will be implementing restrictions on the number of students who will be approved to study abroad each semester beginning with the 2019-2020 academic year. The discrepancy between the number of students going abroad in the spring and those going abroad in the fall creates “challenges for on-campus students seeking housing and seats in required courses.” Similarly, Boston College Dining Services implemented changes to Late Night at Corcoran Commons with limited forewarning or student outreach. Now operating out of Addie’s, it has faced largely negative responses from students. Students should recognize that Late Night is a privilege that we’re fortunate to have. While it might be a silly thing for us to care so much about, it is a part of BC’s social culture that students are obviously very passionate about—maybe more passionate than BC realized.

Monday, September 10, 2018

Student reactions to these two institutional changes—the former significant to academics, and the latter to BC’s social culture— demonstrate a lack of communication between students and the administration regarding policy changes on campus. For new implementations to encounter better reception from students, it is important that the administration considers students’ input, not only via focus groups but by establishing pilot projects and communicating potential changes with students prior to their complete execution. In the past, pilots and collaborations with students have presented new academic and social programs that were eventually integrated on campus. Starting several years ago,the University gradually introduced Complex Problems and Enduring Questions courses intended to excite students to fulfill core requirements by initially presenting them to a small number of freshmen. BC slowly increased the number of seats available while

“Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” - John F. Kennedy

continuing to monitor student responses to the programs. Likewise, DiversityEdu emerged after the administration met with student leaders to address the student demonstrations criticizing the administration’s lacking response to the racist incidents that occurred last year. This program, now required for all students to complete independently by a set deadline, is a beneficial educational tool created to foster a more inclusive environment in which all students feel welcome. These are big changes being made within the operations of the University that contribute significantly to the identity of BC: About 50 percent of students study abroad, and—senseless or not—a lot of students and alumni feel very strongly about Late Night. Without gathering students’ opinions regarding such established institutions within BC, even marginal changes may face unnecessary retaliation, which would prove unnecessary given adequate student input.

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The Heights

Monday, September 10, 2018

Small Decisions, Big Consequences On-Campus gained from studying such a heroine? 69

the Buddha, and St. Ignatius have all

tion and consideration of her decisions,

espoused the power of being mindful.

may actually embody the purest form

Luis Fialho voicemails - (Disclaimer: I’m not talking about the kind of voicemail that your dad leaves angrily when he sees that you’ve ordered $300 worth of very useful items like a projector and an expert level sudoku book that you obviously need on his Amazon account. Nor am I talking about the voicemails that your grandma leaves, when she says “Hi, call me back,” followed by 75 minutes of dishwashing because she forgot to hang up the phone. That leaves only about 5 percent of voicemails that are worthwhile. But when you get to re-listen to your five-year-old cousin tell you how much he missed you when you left for school freshman year, and you can embarrass your friend from home with the voicemail she left you one night when her inhibitions were quite low, some voicemails certainly make up for the crappy majority.) emails - You’ve got emails from stores you’ve ordered something from once, subscriptions from magazines and newspapers that you signed up for to pretend that you read the news, useful emails from Boston College that tell you about things you care about, annoying emails from BC that tell you about things you don’t care about, and important emails you actually have to read that you leave unread for five days because you really don’t want to read it. And they all go to different addresses. But hey, at least you’re getting notifications. aim - message me @ bballstar0002198! 69

Every new year brings with it an

super long texts - Sending and receiving them. They’re awful. If you can’t see all of the message without having to scroll, know that no one is reading it. Odds are, no one cares about it anyway, but if you really have to share something in that many words and you can’t say it in person, it would even be better to say it over a phone call. As long as you can say it in 90 seconds.

Like Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down? Follow us @BCTUTD

uselessness of an unexamined life for

value that is particularly useful for

Socrates and shown how magis, doing

grappling with the start of a new year.

more for Christ, requires a deeper

Though that comparison is admit-

reflection and mindfulness into one’s own embodiments of Jesuit values.

onslaught of changes and subsequent

Mindfulness finds an easy avenue into

Choice is power, but often this power is

emotions. Unbelievably important

one’s life through reflection on deci-

forgotten. In college especially, one can

decisions are made in the first few

sions. I choose my classes like I choose

easily feel powerless—one can feel as

weeks of a new school year, and these

breakfast cereals: with a lot of thought-

if their life is on a path and they’re just

decisions could either ruin or glorify

ful consideration. What I eat every day

mindlessly walking it, that everything

the rest of your semester, or even the

should be just as important as what I

is set into motion, and they can only

rest of your life. After all, what side of

work toward every day. The tiny deci-

watch it unfold. Starting a semester

the room do I put my desk on? Do I put

sions in life aren’t difficult because

can feel like a pseudo-beginning, as if

my lamp on the left or the right? Do I

they’re unimportant—they’re difficult

everything is already completed, as if

buy dark roast or Breakfast Blend for

because they are genuinely meaningful.

one is stuck in a rut that will become

my new coffee maker?

Buying my textbooks takes no thought,

his or her routine. Making every deci-

and no stress: I simply do it. But when

sion, even the insignificant ones, with

to be purposefully simplistic—which

I stand in that line for half an hour, and

care helps one remember their own

they are—I assure you that I have

I admire the Boston College pens and

constant power of choice. Just as I can

actually lost hours of sleep over what

cups and mugs, I spend most of that

choose to buy pens instead of pencils, I

kind of coffee to buy. Anyone who has

time entertaining ideas about whether I

can choose to stay in school and get my

ever stayed up far too late browsing

really do want that BC fidget spinner.

Ph.D. instead of dropping out to write a

While these questions may seem

RedBubble for stickers knows what I’m

That decision, though less impor-

mix-tape—either way, it’s always up to

talking about: Decisions, especially the

tant and costly than my textbook, is

me to decide. Mindfulness, even when

“tiny” ones, can be surprisingly diffi-

made with more consideration simply

considering something as stupidly basic

cult. Take all these “tiny” decisions and

because it’s an absolutely free choice.

as coffee, is more than just over-think-

add in all the “big” decisions college

I can’t not buy a textbook for a class

ing the simple. It’s an earnest consid-

students make, and suddenly you find

without large negative consequences,

eration of what could easily become a

yourself drowning under your choices.

but that fidget spinner is a mystery. It

life-long, thoughtless monotony.

How does one cope with having to

could dramatically improve or ruin my

make so many decisions, big or small?

quality of life, but I’ll only know the

choices that will shape the rest of my

Thinking about all my decisions

So as I start the year, as I make

result of what I choose. If—like Gold-

life, it doesn’t feel as scary. The more

invariably reminds me of Goldilocks.

ilocks—I take the time to think about

decisions I make and the more thought

Everything I try to do I try to do just

every decision I make, no matter how

I place into my considerations, the

right. And while you may think Gol-

insignificant, I am being mindful in the

more comfortable I feel about making

dilocks was simply a pretentious brat

purest sense.

them. As crazy as it sounds, reflecting

who should’ve eaten her cold porridge,

While this may seem tangential

on a choice as simple as my desktop

or you disregard her morality entirely

to any conversation about choosing

background makes me feel reassured

since she just stole everything from

majors or careers and can be scoffed at

about my larger decisions, simply

hardworking bears, she nonetheless

as unnecessary grief and over-analyza-

because I feel active in the details of my

stands as an icon for the freedom of

tion, I find it all incredibly rewarding.

life. Even the tiniest parts of living are

arbitrary choice. She had a lot of deci-

Over the past few years, more and

worthy of a thoughtful consideration.

sions to make, and she rolled with them

more conversation has been popping

all. After all, what was “just right” for

up surrounding this idea of mindful-

Goldilocks was only right for one of

ness. Apps like Calm or Headspace all

the three bears. Is there anything to be

function to make people more mindful

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

Algorithms Invading Privacy

This weekend, I was playing a game of Quip-lash (a local multiplayer game in the spirit of Apples to Apples) with a group of friends when I made an amusing observation: I said to my friend seated next to me, “It’s as if an algorithm generated all of our responses. I can’t determine one person’s jokes from another.” “Huh,” she nodded, looking at the screen. It may be natural for a group of friends to share a brand of humor to the point where, if someone fed all of our quips to an algorithm, it would produce an appropriately styled joke. It’s not natural, however, that real computer algorithms affect our media consumption based on our perceived interest and the interests of the increasingly privatized internet. Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube have all created their own algorithms that produce personalized content and advertisements according to the user’s consumption history. With the seemingly random rise in popularity of the “Johny Johny” and other bizarre and apparently meaningless children-oriented videos, the internet has become increasingly fascinated with and perplexed by what exactly drives internet algorithms to suggest content. The New York Times published a concerning article about the disturbing children’s videos that slip past the YouTube content filter, into the autoplay feature produced by YouTube’s algorithm and onto the screens of young children’s devices. These videos include sinister themes of violence, sexual assault, and other traumatic content. Now, I remember discovering YouTube in middle school and watching poorly drawn MS paint animations with titles like “Spongebob shoots Patrick with a Machine Gun.” But the current

graphic content involving beloved children’s characters is much more skillfully produced and accessible to much younger children using YouTube and other streaming services. Producing traumatic content marketed to vulnerable children is one of the more appalling examples of algorithms—other times the negative effects can be a little more elusive to pinpoint. Another piece, in the Huffington Post, calls for accountability from Google to monitor content produced by its search engine algorithms. Suggestions for Google searches come from

“...Instagram ads knew about his sexuality before he even came out to his family...” algorithms manufactured to be relevant to the search inquiry, but author Frank Pasquale argues that such algorithms seem to have their own agenda entirely. For example, if you search for phrases about the Holocaust, some of the top results produced by Google are from anti-semitic sources that deny the Holocaust ever happened. Other sources claim searching for “hands” on Google Images produces primarily photos of white hands, and searches for “criminal” produces primarily photos of black people. Algorithms are largely responsible for the advertisements and “sponsored” content that appear on our Instagram and Facebook feeds. Sometimes, the accuracy of targeted ads can be alarming. A few years ago, Forbes published an article about advertisements that could tell when a consumer was pregnant before they have told their close friends. Advertisers analyze the consumers’ content preferences and market related products to them—even the most subtle consumer choices can inform advertisers on their personal lives, including their sexual preferences. A friend of mine reports that Instagram ads knew about his sexuality

Community

Here at BC, we are taught about the

of the Jesuit value of mindfulness—a

tedly hyperbolic, it still holds merit.

Sabel Flynn

talking on the phone - I understand that it’s a much more efficient way to speak to someone. Make plans. Get information. Communicate with someone without actually being with them. But those people who call you “just to chat” are the exact people that can truly ruin my day. Completely. It’s easy to multitask when you’re talking on the phone because when you can’t actually see the other person’s face, there’s a much greater chance you aren’t actually paying attention to what they’re saying. Any phone call longer than 90 seconds is stupid and should be prevented by all phone companies.

of their lives through meditation. Plato,

Goldilocks, in her constant reflec-

before he even came out to his family and friends. To get recommended LGBTQ+ content, one doesn’t need to view content as explicit as gay porn, because algorithms used by social media platforms can understand subtle trends in user preferences to make inferences about their personal life and what users are likely to buy. I know my devices probably know me better than I know myself. My browsing history, consumer choices, and posts I engage with all inform the various algorithms serving the feedback loop that provides me with new content. If I were to browse a friend’s Instagram account, I know my user experience would be very different than the one I’m used to. Observe the suggested content that algorithms produce for you. Then, delete the cookies in your browser and view generic content such as current events, sports, or history. Think critically about the biases presented to you. So what can be done to hold YouTube (owned by Google) and other corporations accountable for the content their algorithms produce? Some propose harsher regulations on content or sources of funding. Countries like Estonia have implemented a nationalized internet service. Essentially, the Internet needs to better represent the interests of the consumer in the spirit of advertisers tailoring their suggestions to appeal to the user, but in every facet of the user experience. When the internet is no longer controlled by private corporate interest and net neutrality is realized, an internet of the people for the people can take root. Consumers, especially impressionable students, should understand why they are viewing the information presented to them and not just accept it at face value. Let internet algorithms teach us a lesson in critical thinking so we can better analyze information we receive in and outside the classroom.

Sabel Flynn is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. Ze 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.

Annie Sheehan It was a constant topic of conversation over the summer. Senior year of college: Are you excited? Do you have career plans after the g-word? Are you actually going to do a lot of schoolwork? And, of course, do you live in a house for senior year? (First of all, give me a warning before you’re going to ask me a question like that. No, I did not get a Mod. Yes, it still hurts.) But the real answer to that question—that, in fact, I am living in a room that looks eerily similar to my Walsh eight-man (minus two friends and a cockroach)—left people bewildered. Convincing my distant aunts, great uncles, cousins, and former high school crushes alike that it’s actually a cool and normal thing to live on campus proved to be no easy task. Back to RAs, dining hall meals (grilled chicken and two sides, anyone?), roommates, and dorm furniture? We choose to do that? Yes, we do. As a proud member of the Student Admission Program (SAP), I can report to you that 96 percent of seniors live on campus for their senior year at Boston College. It’s an astounding stat, to say the least, but before I made the transition this fall from off-campus housing, I didn’t have much more of an argument than “Well, it’s what everyone does.” I don’t mention the fact that I prayed to every Jesuit, god, demigod, and my roommate’s mom named Mary Theresa, who seemed holy enough to me, for one of those ramshackle red buildings in the middle of campus with doubles the size of a closet, dead grass, and a shared grill. They don’t need to know that—it’s personal, and I don’t need to bring up such a fresh wound. Again. But I digress. Living on campus is like taking a breath of fresh air. I don’t have to worry about break-ins, nor do I wake up in a sweat wondering if National Grid is going to leave us to the mercy of a Boston winter because I forgot to pay the bills. When things go wrong, I don’t have to call my dad and ask him how adults handle a leaky sink or a burst oil tank. I simply submit a work order from the comfort of my bed or, if things get really ugly, I can just call my RA in a panic, and it’s actually her job to listen to me. I’m already halfway up the fake Million Dollar Stairs when I wake up, and it only takes me five minutes to get to my 9 a.m. I get to see people in the elevator and in my hallway, and we even have neighbors whose conversations I can hear through the wall! On-campus housing is convenient, no doubt. But while it helps me avoid the adult responsibilities that are looming in my all-too-near future, it also reinforces one of my favorite things about going to school here: community. So many of us choose to live on campus because, you know, we want the chance to live in those “temporary” housing units, but we also choose to live on campus because it means we live less than a mile from nearly the whole senior class. In a cliché, High School Musical kind of way, we’re all in this together. It’s our last hurrah, the last time we’ll live in a building with hundreds of other people our age and a direct roommate who just so happens to have identical furniture and the exact same twin bed. After working our own jobs last summer or being independent abroad, it can feel weird returning back to such a “college” way of living, but it’s a way for us to take one step back before it all becomes our responsibility. Forever. And, I mean, think about it—how many other apartments in Boston can provide such a phenomenal view of the ever-beautiful Corcoran Commons?

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

SPORTS

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

@HEIGHTSSPORTS

FOOTBALL

BC Clocks in at No. 23 in AP Poll, Ranked for First Time Since ’08 BY BRADLEY SMART Assoc. Sports Editor

For the first time in almost 10 years, Boston College football is ranked, coming in at No. 23 in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll. After an impressive offensive showing against Wake Forest pushed the Eagles to a perfect 3-0, voters took notice, slot-

ting them between Texas A&M and Michigan State. The last time BC appeared in the polls was Nov. 30, 2008, when it was ranked 18th. The Eagles were cochampions of the Atlantic Division, eventually falling to Virginia Tech in the conference championship game. Entering the poll was expected by most, as BC’s first three games of

BOSTON COLLEGE 41

2018 have established that last year’s second-half surge was no fluke. The Eagles have come away with wins in eight of their last 10 games and have displayed a potent offense that should cause opposing coaches plenty of problems. Anthony Brown, fully recovered from a torn ACL, has looked the part of a star quarterback. Brown was near-

ly perfect against the Demon Deacons on Thursday, throwing for a careerbest 304 yards and five touchdowns, a stat line that harkens back to the Doug Flutie era. Meanwhile, potential Heisman Trophy candidate A.J. Dillon has started the season the way many would expect—his 432 rushing yards are good for fifth nationally. Paired with a stout defense that

WAKE FOREST 34

THE PERFECT STORM

notably features Wyatt Ray’s five sacks and six assorted interceptions in the secondary, it’s not hard to see why BC has earned national attention. Jockeying for position in the race to catch No. 3 Clemson in the Atlantic Division, the Eagles are arguably in the lead—which has the potential to make the Nov. 10 clash much more meaningful than in years prior. 

Give Props to Loefﬂer

ANDY BACKSTROM

WOODY MARSHALL / AP PHOTO

Anthony Brown tossed ﬁve touchdowns, A.J. Dillon ran all over Wake Forest, and the Eagles got in and out of North Carolina with a win before Hurricane Florence hit the East Coast. BY ANDY BACKSTROM Sports Editor With 13-mph winds blowing north-northeast and Hurricane Florence just hours away from hitting the Carolinas, Boston College football stuck to the ground throughout the first quarter of its Thursday evening ACC opener against Wake Forest. In fact, the Eagles ran the ball 15 times in the opening frame. At first, the one-dimensional offense worked like a charm, so much so that A.J. Dillon plowed his way to the end zone on just three carries to round out the game’s first series, a drive that spanned a mere 67 sec-

onds. Everyone—fans, spectators, and analysts—had their eyes on the sophomore Heisman hopeful. Dillon wouldn’t win BC the game, though. That was up to Anthony Brown. After the Demon Deacons decided to crowd the box, Dillon’s production took a hit. The Eagles punted the ball on five consecutive possessions and weren’t showing any signs of progress until Brown orchestrated a three-play touchdown drive at the beginning of the second quarter. He capped the series with a 27-yard pass to Jeff Smith. The ball was slightly over-

See Football Vs. Wake, A11

BY PETER KIM Asst. Sports Editor After two dominant wins over in-state foes to kick off the year, Boston College football faced its first real test of the season when it traveled to play Wake Forest on Thursday night. And though the Eagles didn’t pass with flying colors, they certainly passed the test. Riding yet another career day from Anthony Brown, as well as the always dependable A.J. Dillon, BC got its conference slate off to the right start, recording a 41-34 victory behind an offense that eclipsed 500 total yards for the

third-straight game. Here are some takeaways and things to watch for the Eagles moving forward. Brown Has Star Potential In limited action against both Massachusetts and Holy Cross, Brown showed no signs of rust after an extended layover following his season-ending knee injury in 2017. The real question, however, was how he would perform against higher level competition. After all, the Minutemen and Crusaders pale in comparison to ACC competition. Well, after Thursday’s game

See NOTE Vs. Wake, A12

On Oct. 7, 2017, Boston College football was embarrassed on national television—maybe not on the scoreboard, but in every other aspect of its Thursday night matchup against Virginia Tech. Outplayed in all three phases of the game, the Eagles were outgained by close to 100 yards of total offense and failed to move the chains on all but two of their 18 third and fourth-down conversions. Wide receiver Jeff Smith debatably threw BC’s best pass of the night—and that’s saying something. Starting quarterback Anthony Brown logged a putrid 42.4 completion percentage, connecting with his receivers on just 13 of his 30 pass attempts. To make matters worse, Harold Landry left the game with an ankle injury—one that eventually sidelined the future secondround draft pick for the season. In Year Five, a season that was supposed to be the turning point of head coach Steve Addazio’s tenure, the Eagles were without their best player, 2-4, and winless in the ACC. Following the 24-10 loss, he walked into Yawkey Athletics Center and sat down in front of a hoard of reporters, asking about yet another conference defeat. Addazio was in the hot seat. And another loss could have very well cost him his job, especially with Martin Jarmond—a first-year director of athletics that screamed youth and change—running the ship. “It’ll come together, and it’ll be beautiful,” Addazio said. “You can write that one down. I don’t have the time clock on it right here. But it’ll come together, and it’ll be beautiful.” To Addazio’s credit, he was right. Practically overnight, the Eagles’ offense transformed into a high-scoring phenomenon—a highly entertaining one at that. But he wasn’t the mastermind behind the metamorphosis: That was all Scot Loeffler. During what was a miraculous second-half finish, the second-year offensive coordinator saved both BC’s offense and his head coach’s job. Prior to taking over the reigns at BC back in 2012, Addazio was widely known as Florida’s offensive coordinator during the tail end of Urban Meyer’s tenure. After working with Meyer at Notre Dame,

See Loeffler to the Rescue, A10

MEN’S SOCCER

Dieye, No. 7 Cardinals Deal Eagles First Loss of Season BY JACK COLEMAN For The Heights In a match of absolute war ball, Boston College men’s soccer sought to claim a second conference victory over heavily touted LouLouisville 1 isville. Coming Boston College 0 into the game, head coach Ed Kelly knew that his team’s playing style clashed with that of the Cardinals. The longtime coach expected a battle, and that’s what he got. Both sides witnessed players sprawling out on the field in desperate attempts to block soaring shots with their bodies or to take out the ball from underneath their opponent. Ultimately, though, it

INSIDE SPORTS

was Louisville that prevailed, scoring the game-winning goal in the 80th minute off a costly BC turnover. The 1-0 decision marks the Eagles’ (2-1-3, 1-1 Atlantic Coast) first loss of the season—a defeat meddled with physicality and missed chances. One such moment perfectly summed up the pace of the match, when, at the 19thminute mark, No. 7 Louisville (4-1, 2-0) junior Lamine Conte received a yellow card for taking out one of BC’s own. The midfielder had been taking falls—none of which resulted in the stoppage of play—throughout the night and thus was blatantly furious at the call. Emotions continually rose as Eagles star senior forward Simon Enstrom was dragged down in yet another fiery play. This was then followed by senior defender

Abe Bibas being pulled by his jersey as the ball sailed his way. Bibas, with blood coursing through his veins and frustration and concentration apparent on his face due to the dirty playstyle of the opposing Louisville player, was not willing to let a shot on goal pass him by. With all his might, Bibas attempted a frantic, wild shot that had him suspended in mid-air with his leg making a strong connection with the ball. The shot was too high, but Eagle fans in the crowd could hear a premature “da-da-da da-da-da” of a SportsCenter Top Ten highlight play. BC’s closest shot at a first-half lead was a near perfect attempt on goal. DurJONATHAN YE / HEIGHTS STAFF

MSOC Vs. Louisville, A10

Louisville racked up 13 fouls in its bruising one-goal victory over the Eagles.

MSOC: Eagles Tie Holy Cross in OT Thriller VOLLEYBALL: BC Drops Two of Three at NEC

SPORTS IN SHORT...........................A10 BC outshot its Patriot League foe, 32-7, on Tuesday evening, The Eagles’ nine-game win streak came to end over the MEN’S SOCCER..................................A11 but failed to tip the scale and record the game-winner..... A12 weekend, as BC lost to Harvard and Northeastern......A10 WOMEN’S SOCCER.............................A12

The Heights

A10

Monday, September 10, 2018

Dave Evans Tells Class of 2022 to Find and Follow Passion The Stanford professor expanded on the Jesuit phrase, ‘set the world aflame,’ at First Year Academic Convocation. By Brooke Kaiserman Assoc. Magazine Editor University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., addressed the flock of freshmen clustered in Conte Forum this past Thursday at First Year Academic Convocation. A maroon tapestry cloaked the bottom of the platform, emblazoned with the phrase “Go set the world aflame.” “What we want you to talk about is: How do you use the experiences of your life, and make conscious choices, be intentional, and then link that with your hopes and dreams?” Leahy said. From the moment they begin at Boston College, the importance of finding their callings is drilled into each member of the freshman class. Strolling down Linden Lane in their Sunday best for the first flight procession, palpable energy permeates the air. Most students leave the night feeling empowered and ready to take on the world—or at least college. After the glimmering memories of

the night fade, however, students are confronted with the four years ahead and the mounting pressure to find internships, join clubs, and secure a successful career after graduation. All the while, the Jesuit value of vocation adds tantamount tension. This career confusion is all too familiar to Stanford University professor Dave Evans. While studying at Stanford in the 1970s, Evans began his undergraduate career with plans to be a marine biologist. As he lagged behind in labs and struggled to complete problem sets, however, he realized he was miserable. He soon identified a deep desire: He wanted to solve the energy crisis. He started taking classes he was truly interested in and, after he graduated from Stanford with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, felt ready to lend his talents to the field of alternative energy. “I’d found a passion, I had a deep sense of vocation when I graduated from Stanford in 1976,” Evans said.

“I’m all cranked up, and I’m ready to solve the energy crisis. What was not in the brochure was the world wasn’t ready to do it. And after four years of failing miserably, I was dead right. … We could have made a difference, just put me in coach, but the world never put me in, because there was nothing happening.” Realizing his calling had come before its time, Evans took a job at Apple Inc., bringing laser printing public and spearheading product marketing for its mouse team. After co-founding Electronic Arts Inc., Evans worked with nonprofits, startups, and individuals to help them produce productive and fulfilling work. This eventually led him to the University of California, Berkeley—where he taught courses such as How to Find Your Vocation—and finally to Stanford, where he currently teaches a course entitled Designing Your Life alongside fellow professor Bill Burnett. He went on to co-author the howto book Designing Your Life with

Kaitlin Meeks/heights editor

Dave Evans began his undergraduate career with plans to be a marine biologist but found he was more interested in alternative energy.

Burnett, based on his course. BC’s Class of 2022 read the instructional guide for convocation. Unlike many readings assigned to past classes, Designing Your Life isn’t a novel, nor a biography. In his keynote address, Evans boiled the 272 pages of the book down to one sentence. “Get curious, talk to people, try stuff, then tell your story.” The book introduces the theory of design thinking—similar to the way face recognition on the iPhone X provides security and efficiency, or the floor plan in Walsh Hall was constructed to comfortably house 800 sophomore students, one can craft a life they find fulfilling and meaningful. “A well-designed life is a marvelous portfolio of experiences, of adventures, of failures that taught you important lessons, of hardships that made you stronger and helped you know yourself better, and of achievements and satisfactions,” Burnett and Evans wrote in Designing Your Life. The authors—both being professors, parents, and college graduates—empathize with the pressures on students to be successful and discover their dream jobs before donning their caps and gowns at commencement. The guidance provided in the book helps readers find genuine gratification through pragmatic approaches, in the form of exercises they can use to “design their lives”—such as prototyping, Odyssey Plans, and Life Design Interviews. “Right now, there’s a fundamentalist philosophy around … you’ve got to be changing the world, and you’ve got to be making an impact, and you’ve got to be passionate,” Evans said. “That mindset can be debilitating, because it’s not that easy to come by. Bill and I are kind of getting a rep as the anti-passion guys. We’re not anti-passion, we’re anti the presupposition that passion precedes everything. … Very often the passion is what you get at the end. You learn how to love it over time.” Addressing the Class of 2022, Evans embodied these themes and curated a list of lessons he learned through his experiences as both an undergraduate and as a professor who has taught

thousands of students. First: “Seek to get more out of college, not to cram more into it.” Evans compared working through college to eating an enchilada: You can’t eat the whole thing and be satisfied. Considering how many different opportunities across different colleges and student organizations are available, Evans stressed that entering freshman year with a more focused mindset will engender the results students will really value. Second: “Curate your curiosity. Don’t just collect credentials.” As the first mind set of design thinking listed in Designing Your Life’s introduction, thinking like a designer is impossible without first becoming curious. This inquisitive spirit will enable students to see opportunities everywhere, rather than focus on fulfilling requirements. The third lesson: “Be surprised by joy, not merely satisfied with success.” By giving themselves permission to take chances and make mistakes, students will inevitably discover new interests. Evans’s final lesson? “Don’t just find your way. Learn how to be a wayfinder.” He encouraged the freshman class not to share his snafus from the first two and a half years of his undergraduate studies. “Let’s aspire to living meaningfully,” Evans said. “We talk about living a coherent life. And a coherent life is one where who I am as a person, what I believe in, care about, value, and what I’m doing are aligned. They make sense one to the other.” So while the rousing rhetoric of convocation will inspire many to claim their callings and “Go set the world aflame,” Evans wants students to know that it’s human to simultaneously feel lost or overwhelmed. “What you really ought to be doing [at BC] is growing into the person who if life or the Holy Spirit has something to say to you by the time you’re 28 or 32 … who can hear what you need to hear from life at the point life is willing to tell you,” he said. n

Trump Admin’s Proposed Guidelines Could Raise Burden of Proof Title IX, from A2

A key issue for colleges and universities’ handling and investigation of claims of sexual assault is the standard of evidence they choose to use. Institutions of higher education, including BC, use the “preponderance of the evidence” standard. This standard is met if the evidence says that the defendant is more likely than not to have been responsible for what he or she is accused of. Another standard of evidence exists: clear and convincing evidence. This standard requires a higher burden of proof than a preponderance of the evidence, but is lower than the highest standard: beyond a reasonable doubt. The beyond a reasonable doubt standard is used in criminal cases, while the preponderance standard is typically used in civil cases. Melnick explained that under the Obama administration, some schools had the clear and convincing standard for every other offense, but had used the lower standard, preponderance, for sexual assault because the Department of Education required it. “That is a real anomaly because what that said is if you’re accused of something, that is about the most serious thing you can be charged with on campus, other than murder, and that’s going to go the courts, then the standard of proof is less,” he said. Melnick thinks that the Department of Education is likely to tell institutions that if they use the clear and convincing standard to address issues of student conduct besides sexual assault, then sexual assault cannot then be investigated at the lower preponderance standard. However, if an institution chooses preponderance as the standard for all conduct proceedings, as it is for BC, that is also permissible. In short, consistency matters.

Melnick explained that his understanding of where the Trump administration stands in regards to forcing schools to change the policy they have on the books is that they won’t: What the administration is asking is that schools avoid singling out sexual assault or harassment allegations in particular and defining a lower standard of proof for those issues. “One will obviously have to wait and see what the final outcome is,” Stoops said. “BC will obviously comply with the law and if we were told we had to change it, we would of course do what we have to under the law and if we were told we had to change it, we would of course do what we have to do under the law. But where it stands right now is that there’s more flexibility.” She went on to say that BC has not made any changes to its Title IX policy yet since DeVos’s proposed guidelines have not gone through the necessary comment and review process, preliminary steps for most proposed regulatory changes. If federal standards remain the same, the University would not make changes because using preponderance of evidence is “consistent with” how BC handles every student conduct case. Melnick says there are two reasons that schools use the preponderance standard. One is inertia, for many schools have used the preponderance standard for years. The second, and more important, reason is the efforts of the Obama administration: Schools had to change their rules because of the threat of being investigated by the federal government. “The point I’d like to stress is that the Obama administration’s efforts really focused on building up very large Title IX compliance offices, and as anyone who’s studied political science knows, once you’ve created a bureaucracy, they’re not going to

change unless they ’re forced to,” Melnick said. Another facet that ties together concerns about proper investigatory procedures and due process rights around sexual assault is the issue of mediation. Stoops said that mediation is not appropriate in every sexual assault case, but would not rule out the possibility that mediation could be the correct way to handle a claim. “In terms of the ability to crossexamine one another, it’s interesting, because in the past with a hearingbased model, people did have the opportunity to be in the same room and ask questions to one another, not to each other, but through the chair of … the hearing board,” she said. That model creates multiple concerns. A person in the position where he or she needed to file a complaint might be fearful of doing so due to the looming spectre of potential cross-examination, according to both Stoops and Melnick. “The goal in the Obama administration [was] to make it as easy as possible to reduce the pain and retraumatization created by the process,” Melnick said. “Many schools have interpreted this in a way that made it virtually impossible for someone who is accused to hear about the charges. “So the big question is, isn’t there some type of process that you can create where you don’t have direct confrontation, but that you have the ability, the crucial ability for those who are accused, to know what the complaints are, to know what the evidence is, and be able to challenge some of the claims? And it strikes me that it is quite possible to do that.” If mediation is optional and not required in new Trump administration guidelines, Stoops is of the opinion that making such a change isn’t exactly necessary. “If it’s optional, I think our current system works really well, because

there is a way for people to raise concerns or questions based on what the other party has done, it’s just not face to face,” she said. “But that’s one of those where I really want to wait and see what comes out.” Particularly noteworthy for BC, given the number of students that live off campus, is that under the Trump administration’s proposed new rules, schools would only be held responsible for incidents that take place on campus. This would represent a change from the current policy put in place by the Obama administration, which requires schools to investigate complaints no matter where the incident took place. Melnick pointed out that if a situation occurred where students had allegations leveled against them in another state while on break from their university, these new regulations would make it so that universities aren’t responsible for addressing the effects of that result—local law enforcement would have to handle it. On the other hand, Melnick said that the comment period would be a good resource for defining the law more precisely in order to lay out explicitly how schools are responsible for various Title IX situations. “I think the Trump administration is trying to rein in, to say ‘let’s not extend the responsibility of schools over which they have absolutely no control,’” he said. A gray area Melnick cited as a spot where comment would be necessary is the matter of fraternities, sororities, and off-campus housing. “My guess is, and what I’d like to see them do is there are some things that are so tightly to the school that they do have responsibility there as well,” Melnick said. “My guess is, for off-campus housing, especially when BC does not provide off-campus housing for juniors, that that probably should be included.”

Melnick did note that schools could take responsibility on their own accord of far more than what Office of Civil Rights (OCR) requires they do. Stoops believes that the issue is dependent on exactly how the laws end up being defined, but it is unlikely that BC will stop being responsible for off-campus incidents. “Putting Title IX aside, we certainly hold students accountable for certain off-campus behaviors that have nothing to do with Title IX,” she said. “So there’s no reason to think that would change, and again that might be sort of what policy it falls under or how we process it, but I don’t anticipate that we would all of a sudden not be concerned about incidents of sexual violence off campus when we are concerned about other violations of policy off campus.” “I think in the end if we know about something of concern, our concern is for the well-being of every member of the community, and so we wouldn’t choose to not pursue something or not investigate it just because we’re told we don’t have to.” To Melnick, BC’s approach to Title IX is going to continue to be defined more by the University’s chief priority—taking care of its students—than anything else. “Schools are genuinely concerned about the welfare of their students,” he said. “And to the extent that there is a strong belief that sexual misconduct is rampant, then they are going to make a good faith effort to try and do something about it … But there is no doubt that there are a large number of women in almost every school that have had troubling sexual relations. To the extent that schools can address that, and think of ways of protecting freshman women from being in circumstances that are going to end badly, schools take that responsibility seriously and want to do something about it.” n

ONDAY,

THE HEIGHTS

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

A11

MEN’S SOCCER

BC Falters Late, Concedes 80th-Minute Goal in Physical Match MSOC Vs. Louisville, from A9 ing a penalty kick, midfielder Kristofer Konradsson’s shot nearly hit the hands of Jake Gelnovatch. Had the ball hit the Louisville goalkeeper’s hands, the goal would have surely counted, but instead it missed by the hair of an inch and clanged against the inside of the cross bar. The first and only goal of the game came in the final 10 minutes of regulation. Cardinals forward Tate Schmitt sent a perfect pass under the stretching foot of a BC defensive back. The ball had a rippling bounce as it found the foot of his Louisville teammate, Cherif Dieye. Obliterating the ball, the midfielder rocketed a bullet into the back of BC’s net. Kelly found it hard to muster the words that would convey what happened. “We made a stupid mistake and they were able to capitalize,” he said.

With the score at 1-0, Enstrom had a wide-open shot the very next play, but the equalizer proved to just be a tad wide. One last-ditch attempt by BC occurred in the final stages of the match when the senior playmaker tracked a ball down on the run, leading a pack of Eagles into Louisville’s half as the Cardinals retreated back toward their own cage. Gelnovatch had two fantastic saves in a row to stunt the high hopes of a rapidly deteriorating BC team. With both sides visibly tired and annoyed, a scuffle broke out at midfield. As the clock came to a stop, so did the Eagles’ undefeated season. A scary moment was shared by players and fans alike when BC midfielder Joe Kellett had the ball swept from underneath him by Geoffrey Dee. The Louisville midfielder kicked up Kellett’s shin guard and easily could have broken his ankle. While Dee only received a yellow, Kelly was fum-

ing and began to lose his patience with the questionable call. Both coaching staffs were incredibly vocal during this game and constantly attempted to keep their teams in the right mindset. Kelly was shouting to consistently tighten up the midfield. Freshman Tyshawn Rose answered his call, utilizing premier dominance over fundamentals, all while disrupting the Cardinals’ attack. Just like Kelly, Louisville’s coaching staff was incredibly fired up and, at times, seemed louder than the home crowd. While the Cardinals had the stronger offensive presence, BC had some incredible shots on goal. Louisville proved to be the luckier of the two. In another barnburner filled with frustration and argumentative play, BC came out with—not a win, or even a draw this time—but its first definitive loss of the season against its first ranked ACC opponent of the year. 

JONATHAN YE / HEIGHTS STAFF

It was only the second time this season that forward Simon Enstrom failed to score.

FOOTBALL

Brown, Eagles Get Last Laugh in Rollercoaster ACC Opener FB vs. Wake Forest, from A9 thrown, but that was understandable. The redshirt sophomore was just getting started. Executing Scot Loeffler’s offense to near perfection, Brown tossed four more scores, ultimately finishing the back-and-forth affair with 304 yards and five touchdowns to his name. The Cliff wood, N.J. native’s precision fueled BC’s second-half push, setting the stage for a 41-34 victory—one that propelled the Eagles to their first 3-0 start to a season since 2007. Wake Forest (2-1, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) won the coin toss and elected to defer. Immediately, BC (3-0, 1-0) made the Demon Deacons pay. Michael Walker returned the opening kickoff 44 yards, flirting with Wake Forest’s side of the field before the first play from scrimmage. Following two bruising carries, Dillon beat Demon Deacon defensive back Ja’Sir Taylor to the outside and sprinted toward the goal line. Taylor nicked Dillon’s heels, but the sophomore used the contact to his advantage, diving into the end zone for the highlight-reel, 45-yard score. Dillon’s surefire success was shortlived. After piling up 62 yards on his first four rushing attempts, the ACC Preseason Player of the Year went backwards, recording -5 on his next four carries. Because BC was hardly throwing the ball in the first quarter, Wake Forest stacked the interior. As a result, Dillon often had nowhere to go. After recording 52 yards on their first series, the Eagles totaled just

53 over the course of their next five drives—all of which ended in Grant Carlson punts. Luckily for BC, Sam Hartman and the Demon Deacons weren’t lighting up the scoreboard either. Actually, the true freshman, volatile as ever, was picked off twice in the opening 17 minutes of play. First, Will Harris wrestled the ball out of Greg Dortch’s hands inside BC territory, stalling Wake Forest’s first series of the night. Then, five drives later, Hartman stared down Steven Claude on a button hook. Hamp Cheevers read the quarterback’s eyes from the minute he received the snap. The junior cornerback jumped the route and recorded his third takeaway of the season. The Demon Deacons were going to need a little help to etch their name in the scorecard. Ten minutes into the opening frame, they got just that. Dom Maggio—who had a superb day punting the ball—booted the rock downfield. Uncharacteristically, the ever-reliable Walker muffed the return. Without hesitation, Wake Forest running back Cade Carney flung his body on the loose ball, recovering the fumble at the BC 13-yard line. Hartman capitalized: Donning the number 10, the true freshman channeled his predecessor—John Wolford—and scrambled outside the pocket for a gain of 11 yards. The very next play, he handed the ball off to Matt Colburn II for the game-tying touchdown. Entering the second quarter, head coach Steve Addazio decided to open

up the playbook, and soon enough BC was back on the move. Thanks to Dillon and a Demon Deacons facemask penalty, the Eagles quickly advanced the ball past midfield. From there, Brown took over. The redshirt sophomore dropped back on play-action and hurled a pass to a wide-open Jeff Smith, who dragged one foot into the back of the end zone before falling out of bounds. Despite being initially ruled an incomplete pass, the call was eventually overturned. BC was on the brink of an offensive explosion—the only thing keeping Wake Forest in the game was the Eagles’ special teams. With about nine minutes remaining in the half, Carlson mishandled a high snap, scooped up the ball, and attempted a rugby-style punt. Unorthodox or not, he had no chance of avoiding a diving Will Drawdy. The redshirt freshman came flying in to block the punt, effectively deflecting the kick into BC’s end zone. Malik Grate made a beeline for the rolling ball, ultimately jumping on it for six. The sequence marked the third time in the past two games that the Eagles had a punt blocked and returned for a touchdown. When Addazio arrived in WinstonSalem, N.C., he knew BC had a nailbiter coming its way. What he didn’t expect was his team getting steamrolled in the third phase of the game. “The thing that we didn’t account for was the 14 points on special teams that we gave away—we just didn’t account for that,” the sixth-year Eagles coach told reporters following the

game, per BCEagles.com. “On the road, that can undo you. But it didn’t, it didn’t.” Initially, it looked like it might. On the ensuing Wake Forest series, Hartman strung together a pair of third and fourth-down conversions that ignited BB&T Field. Dropping an over-the-shoulder pass into the hands of a sideline-teetering Claude and then whipping a bullet through the outstretched hands of Cheevers for Sage Surratt, the true freshman was doing everything he could to take the lead. Moments later, he accomplished the feat by going back to Surratt in the end zone off a play-action pass. Like he did all night, Brown answered when it mattered most. Just before the half, the second-year signal caller faked a handoff to Dillon and launched a pass down the left sideline for his favorite deep threat: Kobay White. The redshirt sophomore wideout came down with the catch, falling across the goal line in the process. The touchdown drive lasted all of 73 seconds. Fortunately for BC, there were three more like it on the way. In response to a Colburn II-led Wake Forest series—one that culminated in a 27-yard Nick Sciba field goal—Brown moved the sticks on a pair of crucial third downs before, once again, using the play fake to buy himself an exorbitant amount of time in the pocket and deliver a 29-yard touchdown pass to Tommy Sweeney. Hartman and the Demon Deacons threatened, intermixing a handful of run-pass-option plays with draws, but

a Taj-Amir Torres fourth-down stop in the back of the Eagles’ end zone kept the momentum on BC’s side. Shortly thereafter, a couple of nine-yard Dillon rushes paved the way for a 71-touchdown pass to Smith. The senior—who totaled 187 all-purpose yards on the night—motioned behind Brown, and then as soon as the ball was snapped, shot upfield to beat his man on the go route. John Tessitore—filling in for an injured Colton Lichtenberg—shanked the extra point, and the Demon Deacons proceeded to tack on another field goal, but it wouldn’t matter. Brown put the finishing touches on his career night with a beautiful touch pass to Ben Glines down the right sideline. The redshirt junior made the mid-air adjustment, recorded the reception, and bullied his way into the end zone for his second career touchdown. Along with the rest of the defensive line, Wyatt Ray, four sacks and all, wreaked havoc in the game’s final stages. BC allowed a garbage-time Wake Forest touchdown, but recovered the onside kick and ran out the clock. While it wasn’t always pretty, the Eagles got in and out of North Carolina with a win before Hurricane Florence rolled into the East Coast. That’s all Addazio could have asked for. “The way this played out for us— we’ve got a little extra time for Purdue, and I just think this was a great way to get into the Power Five schedule,” he said emphatically. In every regard, it was the perfect storm. 

THREE-STAR RECRUIT, FIVE-STAR NIGHT TOUCHDOWN PASSES

QB ANTHONY BROWN

16 FOR

304 PASSING YARDS

64%

COMPLETION PERCENTAGE

FIELD HOCKEY

In Top-10 Matchup, Louisville Uses Last-Second Corner to Edge BC BY ANDY BACKSTROM Sports Editor

Boston College field hockey traveled to Kentucky for its second-straight top-25 matchup on Friday night, deadlocked in its Boston College 0 all-time series Louisville 1 with Louisville. Since joining the ACC, the Eagles had split their four matches with the Cardinals. Dating back to the 2014 season, the two teams had alternated wins and losses, with Louisville barely outscoring BC during that span by a combined 9-8. In regard to the series, both had won a tightly contested one-score game, in addition to recording a multi-goal victory. As evenly matched as the programs are, it was no surprise that Friday night’s meeting mirrored that of a stalemate. That was, until the final minute of regulation. With overtime on the horizon,

the Cardinals forced three consecutive corners. As they say, the third time’s the charm: After coming up with stops on the first two scoring opportunities, BC goalkeeper Sarah Dwyer watched as Bethany Russ whipped a shot into the cage with no time remaining on the clock. Louisville escaped with a 1-0 victory, securing its first ACC win of the 2018 campaign. No. 8 Louisville’s (5-2, 1-1 Atlantic Coast) last-minute surge was an anomaly of sorts. All night, the Cardinals struggled to generate offense, especially inside the circle. The No. 9 Eagles (3-3, 11)—a team coming off back-to-back onegoal victories—continuously trapped Louisville in the corner, preventing its forwards from getting substantial looks on net. Head coach Kelly Doton’s group was simply picking up where it left off. In fact, entering the Friday night showdown,

the Eagles hadn’t given up a goal in their last 112 minutes of action. That said, BC wasn’t having much luck on the attack either. Although it drew four penalty corners in the first half, it only notched two shots in the opening period. It was more of the same in the latter portion of play. The Eagles racked up five more corners in the final 35 minutes of regulation, but couldn’t find the back of the cage. This time, though, they upped the ante in the shot department. BC tallied nine in the first 30 minutes of the period—six more than Louisville. Frederique Haverhals led the charge with five shots. Not only that, but she was also one of just five Eagles to play every second of regulation. Unfortunately for BC, her persistence was all for naught. Even when Cardinals midfielder Mackenzie Carl registered a green card and the Eagles were gifted with a two-minute, one-man advantage, they

couldn’t get on the board. Neither the Cardinals’ defense nor goalkeeper Ayeisha McFerran budged. The vast majority of Louisville’s offensive output—statistically that is—occured at the very end of the match. Recording three corners and three shots in the game’s final sequence, the Cardinals simply willed their way past Dwyer and the Eagles. Maria Gomez shouldered the insertion duties, first lining up a pass for Katie Walsh. The sophomore stopped the ball with her stick and Mercedes Pastor looped it back around to Taylor Stone, whose drag flick was promptly saved by Dwyer. The second go-around was a little less dramatic. Like the previous corner, Gomez inserted the ball to Walsh, who set up Pastor for a shot on goal, but the sophomore’s slow roller was deflected by Dwyer. As soon as the ball teetered out of the circle, a third and

final corner was called to the chagrin of Haverhals. Louisville made the most of the opportunity. Once again, Gomez fed the ball to Walsh. Following the stick stop, Russ fired a straight shot into the bottom-left corner of the cage past a diving Dwyer, logging her second goal of the season and her first career game-winner. The Eagles’ impending schedule will likely soften the blow, considering that three of BC’s next four opponents are non-conference foes. Even though the Eagles are back to .500 in ACC play, Doton has to be encouraged by her team’s resilience. Each of its past five matches have been decided by one goal, including both of its ACC contests. Last season, four of BC’s six regular season conference defeats were three-plus goal blowouts. Even if it’s not showing up in the win column, the Eagles are trending in the right direction. 

The Heights

A12

Monday, September 10, 2018

VOLLEYBALL

BC Sweeps Dartmouth Invitational, Preserves Perfect Record By Marc Occhipinti Heights Staff

Move over, 2017. Step aside, 2016. There’s a new win total on the Heights, and for Boston College volleyball, that number is nine. After a three-game sweep at the Dartmouth Invitational, the Eagles (9-0) have surpassed last season’s seven victories, as well as the prior year’s eight, en route to a perfect start to the young season. First-year head coach Jason Kennedy has invigorated this Eagles side, successfully turning around a program that has not posted a winning season since 2004. BC has not scraped by to achieve this record either, as it has dropped just three sets through three weekend invitational tournaments. In baseball, an immaculate inning occurs when a pitcher throws exactly nine strikes to strike out all three batters in an inning. Well by this logic, the Eagles had an immaculate Dartmouth Invitational. The Eagles struck to flawlessly win all nine sets over Lafayette (2-7), Siena

(1-8), and Dartmouth (2-4). BC thoroughly dominated this tournament in nearly every statistical category, and it logged at least a five-point margin of victory in every set. This Eagles team is drawing a lot of deserved attention with the revitalized energy that the players are bringing to every match. On Saturday evening, BC concluded its sweep against host team Dartmouth. The Big Green won its first two matches of the tournament, so this contest would eventually crown the tournament’s champion. Dartmouth carried that momentum into this one, jumping out to a fast start by opening up a 5-2 first-set lead. BC answered with an 8-3 run to jump out to a lead of its own, in large part thanks to a pair of McKenna Goss kills. The teams traded points for a while, but BC came out on top of a hard-fought first frame, where two late kills from Claire Naughton carried the Eagles to a first-set victory. Jill Strockis led the way for the Eagles in the second set, notching four kills in a

frame—one that BC controlled, wire-towire. The junior was outstanding on both sides in this contest, tallying seven kills, as well as 18 digs. Dartmouth surged late in the set, but the Big Green came up short, and BC held on for a 25-20 victory Putaways were the story of the third set, as the Eagles produced an array of perfectly placed spikes, with 14 of their 25 points coming from kills. Goss led the team with nine putaways in the match, while setter Jane DeJarld notched 21 assists, her seventh match with 20-plus setups this season. Makenzie Morrison also paced the defense with 24 digs. Earlier on Saturday, it took about half of the first set for BC to settle in against Siena. The Eagles fell behind the Saints, 12-9, before rattling off nine of the next 12 points, including five kills from Cat Balido. The sophomore posted a teamhigh 11 kills in the match. BC finished the first set strong, taking it 25-20. The first set would end up being the closest, as the Eagles hit their stride in the follow-

ing two frames, closing out the match in dominant fashion. After taking early leads in the second and third sets, BC was able to subdue Siena runs and comebacks to cruise to victory. The Eagles tied their season high with seven service aces, including three each from Morrison and Madison McKnight. DeJarld notched 22 assists, and the Saints only converted 26 of 92 kills, struggling to find the floor between the Eagles’ hands for much of the match. BC opened the invitational on Friday evening against Lafayette, the only of the weekend’s opponents to enter the tournament with a victory on the season. What looked to be the closest matchup for the Eagles on paper quickly descended into an uncompetitive first set. BC used a pair of seven-to-one runs to mount a 25-12 first-set win. A few Leopards errors led to a quick 8-4 lead in the second frame, and the Eagles rolled to a 25-15 decision. Lafayette offered a little more of a fight in what turned out to be the final set, but

the BC attack was just too forceful for a Lafayette squad that mustered a mere 23 kills on the day. Ally Mullen led the spiking charge for the Eagles, converting 10 kills on 12 opportunities. BC was also strong on defense, digging 50 balls in the match, including 11 each for Balido and Morrison. Another seven service aces would help seal the deal for the Eagles. Albeit against relatively weak opponents, BC has been dominant in the early going, and people are starting to take notice. The players are competing with a level of swagger and camaraderie that has not been seen in recent campaigns. The excitement surrounding this squad is rising with each victory, and a return to Power Gym next Friday against UMass Lowell awaits. The home game comes amid the threegame New England Classic, sandwiched between a pair of games at Harvard and Northeastern—the first two teams BC will face this season that are ranked inside the RPI Top 150. n

MENS SOCCER

Eagles Rally in Second Half to Upset Clemson in ACC Opener MSOC vs. Clemson, from A11

Jonathan Ye / Heights Staff

A late comeback propelled BC to its first win against Clemson since 2009.

occurred when Kellett received a yellow card in the 58th minute, which was rapidly followed by a subsequent Lasse Lehmann yellow. The latter resulted in a penalty kick score by Clemson’s Malick Mbaye, the junior’s first goal of the season. The Tigers utilized the Eagles’ bookings to their advantage, as they consistently held onto a strong offensive attack throughout much of the early second half. Yet another yellow card on BC’s Carlos Dulcey simply furthered the Clemson offensive push. Eventually, the Eagles’ defense cracked: In the 65th minute, Sindri Bjornsson lofted a corner kick into the box that found the foot of Patrick Bunk-Andersen. Without hesitation, the 6-foot-2 defender ripped a shot past BC goalkeeper Antonio Chavez Borrelli. The Eagles weren’t done just yet. In fact, Enstrom was ready to pick up where he left off with his spectacular pass on the early one-two connection by scoring

his own goal. The equalizer came in the 71st minute off a show-stopping header, courtesy of a Kristofer Konradsson corner. The scoring play marked Enstrom’s fourth goal of the season, and he wasn’t stopping anytime soon. After two near goals, Enstrom was visibly frustrated between his own botched attempts and the endless foul and yellow card calls. His anger was all for naught, though. Enstrom once again found the ball at his feet in the 88th minute and quickly worked his way past two defenders. Then, from just inside the box, the Eagles’ leading goal scorer let an absolute laser rip through the defense, and it continued to hurtle past Sutherland on a beeline for the back of the cage. When Eagles fans saw the ball hit the net, they went ballistic, and Enstrom himself gave into pure emotion by tearing off his shirt and joining in with some cheers of his own. “I felt sharp,” he said. “[The first goal] gave me confidence so that when the final goal came my way I was ready. It

was an unbelievable night, and one that you never forget.” With three total points, Enstrom jumped to sixth on BC’s all-time scoring chart. He now has 27 goals and 62 points to his name, not to mention two gamewinners this season alone. Almost singlehandedly, he has his team trending in the right direction. And his coach couldn’t be prouder—not just in the senior, but the entire Eagles squad. “It was a great game—a great game to win.” “It was an absolute dogfight,” Kelly said. All last season, BC recorded just three goals against ACC competition. On Friday night, the Eagles met that mark against a program that has dominated them, year in and year out, and was even voted as the second-best team in the conference’s preseason poll. One game certainly doesn’t dictate a season, but, for the moment, the Eagles have appeared to right the ship, and Enstrom is the one piloting the comeback, game by game. n

Promising End to 2017-18 Paved the Way for Fall Success Fall Success, from A11 ACC Tournament run and an NIT berth. Both hockey teams found success, albeit slightly less than fans are often accustomed to. Women’s hockey was the class of Hockey East for the duration of the regular season, and men’s hockey staved off Northeastern and Providence to win the regular season title as well. The winning only continued in the spring—women’s lacrosse shouldered the large share of the burden with an undefeated regular season and a run to the national championship game, but softball also made plenty of noise, stringing together 13 consecutive wins in the middle of the season that more than made up for its worst start to a season since 2013. Taken as a whole, 2017 got off to a shaky start and was pitted with teams failing to take the final step, namely women’s lacrosse and hockey. It was also a year of growth, one that saw plenty of young athletes coming into their own

throughout their respective seasons. The start to this year? Easily traceable to last season’s learning experiences. For field hockey, last season was a mixed bag. On one hand, it beat a few ranked teams—Maryland and Northwestern notably in successive days—but on the other it went winless in conference play. Still, Doton entered this year with confidence surrounding her team, telling BCEagles.com that “you need to experience those wins and not just think about the losses. If you’re down in the dumps, you won’t get over the speedbumps of the upcoming season.” That optimism doesn’t seem misplaced. The Eagles are 3-2 on the young year, with both losses last minute ordeals against top-10 opponents, and even beat Wake Forest on Friday night for their first conference win since they beat the Demon Deacons back on Oct. 21, 2016. The official attendance for the conference win was listed at 517, a level of interest rarely demonstrated in 2017—just 322 appeared for last year’s home opener.

The same growth is clear on the pitch that shares a parking lot with the field hockey field. Women’s soccer lost two key captains, one a pivotal piece of the defense, but is a spotless 8-0 on the season with just three goals conceded. It doesn’t take much to see where that surge is coming from, as the Eagles have installed a pair of newcomers on the back line in Rachel Newborough and Kayla Duran, while Gianna Mitchell has followed up a busy freshman campaign with a marked improvement. The attendance boost is visible across the sports. Men’s soccer saw over 800 fans stream in for its primetime Friday night win over a ranked opponent in Clemson, a more than adequate follow up to the Sunday prior when it drew with rival BU in front of nearly 700. In comparison, the attendance at the first two home games last season totaled just 947. Kelly’s squad has a couple of ties alongside a pair of wins, and the undefeated start has people buzzing. Volleyball played the finale of its

opening invitational in a packed Power Gym, with people waiting in the gap to the right of bleachers for a spot to open up. The droves of fans that turned out for the matchup is understandable—Kennedy’s ability, so far at least, to reverse the struggles from the last few painful seasons has been nothing short of remarkable. Granted, five teams playing 28 combined games and nearly going undefeated in them isn’t the largest sample size. The opponents, at least a good chunk of them, haven’t been great. Football has beat up two much smaller schools, while volleyball is making mincemeat of teams in the mid-150s in RPI. Still, the quality wins are there, and they’re piling up. It’d be foolish to expect these records to stay spotless once the trials of the ACC begin, but the fact that there’s a noticeable buzz around the campus with the assorted sports is a nice feeling. Arriving on campus as a freshman last year meant you were subject to the painful Addazio offense, seven wins

in 30 tries for volleyball, up-and-mostly down seasons for soccer, and a winless conference slate for volleyball. This year? Nobody is losing. It’s a near-perfect start for BC, and reflects quite positively on Jarmond, who has been nothing short of a massive fan favorite since arriving on the Heights with a “go get ’em” attitude. There’s no need for a big push or pleas from the athletic department to get out to fall sporting events—especially not with the headline acts featuring some of the best players in the conference, like Sam Coffey or A.J. Dillon. So, there’s no plea here either or frustration about people missing out on excellent starts to year. The attendance is good and the teams are better. There’s not much more you can ask for in the world of college athletics. .Bradley Smart is the associate sports editor for The Heights. He can be reached on Twitter @bradleysmart15.

SPORTS in SHORT ACC men’s Soccer Standings

Numbers to know

Conference

overall

Atlantic Wake Forest Boston College NC State Louisville Clemson Syracuse

1-0 1-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0

5-0 2-0-2 4-1 3-1 3-2-1 2-2

Years since men’s soccer had beaten Clemson before its 3-2 victory over the Tigers on Friday night.

Coastal North Carolina Notre Dame Virginia Tech Duke Virginia Pittsburgh

1-0 1-0 0-0-1 0-1 0-0-1 0-1

4-1 3-0-1 3-0-2 3-1 1-0-2 1-3

275

Career wins for women’s soccer head coach Alison Foley after beating Temple on Sunday.

Consecutive sets won by volleyball, which last dropped a frame on Sept. 1 against Jacksonville State.

QUote of the week

“I came out of the game early, but I got to see some of my best friends score for the first time.” — A.J. Dillon,

on being removed from the game in the first quarter against Holy Cross

THE HEIGHTS

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

A13

FOOTBALL

Led by Dillon, Eagles Run Holy Cross out of Alumni Stadium Football Vs. HC, from A11 the first quarter. By the time he and Brown clocked out—the 1:13 mark in the opening frame—he had already racked up 149 rushing yards on just six carries. In other words, the sophomore averaged 24.8 yards per rush. As a whole, the offense moved the sticks without any sort of resistance, stringing together three-straight drives of 60-plus yards—all of which spanned less than five plays and 80 seconds. When the second quarter rolled around, the game was all but over. A mixture of starters, second-teamers, and third-stringers finished the job, polishing off a 62-14 blowout. Prior to Saturday, the two schools hadn’t squared off since 1986. As the rivalry faded, so did the similarities between the Massachusetts teams. BC (2-0) developed into a premier Division One program, and the Crusaders (0-2) transitioned to the FCS. The disparity—greater by the season—was apparent from the moment the teams stepped on the field. Whenever Dillon received a handoff, there was a sea of green in front of him. Of his six carriers, two went for 50 or more yards. Following his game-opening 54-yard rush, Brown completed a 17-yard play-action pass to Tommy Sweeney—the tight end’s first reception of the season. Moments later, Dillon waltzed into the end zone for a seven-yard touchdown. A minute and 14 seconds in, BC

was on the board. As if that wasn’t fast enough for Addazio and Co., the Eagles’ next drive took all of 14 seconds. Once again targeting the sideline, Dillon veered toward the right sideline, broke two tackles—the second of which he evaded with a spin move—and galloped downfield, pointing to his blockers. Approaching the 10-yard line, C.J. Lewis leveled Grant Holloman, allowing Dillon to skip over the Holy Cross defensive back, en route to the end zone. Like clockwork, the Eagles trotted back onto the field after a Crusaders threeand-out and pitched together another touchdown drive. Running the jet sweep, Jeff Smith infiltrated Holy Cross territory, picking up 20 yards in the process. On the very next snap, Brown dialed up a 26-yard pass to Kobay White. If he hit the redshirt sophomore in stride, it would have been a touchdown, but the slight misfire didn’t cost the Eagles. At half-speed, an untouched Dillon jogged past the goal line for his third touchdown of the quarter. He was on pace for 600-some yards and 12 scores—a ridiculous projection, of course—but his day was already over. Right when he got to the sideline, Addazio pulled the sophomore running back over to the side and told him that his work was done. “He’s a young guy—you know young guys, they want to play,” the sixth-year Eagles

coach said. “They want to do their thing, they want to score touchdowns, and I get that. He probably could have ran for quite a few yards today. But it’s a team game for us, and he’s a team guy.” Brown, who attempted just two passes in his quarter of action, was also told to take a seat. After the game, Addazio tossed around the idea that maybe he took some of his guys, Brown and Dillon included, out of the game too early. Regardless of when he pulled them, the Crusaders weren’t staging a comeback. In fact, Holy Cross tallied a mere 57 yards of total offense in the first half. Reluctant to test BC’s hall-hawking secondary and perhaps content to speed up the lopsided affair, head coach Bob Chesney stuck to the ground. Holy Cross ran the ball seven times before throwing its first pass. It’s not like the rushing attack was working either. When all was said and done, the Crusaders finished the game averaging 2.98 yards per carry. Eventually, Holy Cross turned to the air, but after a few series, decided to alternate quarterbacks Emmett Clifford and Geoff Wade. Neither had success, completing a combined 12 passes for just 66 yards. Essentially, BC was gifted with a boatload of offensive reps—many of which Addazio used to his advantage. E.J. Perry took over for Brown at the end of the first frame and played well into the third quarter before giving way to

third-string gunslinger Matt McDonald. With Travis Levy and David Bailey in the backfield, Perry was efficient, completing nine of his 12 pass attempts for 97 yards and a pair of scores. His first touchdown pass was a dart to Ben Glines near the sideline. The wide receiver-running back hybrid hauled in the reception, wrestled his way out of the arms of Josh Hicks, and dashed into the end zone for six. The latter was a 33-yard strike to a streaking C.J. Lewis, two drives removed from a one-yard Davon Jones touchdown run. But before that pass and catch came one of the more exhilarating highlights of the afternoon. Following a 15-yard Richie DeNicola reception—at the time, the Crusaders’ biggest play of the game—Clifford scrambled outside the pocket, stared down Blaise Bell, and hurled a pass toward the sideline with less than a minute remaining in the half. Hamp Cheevers was all over the route. The fiery cornerback jumped the pass and returned the interception 81 yards to the house. For the second-straight game, the Eagles entered intermission hot off a pick-six. As the contest progressed, BC eased its foot off the gas, all while upping its scoring output. Matt McDonald replaced Perry near the conclusion of the third quarter and tossed touchdowns to tight end Hunter Long and wide receiver Noah Jordan-Williams—both of which were

firsts for the underclassmen targets. Sandwiched in between those scoring plays were a pair of blocked Eagles punts. On two separate occasions, Holy Cross steamrolled past BC’s punt formation and stuffed Grant Carlson. To make matters worse for the Eagles, both times, the Crusaders scooped up the loose ball and barrelled into the end zone for a touchdown. Coupled with a John Tessitore missed extra point, the blocked punts rounded out another poor special teams performance for BC. Still, in a 48-point rout, those kinds of plays look like nothing more than a minor blemish. After the game, Dillon—the winner of this year’s Eddie O’Melia Trophy, awarded to the most valuable player of the BC-Holy Cross matchup—was asked about his performance, in particular his 74-yard touchdown run. “I haven’t watched the play really, but I did watch C.J. Lewis score his first touchdown, Noah Jordan-Williams score his first touchdown, Hunter Long [score his first touchdown],” he said with a smile on his face. “Yeah, I came out of the game early, but I got to see some of my best friends score for the first time.” Dillon’s five quarters of missed playing time haven’t done his Heisman odds any favors, but it’s clear that his eyes are on a different trophy. 

EASY AS ONE, TWO, THREE

6 149

CARRIES

RUSHING YARDS

TD DRIVES WITH DILLON

THREE RUSHING TDs

BC Snaps 686-Day ACC Losing Streak in Overtime Thriller BY ANDY BACKSTROM Sports Editor Even though Boston College field hockey outshot Wake Forest, 7-1, in the first half of Friday night’s ACC opener, head coach Kelly Doton knew that Wake Forest 3 something was Boston College 4 off. “I didn’t say anything at halftime,” the third-year Eagles coach remarked. “I said, ‘I don’t have to say anything at halftime, you guys know the one thing that’s missing. Our heart and desire is missing right now.’” It took a while for the message to set in. BC conceded two successive goals, separated by just two minutes and 12 seconds, in the early portion of the second period. Immediately following the second scoring play, Doton called a timeout. The Demon Deacons were energized, jumping up and down in cheers, as they jogged to the sideline, even clapping while head coach Jennifer Averill talked out the game plan for the remaining 25 or so minutes of regulation. BC’s huddle, on the other hand, was silent. Just like at halftime, Doton emphasized ball pressure, intensity, and, above all else, maximum effort. This time, her words translated into results, and the

Eagles logged back-to-back goals in the final 16 minutes of the period to prolong the game. Unlike last weekend’s ACC/Big Ten Cup matchup against No. 9 Northwestern, BC prevailed in double overtime. Frederique Haverhals corralled a rebound and slotted the game-winner, securing a 4-3 victory—the Eagles’ first in ACC play in 686 days. A total of five goals were scored between the two teams over the course of the second half and overtime. In the first period, though, shots came at a premium. Neither side could really maintain possession in the early going. The high turnover rate soon led to the game’s first goal. About six minutes into the contest, Ymke Rose Gote intercepted a Wake Forest (1-4, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) pass near the center line and sprinted toward the 25, ultimately dishing the ball out to a streaking Jaime Natale. The sophomore encroached the circle and whipped a pass to Lucy Lytle, who promptly chipped a shot over Demon Deacons goalkeeper Cat O’Connor. Not only did the scoring play mark No. 13 BC’s (2-2, 1-0) first strike of the game, but it also signified Lytle’s first goal of the season. On paper, the Eagles were controlling the game. Through 23 minutes of play, they had already recorded five shots to Wake

Forest’s none. That’s not to say that the Demon Deacons weren’t threatening. And eventually, their persistence paid off. With under 11 minutes to play in the first half, Veerle Bos made the most of a penalty corner, flicking the insert to Megan Anderson at the top of the circle. The midfielder stopped the pass with her stick, setting up Jule Grasshoff for a wide-open shot on cage. Grasshoff flung the ball into the top-left corner of the net past the outstretched stick of BC goalie Sarah Dwyer. Both sides took a couple jabs at the scoreboard in the final stages of the period, but the game remained tied at one goal apiece as the teams entered intermission. Having logged just one corner and one shot, it was only a matter of time before the Wake Forest offense started to click—nine minutes and one second to be exact. Thanks to a Elizabeth Dennehy green card, the Demon Deacons had a one-man advantage. Elisha Evans coasted down the right side of the field, beating a pair of BC defenders in the process. After cutting inside the circle, she dialed up a pass for Eleanor Winants, who poked the ball by an out-of-position Dwyer into the back of the cage. A bit more than two minutes later, Wake Forest scored off another corner. Alexis Grippo inserted the ball in the

direction of Megan Anderson. A stick stop created space for Anne van Hoof to notch her first goal of the season and provide the Demon Deacons with a two-score lead. Seconds passed before Doton signaled for a timeout. With its back against the wall, staring at its ninth-consecutive ACC loss, BC buckled down and began digging itself out of the two-goal hole. All of a sudden, the Eagles were back on the attack, running down every ball physically possible. In a scrum for possession, Lucy Lytle— standing at just 5-foot-1—came up with the ball and delivered a pass to Brooke Matherson. The graduate student trailed left and then backhanded a shot into the right side of the cage, slicing the Eagles’ deficit to one with approximately 16 minutes left in the second frame. Fast forward six minutes, and Fusine Govaert was dancing along the left sideline, batting the ball back into the field of play after watching it nearly teeter out of bounds. The Rye, N.Y. native fed the ball to Brooke Matherson, who was posted up in the left corner of the circle. With her back to the cage, Matherson centered a pass to Elizabeth Warner for the equalizer. Wake Forest flirted with the gamewinning goal in the final moments of

the second period, but BC’s defense held strong, vying for its second-straight overtime affair. With two and a half minutes to go in the period, Haverhals sent a crossfield pass to a wide-open Lytle. The senior approached the cage with only the goalie to beat, but misfired, and the ball harmlessly dribbled out of bounds. Haverhals would have to take matters into her own hands. A little more than six minutes into the second frame of overtime, the Netherlands native inserted a corner to Govaert atop the left side of the circle. The sophomore unleashed a shot on cage—one that was instantly deflected by a Demon Deacon defender. Attempting to avert danger, O’Connor sprawled on the ground to stop the ball, but a creeping Haverhals got her stick in just in time to squeeze the Eagles’ fourth and final goal of the night past the Wake Forest keeper. Interestingly enough, the Demon Deacons were the last ACC team that BC defeated back on Oct. 21, 2016. Haverhals was the hero then, too, scoring a pair of goals. Doton stressed that, while her team has certainly not forgotten about last year’s 0-6 ACC slate, 2018 is a new year. And for the first time in four seasons, BC is 1-0 to start conference play. 

Roelfsema Strikes Early, Eagles Pull Out Victory at BU BY BEN THOMAS Heights Senior Staff Mijke Roelfsema channeled her inner Ronaldo on Thursday night. In a matchup between Commonwealth Ave. rivals, it was the Dutch Boston College 1 sophomore scorBoston University 0 ing the lone goal of the game on a Sam Coffey corner kick in the 15th minute. The cross—which was initially cleared to the edge of the box by the Boston University defense—ended up inadvertently bouncing off the chest of Carly Leipzig, and towards Roelfsema. Facing her own goal, the star Boston College women’s soccer defender had to contort her body, twisting every which way in order to get a shot on net. The result—20 minutes after referees nearly delayed the game because of stormlike conditions—was a beautiful rainbow of a shot over the outstretched arms of goalkeeper Amanda Fay.

The bicycle-like goal was all the Eagles would need in a 1-0 victory. Notably, the scoring play was the first of Roelfsema’s already impressive career at BC (7-0). Despite making just her second start of the 2018 campaign on Thursday night, the defender has been a key cog for the Eagle defense throughout the team’s undefeated run to start the season, and the rivalry matchup proved she could get it done on offense, too. Although the score wouldn’t tell it, BC dominated the Terriers (1-6) throughout the contest. Coffey’s corner was one of seven the Eagles took over the course of the game— five in the first half alone—compared to just three for BU. Additionally, another shutout for BC goalie Alexis Bryant has essentially become the norm for the team at this point. Bryant has not let a single shot get past her since the first game of the season against Quinnipiac. The redshirt senior only had to face four shots in the contest versus the

Terriers—with none coming in the first half, proving just how influential the Eagles’ backline has been this season. The BC offense, meanwhile, has been on a tear. Against BU, the Eagles were able to get a look on net a total of 17 times. Frankly, it was surprising to see the final score as close as it was simply based on the way BC dominated possession time. Certainly, the Eagles generated more chances in the second half. Kayla Duran received a set piece opportunity from close range in the 57th minute, but put the shot just high over the bar. Just two minutes later, Olivia Vaughn was gifted a shot at net but sent it wide as well. Interestingly, it was Roelfsema again in the 67th minute with a likely scoring chance. From 22 yards out, she sent a strike toward the corner of the net, but Fay dove to her left just in time to deflect the ball out for another corner. Alison Foley’s decision to start Roelfsema at midfield the past two games seems to have

CELINE LIM / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Simon Enstrom recorded two goals and an assist during BC’s 3-2 win over the Tigers. been the right call. Clearly, she’s been able to produce immediately on the offensive end, while the rest of the roster has been able to hold down the fort on the other. Should Roelfsema remain in the midfield at the start of conference play, it will truly be seen whether the position will be the homestead for her remaining two and half

seasons in Chestnut Hill. The Eagles—who are off to their best start since 2009—have two more non-conference games left in the regular season. Both games take place in the coming week, and at this point it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them enter ACC play without a single blemish in the loss column. 

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WOMEN’S SOCCER

Eagles Concede First Goal Since Opener, Still Cruise Past Owls By Peter Kim Asst. Sports Editor An hour into Boston College women’s soccer’s Sunday afternoon match against Temple, the Eagles owned a two-goal lead, 1 Temple having already Boston College 4 weathered a handful of Owls chances, and looked well on their way to a seventh-consecutive shutout. Just when it looked like BC was going to ride the second half out to another decisive victory, one long ball led to trouble and something the Eagles haven’t been familiar with lately: a goal conceded. BC could have collapsed mentally, but instead, relying on the tenacity that has been one of its best traits this season, it conjured quite the response, answering the Temple goal with two of its own in the final 15 minutes, en route to an emphatic 4-1 win. From the opening kickoff, the Eagles (8-0) were intent on controlling the game. Jenna Bike had two excellent looks at goal in the first 10 minutes. The former was blocked, and the second— after a scramble in the box—was saved by Owls (3-4) goalkeeper Jordan Nash. Temple was having trouble stringing

together passes in the midfield, and two giveaways led to shots from Sam Coffey—whose drive was saved by Nash—and Gaby Carreiro, who blazed one over the cage. The Eagles continued to pressure the Temple back line, forcing three traight corners, all of which the Owls managed to clear. Desperate to shift momentum, Temple became more physical, committing four consecutive fouls. Unfortunately for the Owls, the last of these was in the box, and led to a penalty kick opportunity for the Eagles. For much of the season, Coffey has been the offensive catalyst for BC, driving attacks forwards with well-placed passes and providing pinpoint service on set pieces. Thus, it was no surprise when she stepped up to take the spot kick for the Eagles. And as has become the norm, she made no mistake, burying her kick past a diving Nash to give the Eagles the lead. Five minutes later, the lead was two, and the goal came off what is rapidly becoming a trademark BC corner kick. With Gianna Mitchell on the goal line crowding the keeper, Coffey’s service was again perfect, this time finding the head of Kayla Jennings. The junior

midfielder made no mistake with her header, emphatically slamming it into the back of the net. The second goal seemed to wake Temple up a bit. First, a loose ball off a scuffle at the top of the box saw Jules Blank create the Owls’ first shooting chance of the day, but a crowd of Eagles defenders blocked the ball before it could reach goalkeeper Alexis Bryant. Seconds later, a misplaced pass from Riley Lochhead gifted Kerri McGinley with a look on net from a tough angle, but she missed wide. The Owls’ momentum carried over into the second half. Just three minutes into the period, McGinley found Bella Sorrentino open in the box after a long ball forward, but Sorrentino pushed her effort wide of the near post. BC’s attempts to turn the tide came from the right wing, with Jenna Bike providing an attacking presence thanks to her speed. She was able to win a pair of corners, one of which drew a save from Nash, and her perimeter threat was able to open up the heart of the field. Coffey, Carreiro, and Jennings found space to get shots away, but all three of their efforts missed the target. And before the Eagles’ could get back on the attack, the Owls scored their lone goal.

A long ball over the top took an awkward bounce and both McGinley and Bryant elevated to vie for possession. The resulting collision saw the ball drop rather fortunately at McGinley’s feet, and she curled her shot into an open goal, halving the Eagles lead and giving Temple a spark as cries for a foul from the BC bench went unanswered. Foul or not, the goal was something preventable to Eagles head coach Alison Foley. “It’s a little bit disappointing because I thought that goal that they scored was in our control,” the longtime coach said. “Whether or not they bumped the keeper doesn’t really matter, it was a midfield breakdown.” What BC could control, however, was its response. Immediately following the scoring play, Temple upped the intensity, flying into tackles and beginning to string some passes together. The Eagles needed some kind of energizer, and it was the backline led by Mitchell and Kayla Duran who kept the Owls at bay long enough for BC to create scoring chances of its own. When the chances did come, it was the wide players—dangerous in one-on-one situations all day—in the middle of the action. In the 77th minute, the ball was

played wide to Lochhead, whose driven cross found the feet of Carly Leipzig. Her initial attempt was blocked as she fell to the turf, but she kept with it, climbing back to her feet and scrambling the rebound into the bottom corner to restore the Eagles’ two-goal cushion. Just nine minutes later, fancy footwork from Carreiro allowed her to easily beat the defender marking her and send another dangerous ball towards the near post. This time it was Olivia Vaughn, fresh on the field for Leipzig, who got on the end of it, finding the bottom corner again with her effort and giving BC the exclamation point on its eighth-consecutive win. Foley was equally impressed with the wing players. “It gives you tons of confidence with the type of pace we have with our starters and the next three coming off the bench,” she said. “We can just create so many chances. It definitely builds confidence in the group.” With conference play looming, BC’s wide attacking threats will have to keep impressing for the Eagles to continue to win games. Against the ACC, defense—no matter how stellar—isn’t enough to ensure success. n

FIELD HOCKEY

Govaert’s 56th-Minute Goal the Difference in Win Over Albany By Bradley Smart Assoc. Sports Editor After a tough weekend in Maryland that handed Boston College field hockey its first two losses of the season, the No. Albany 0 13 Eagles reBoston College 1 turned home with a similarly daunting slate of opponents looming—ACC foe Wake Forest on Friday night and No. 25 Albany on Sunday afternoon. After edging the Demon Deacons, 4-3, for its first conference win since October 2016, BC followed with a nail biter of a 1-0 win over the visiting Great Danes. The Eagles (3-2, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) used a 56th-minute goal from

Fusine Govaert to polish off a terrific home weekend, needing seven saves from goaltender Sarah Dwyer to secure the win. Dwyer, who has two shutouts on the season, withstood a late rush from Albany (2-2) and its extra attacker late to earn the victory. Govaert, who scored six goals in 12 games last season, has already reached half that in the first five this year. The sophomore scored her team-leading third goal after teammate Carly Kauffman’s initial shot was deflected to her, where she tucked it away with ease. It ended a three-game scoreless streak for Govaert, who played just 33 minutes in the win. She’d peppered Wake Forest the day prior with four shots but wasn’t among the four goal scorers

in the win. BC was a well-deserved winner, as it controlled the pace of the game for much of the 70 minutes. It was especially evident in the opening half, where the Eagles held an edge in shots and forced Melissa Nealon to make a trio of saves. Still, nothing came of it, and the first 15 minutes of the second period were very uneventful. A flurry of chances around the 45-minute mark followed, with Kauffman and Frederique Haverhals both having shots blocked in succession. Nealon came up with a pair of saves five minutes prior, but the second wasn’t enough—Kauffman’s first effort was sent back to Govaert, who buried it. Suddenly faced with the prospect of having to find an equal-

izer with just 16 minutes left in the game, the Great Danes responded with vigor. Dwyer, who had needed to make just two saves since the break, turned away four in a span of three minutes. The junior absorbed the best chances Albany had and maintained the onegoal lead, denying Dana Bozek and then Frederike Helmke three times in rapid succession. It was an impressive individual performance, as she had largely been untested but was still able to step up when needed most. In the final two minutes, the Great Danes opted to put Sheridan Messier in as an extra attacker with Nealon on the bench, but it was to no avail. They didn’t manage to get a shot off, and a green card in the final minute

on Ghislaine Beerkens—who led the America East in game-winning goals a season ago—proved to be the final straw. The bounce-back weekend from the Eagles was much needed. Much of 2017 was defined by close losses, with three narrow one-goal defeats that prevented them from winning a single conference game while keeping the NCAA Tournament out of reach. A familiar story played out in the losses to No. 4 Maryland and No. 12 Northwestern, but the fact that they were able to flip the script the next time out is a promising sign. With another ACC test against No. 11 Louisville on the road next, BC has a chance to build on the early conference success. n

CELINE LIM / HEIGHTS EDITOR

After a tough weekend in Maryland, where they dropped games to Maryland and Northwestern, field hockey recovered with a strong weekend at home as they knocked off Wake Forest and No. 25 Albany. FOOTBALL

Following Dominant First Quarter, Perry and McDonald Shine NOTE Vs. HC, from B1 few takeaways from the win, as well as things to look at moving forward. It is not fair for A.J. Dillon to play an FCS opponent. This was clear from the very first play of the game. Dillon took a handoff around the left edge, beat a flailing Josh Hicks with ease, and raced 54 yards before being brought down from behind. Five carries and two touchdowns later, he was talking with Addazio on the sideline about coming out, and that was that. It was a simple conversation—keeping Dillon in was unnecessary, as they led 21-0 with him carrying the brunt of it. “[Dillon] was laughing, he knows,” Addazio said of the brief sideline chat. “He knows I need him to have 300 as we roll forward, so he understood it. He probably could have ran for quite a few yards today.” It’s understood that his role will pick up in the coming weeks, but having played just three quarters and already looking in peak form, Eagles fans can only be optimistic for bigger games moving forward.

The backup quarterbacks looked more than serviceable. Brown threw just two passes, completing both, before his day was done. That meant an extended look at E.J. Perry and Matt McDonald, a duo that impressed at times throughout the preseason. On Saturday, Perry led seven drives, McDonald five, and the two combined to engineer five scoring drives. Both threw a pair of touchdowns and posted near flawless quarterback ratings, displaying a level of poise that is often unseen by one, let alone three, Eagles quarterbacks. Perry’s first drive was noticeable, as after Brown was sacked to force a three-and-out, he came on and went 58 yards in just 10 plays. It was capped by a 17-yard touchdown pass to Ben Glines, wrapping up a three-minute push that bookended the first and second quarters. He’d go on to execute 67-yard and 48-yard touchdown drives, the latter the product of a big play—he hit C.J. Lewis in stride for a 33-yard score. That was it for the sophomore, who handed the keys over to McDonald,

and the third stringer was equally strong. Despite not showing the same athleticism—Perry scampered for a first down at one point—McDonald needed just two drives to settle in and get going. He found Hunter Long streaking past the secondary for a 35-yard touchdown on just his third throw of the game. Next, after two more dump off passes, he connected with Noah Jordan-Williams down the right sideline for a 65-yard score. All in all, the duo played excellently in relief, something that inspires confidence should Brown replicate last year and go down with an injury. The secondary is as explosive, if not more, as last season. Rightfully so, much was made about losing Kamrin Moore and Isaac Yiadom to the NFL after last year, but the early returns on the secondary have been promising. Stalwarts in Lukas Denis and Will Harris are back, but Hamp Cheevers has emerged as the epitome of a cornerback that can make the big play. In Week One, it was a forced fumble and recovery near the goal line that stifled a UMass scoring

drive. This week, it was a seemingly effortless 81-yard interception return. Cheevers, filling the void at the cornerback position, saw the pass coming a mile away and simply jumped in front of the receiver near the sideline and streaked to the end zone. The other question toward Cheevers and Co. was whether they had sufficient depth should one go down, and there were at least some positives for the group in that area—backup Mehdi El Attrach came away with the first interception of his career in the third quarter. Special teams may never be where they need to be. Harsh, sure. Accurate? Maybe. The unit as a whole has so many ups and downs it’s almost remarkable. Chalk some of it up to early season jitters or to rotating players around in a blowout, but the fact remains that the group isn’t doing well. In Week One, the struggles were plenty—kick returns allowed and failed snaps on punts and field goals. On Saturday, not one, but two, punts were blocked and returned for Holy Cross touchdowns—the only

points the Crusaders would score all day. Poor Grant Carlson, who’s performed admirably with big shoes to fill after Mike Knoll’s departure, was greeted rudely in each instance by several Holy Cross players flying through. Kicker John Tessitore, filling in for Colton Lichtenberg, banged an extra point off the left upright. Even kicker Danny Longman, who took over kickoff duties, sent one out of bounds. Then there’s return man Michael Walker, who managed to lose two yards on a punt return, looping in circles without gaining anything. Addazio attributed the struggles to shuffling players around, but it was still a tough showing on an otherwise strong day for the team, and something that must be ironed out before the going gets tough. Even if the third punt team never sees the light of day, it still needs to be in better form should something unexpected go wrong. At the quarterback position, Eagles fans can rest easy with two players gaining plenty of experience. On special teams, though, those roles seem much less settled. n

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Quality Plot, Filmmaking Missing from ‘Peppermint’ BY PETER GAVARIS Heights Staff If you thought the idiosyncratic title was the mark of an idiosyncratic film, I’ve got some bad news for you: Peppermint may very well be the most uninteresting movie of the year. It’s a grating slog of an action movie that’s so chock-full of every trope and cliché in the book that it might even make your dad cackle. Imagine one of those ’80s action movies you like so much (First Blood, Die Hard, etc.), only without the personality or any semblance of style. It aspires to very little and even then misses its mark, dulling the senses instead of invigorating them, which is a shame. With

a title like Peppermint, you want something new and refreshing, but this only leaves a bad taste in your mouth. The film opens on a grizzly confrontation between an anonymous, bandana-clad thug and our heroine, Riley North (Jennifer Garner), on one of those secluded rooftop parking garages. The two duke it out in a car, choking one another and exchanging stabs, until Riley pulls out a pistol and blows the guy’s head clean off. Blood and brain matter trickle down the car window as our hero struts off into the Los Angeles morning, cuing a hallucinatory title-sequence montage that highlights the crime and grime of the city’s impoverished underworld that Riley is inexplicably a part of. “But how did she get

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here?” you may ask. We then jump back in time to five years earlier where we meet up with Riley again—this time with her daughter selling Girl Scout cookies in a strip mall parking lot—adorned with all the trappings of a quaint middle-class existence. From a cringe-inducing interaction with a fellow mom, we learn of her family’s financial struggles and the apparent persecution that comes with this sort of economic malaise. Everyone in the town is out to get the North family, and when we meet up with Riley’s husband, Chris (Jeff Hephner), we learn of his plot to rip off a cartel leader named Diego “La Guillotina” Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba). After some reflection, Chris eventually makes the decision to abandon the plan, but not before “La Guillotina” finds out about the plot and decides he and his family need to die. In a slow motion sequence that recalls the best of Lifetime Movies, a trio of goons gun down Riley’s husband and daughter at a local carnival—Riley takes a shot to the head but survives, waking up in the hospital to the grim news. Needless to say, the court proceedings don’t go as planned. The entire criminal justice system is in the pocket of Garcia, and the only wholesome lawman we can trust is Detective Stan Carmichael (John Gallagher Jr.), who’s put in charge of the investigation. Carmichael’s sarcastic banter with a fellow detective (John Ortiz) marks the closest

Peppermint ever comes to the movies it’s mimicking, even if it’s often hard to discern the tongue-in-cheek from the just-plainbad—it doesn’t really matter though. Garner’s not bad in the role, but she can’t make up for the incompetence of the action filmmaking, which frankly should be the film’s selling point. Instead, it’s Peppermint’s greatest shortcoming, since most of the film’s cheeseball antics could have been excused if the action was good enough. Only, it’s not—between the blindingly quick edits and the close-up handheld shots, the fight scenes are mostly incomprehensible and unenjoyable. There’s a genuine art to good action filmmaking, but that hasn’t stopped director Pierre Morel, who notably made Taken (a significantly more competent work) 10 years ago. His presence behind the camera is unfelt here. Everything is shot as plainly as possible, and there’s nothing in the film that indicates that it was made by human beings. It’s a prime example of a factory line movie, a commodity and nothing more. If you’re itching to watch some action on the big screen, I promise that you can do much better than this—Peppermint just wasn’t meant to be seen in a theatre. No, it was made to play on cable at 2:00 a.m., joining the long list of incompetent action movies that paradoxically put people to sleep. 

Jazzy ‘Young Sick Camellia’ Feels Messy, Incomplete BY ADAM MEHAL Heights Staff

Young Sick Camellia is the newest album from the fairly fresh soul band St. Paul and the Broken Bones, which formed in 2012. A camellia is the state flower of Alabama, an homage to the band’s origins from the southern state. Even though St. Paul formed recently, the band has been reasonably prolific in the time that it’s been around, releasing two albums before this in 2014 and 2016 and two EP’s, both in 2013. Young Sick Camellia, released Friday, both pays a careful homage to its previous works and storied geographical heritage while boldy moving forward with new sounds and themes not particularly common in the soul genre. Paul Janeway, the lead vocalist, blends his piercing but smooth vocals with an instrumental background that is at times simultaneously traditional and eccentric. Overall, this results in a highly pleasing musical experience that is both groovy and interesting. One of the songs that stood out was “Convex,” a jazzy and upbeat piece, which stood in a bit of a contrast compared to some of the other songs on the record. It’s a bright floral number, giving off a slick, disco-era vibe that serves as a good introduction to the whole album. The song selection provides a nice demonstration of the band’s diversity, as the album features everything from spoken word pieces by the lead vocalist’s grandfather to some further

experimental sounds, such as alternative percussion. Another standout was “Bruised Fruit,” a song that came at the very end of the album. It’s arguably the most “poppy” song on the record, featuring some more mainstream lyrics and vocals, and it should probably be presented to someone as an easily digestible number. Unpacking the meaning behind some of the lyrics like “Judas ain’t dead in modern love / Ambition kills all who want to run / Take it all away” and “Domesticated problems losing all their teeth / Can I police?” is challenging, but go ahead and debate away on songfacts.com as much as you like. It’s safe to say, though, that the band deals with some complex themes and issues in this work, many of them relating to their southern identity, and how it relates to the rest of America and the world. The order of the album was interesting, as it really thrusted the listener forward into each coming song. Many of the songs ended with those spoken word pieces, which provided some pacing and intrigue to the music. There didn’t seem to be a definite meaning behind the placement of songs that transcended different genres, but whatever the intention, it led the listener to experience some of the bands intuition and musical creativity at multiple points throughout the listening experience, which can only be a good thing. The experience was certainly engaging, and much of that can be chalked up

to the variety on display. The listener isn’t totally sure as to what they are going to hear next, which can be exhilarating and will certainly hook in someone who may be just be enjoying it casually. While the average person might not be able to be engaged fully with some of the meaning and themes as they go through the album for the first time, their engagement can be heightened on a second listen, if they decide to keep an eye out for some of the ideas, both explicit and hidden. Young Sick Camellia was certainly an interesting listening experience, and one that likely would appeal to a large variety of listeners. It could be played in the background low key as one is studying, or attention could be fully devoted to it in order to parse out some of its

spoken feelings. A nagging thought that one gets when listening, however, is that this is almost like an outline for a full album, with many parts that have not been fully put in yet. There isn’t an obvious overarching theme or purpose to be found in this music that really ties the whole experience together, and the musical variety, which at times seems liberating, can come off as a bit messy and disorganized at times. Swapping from dramatic orchestral arrangements to more psychedelic elements such as warped pitches, samples, and strings, which are used for sound effects rather than chord voicing, can feel jarring and unsatisfying at times. Overall, this is a novel piece of music that can be recommended to most people. 

For The Heights

Does a coming-of-age story of a high school boy and his family sound familiar? Not when autism is thrown into that triedand-tested formula. With so little autism representation in the media, the second season of the Netflix show Atypical delivers a funny, poignant family comedy that will leave audiences laughing one second and tearing up the second, all the while showing a family with an autistic member, dealing with the trials and tribulations of life just as any other family would. Atypical tells the story of Sam, a high school senior high on the autism spectrum, and his friends and family around him. The show picks up from the first season, when

Sam’s sister Casey finds out about their mother’s affair with a bartender, and angrily confronts her in the form of an aggressive kitchen blackboard message. This confrontation throws a wrench in the family when the father Doug finds out. As the divided couple tries to reconcile their feelings and make sense of the situation, Sam is trying to deal with the massive amounts of change in his life–deciding whether to go to college, finding a new therapist, and figuring out his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. Meanwhile, Casey transfers to a new, snobby private school and has to deal with new friendships, heartaches, and being away from her brother, who she has always looked out for. The family has to deal with their internal conflicts as well as external pressures, while the two teenagers

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KAYLIE RAMIREZ

‘WATCHING OVER’ GRETA VAN FLEET

Greta Van Fleet has caused quite the ruckus on the rock scene since the release of its debut album From The Fires—and it’s only getting hotter. With a 21-yearold lead singer who has the bohemian style and roaring voice of a young Robert Plant, the band’s latest single arrives at a fitting time: Sept. 7, 2018 marks the 50year anniversary of Led Zeppelin. Rock critics have drawn countless parallels between Led Zeppelin and Greta Van Fleet, and “Watching Over” does little to stop them from connecting even more dots. Hard stop drum beats and winding guitar solos drive the rock single through a forest of lush lyrics. The chorus wrestles with religion, charging “Still the children smiling / And we see no sin.” True to his unmatched range, lead singer Josh Kiszka makes no attempt at hiding the raspy imperfections of his voice and endows his music with an almost primal energy through breathtaking notes. Josh Kiszka’s vibrant vocals meet their match with the guttural guitar strokes of twin brother Jake Kiszka, whose longwinded jams are worthy of comparison to those of Jimmy Page himself: Jake Kiszka cuts his teeth on a vicious slide guitar breakdown. The band does little to diversify its classic rock cosmic sound on the new single, but extends its meteoric campaign to revitalize rock by taking it back to its raucous roots. 

MUSIC VIDEO JACOB SCHICK

‘LOVE SOMEONE’ LUKAS GRAHAM

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YOUNG SICK CAMELLIA ST. PAUL AND THE BROKEN BONES PRODUCED BY SINGLE LOCK RECORDS RELEASE SEPT. 7, 2018 OUR RATING

SINGLE LOCK RECORDS

‘Atypical’ Rises Above Typical Coming-of-Age Story BY STEPHANIE LIU

SINGLE REVIEW

discover themselves and grow from their experiences. Narration by Sam weaves through the entire show, but unlike others where the narration is directly about what is occurring, Sam is usually talking about certain behaviors of penguins—his passion—that corresponds with certain situations and acts as a great metaphor to what is happening in the plot at the time. Atypical really excels in the family comedy genre. The characters feel real and personal. They have distinct personalities and flaws, and all add something to the show. Although each has a distinct type (for example, Sam’s ex-girlfriend is the highstrung valedictorian), no character only acts like a stereotype, and each has moments that touch and surprises the audience, making the show and the characters all the more relatable. None of the characters are ever painted in a black-and-white, one-dimensional way, which contributes greatly to the complexity of the show. Atypical has great comedic timing and some side-splitting moments. Jokes are never too contrived, and just happen naturally with the ebb and flow of the conversation. The plot is well thought out and not predictable, and one really does begin to become invested in and feel for these characters. Actions have consequences, and the show, while comedic, is definitely plot driven. One action leads to another, and everything that happens the

show has a place of origin and a meaning for the future. The show deals with Sam’s autism very well. Although an emphasis of the show, Sam’s autism is never specifically highlighted to make it seem strange or unnatural. He has his own way of doing things, and although his family and friends do not always understand what he is doing, they support him and accept him as he is. Although a very effective comedy, the show never makes Sam the butt of the joke. Atypical also deals with the societal stigma surrounding autism, and people who either do not know or choose not to learn about it, and how it can seriously hurt those with autism and their families. At one point in the show, Sam wanders out at night and gets arrested, as the police officer interpreted his distress to mean that he was on drugs. Sam’s family, incredibly hurt at the police officer’s actions and at the emotional distress Sam had endured, decides to start a training program for emergency response personnel about how to respond to autistic people. Atypical is a thoughtful look on autism and what it is like, while also being entertaining and fun. Although lighthearted, the show can also address serious topics, which is really where it excels. Atypical is great for anyone who likes family comedies, and can educate audiences about autism without feeling preachy. Overall, Atypical fulfills its purpose and is a genuine, enjoyable show. 

The music video for Lukas Graham’s “Love Someone” is nothing if not really cute. The conceit is that, backed by Graham’s high vocals, the viewer watches as the camera cuts between various and disparate relationships between people of all kinds. There are, of course, romantic relationships that seem to dominate the focus of the video—refreshingly, the video features romantic relationships and displays of affection between heterosexual people and between members of the LGBTQ+ community. The lyrics of “Love Someone” might first lend themselves to a romantic love song, so these partners’ appearances in the video might not be very surprising. Graham, however, extends this message of love to any kind of relationship. The music video shows the love between parents and children, between siblings, humans and animals, and friends. These extremely cute clips are supplemented by Graham’s own appearance in the music video. He is shown singing this song to a newborn baby (also incredibly cute). This might be taken as a tribute of sorts to his new daughter. While “Love Someone” isn’t some think-piece that requires countless rewatches in order to grasp its meaning like Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer or Childish Gambino’s “This Is America,” it is worth a watch. The chorus of the song is cheery and almost saccharinely sweet: “Cause when you love someone / You open up your heart / When you love someone / You make room / If you love someone / And you’re not afraid to lose ’em / You probably never loved someone like I do.” The song itself is certainly decent, if not everyone’s cup of tea. Instead, it’s a nice and slow pop-ish song that delivers a good message along cute videos of babies, kids, couples, and people in general. And today, that might be just what we need. 

THE HEIGHTS

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

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Shining Light on McMullen’s Art After Dark Through the BY GIO LAVOILE For The Heights

On Friday, the artist Carrie Mae Weems, renowned in the fields of text, fabric, audio, digital images, installation video, and photography, held an exhibition at the McMullen Museum. The atmosphere was inviting—students came in droves to see the exhibit, while those working the event had countless activities to engage in along with the exhibits. The setting was bright and relaxed upon entering—people came and went as they wished—but the feeling did vary depending on where one was. Once in the exhibit, the feeling changed:The intensity of the exhibit

forced an immediate change in mood, as people were forced to deal with and discuss a litany of serious issues. While the exhibit technically only covered two floors, many of the interactive activities were held on the first floor. Upon entering, you’re greeted with a treasure hunt as you’re handed a list with certain items to find before being led into the first floor of the exhibit. On the top floor, there was great set up of a list of world issues (gun reform, climate change, and racism were some of the many issues listed). You were tasked with deciding which of the many issues were important to you. Along with these activities were performances by Sexual Chocolate, F.I.S.T.S (Females Incorporating

KATIE GENIRS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Sisterhood Through Step), and B.E.A.T.S (Black Experience in America Through Song), who delivered a great rendition of “Blue Lights” by Jorja Smith. The crowd loved every act, cheering on the performers relentlessly and taking in the entirety of their performances. The work of Weems, while focusing mainly on the African American Experience, also covers aspects of the American experience as a whole. The work itself— mainly photographic but also consisting of two extremely provocative movies—was a cool mix of somber, empowering, and extremely thought-provoking material. One exhibit on the second floor covered the ’60s, which Weems and many others believe to be one of the most tragic periods in American history. The death of many important American heroes and thinkers resulted in the death of hope and an unalterable change in the American psyche, according to Weems. She opted to represent this change with a set of photos taken with the help of college students, who were used as subjects to express the pain and uncertainty of the time. There was also a thrilling set of photos in which Weems took a slanderous interpretation of African Americans as animals in New Orleans, and flipped the interpretation on its head, using photos of individuals in tuxedos and animal masks—one with a

monkey mask on—to show the class of African Americans. While the treasure hunt was ongoing, people were rarely talking above a whisper, taking in the entirety of the exhibit. The third floor continued with the theme, taking it even further. There was a range of photos: One set focused on the interpretation of African Americans in popular culture by showing African-American individuals with stereotypical items associated with them—there was a black man holding a watermelon and a black woman holding a chicken. Weems also took aim at the negative representation of African American women in American culture, flipping it on its head by taking charge of the narrative to empower women who may have felt as if they were victims of the narrative associated with them. One of the saddest set of photos was focusing on the deaths of a litany of young African American men through police brutality, which ranged from that of 12-year-old Tamir Rice to 43-year-old Eric Garner. Overall, the student opening of the McMullen Museum was both a beautiful and thought provoking one, capturing a range of emotions through important photography and video that left viewers thinking of a litany of important issues that covered a variety of people and their experiences. It was definitely worth checking out, and hopefully won’t be the last of that kind. 

McCartney Tracks With Quality on ‘Egypt Station’ BY JACOB SCHICK Arts Editor

In his first original release in nearly five years, Paul McCartney returns with Egypt Station. The album was met with enormous anticipation by fans and the greater artistic community. McCartney, of the Beatles and Wings, is one of the last remaining icons from the British invasion, Beatlemania, and classic rock. But there’s a lot to say about the actual music too. The album opens with “Opening Station,” a 46-second song that combines the sounds of various train stations and then swells into an exalting vocal exhalation. It also serves as a good bookend and lead-in to the first “real” song, “I Don’t Know.” McCartney laments his inability to get anything right in this melancholy and piano-heavy track. In a much raunchier turn, McCartney follows up this song with Track 6 on Egypt Station, “Fuh You.” This non-word means exactly what you think it does in the context of the song. The song sounds much more modern in terms of the rock songs in McCartney’s catalogue, which almost sounds like sacrilege. Released by any other modern rock band, this would be a totally serviceable and probably good song. Released by McCartney, it sounds almost untrue to his earlier work. Full of crashing waves of vocals and instruments on the heels of lone lyrics, vocal chopping, and vocal pitching, “Fuh You” is not the Paul McCartney of the Beatles or Wings. But, McCartney is clearly keeping up with his younger competitors here—artists can

and should evolve after all—and for that he should be commended. “Caesar Rock” is a misspelling of what McCartney is actually singing in the song: “She’s a rock.” McCartney hardens and roughens his voice for this song. He screams about how he wants to shout to the world about this woman, but can never seem to get the words out. “Caesar Rock” stands out in Egypt Station for its passion and feeling, and for McCartney’s ability to change the entire sound of his voice to one with grit and gristle. In much of his work on the whole, McCartney’s vocal clarity and crispness was second to none. Yet, many of his fans also enjoy his embrace of his other talents in albums like Wings at the Speed of Sound and Ram. While many music lovers out there know the hits, “Caesar Rock” seems to align closely with one of McCartney’s deep tracks called “Monkberry Moon Delight,” a nonsense song from 1971 where he adopts a nearly Cocker-esque vocal range. The longest song on the album, “Despite Repeated Warnings,” first appears to be another one of McCartney’s piano and vocal heavy songs in which he takes pauses between each lyric and allows the piano to sing against him. The song, however, is split into two parts. The first is essentially just this, where McCartney bemoans the present state of the captain’s inability to listen and save the sinking ship, “despite repeated warnings.” The second part picks up the tempo, throwing in hard guitar licks and harder vocals. Serving as a not-so-thinly veiled allusion to our current out-of-control political ship helmed by our own unstable

captain, “Despite Repeated Warnings” livens up into a swelling and nearly groovy song filled with horns and shouted vocals. The song’s quality derives from its multiple tone shifts, like a shortened version of an album like say Band on the Run. The final song on the album is “Hunt You Down/Naked/C-Link.” McCartney’s vocals seem to be run through a speaker set, lending them an electronic quality that meshes perfectly with the sounding horns and heart-swelling instrumentation. The “Hunt You Down” aspect of the song leads into “Naked,” where McCartney slows down a little bit before jumping into “C-Link,” which is composed entirely of instrumentals. While McCartney clearly does not achieve the high notes (literally and figu-

ratively) that he used to, no one really expected him to. He is 76 years old, and has been playing music since 1957. He is one of the most important musicians in music history, and it’s truly remarkable and admirable that he continues to record new music so late into his extensive career. Many artists of his age and legacy would be content to retire, or even to simply tour and release “best-of” compilations. McCartney has instead chosen to release Egypt Station, a great album in its own right. While it’s no Band on the Run, Let it Be, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or Abbey Road, it is a very good album with multiple songs that deserve and will receive more than just a first, second, or third listen. And Sir Paul McCartney does too, even this late in the game. 

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EGYPT STATION PAUL MCCARTNEY DISTRIBUTED BY CAPITOL RECORDS RELEASE SEPT. 7, 2018 OUR RATING

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‘Raise Vibration’ Misses High Point for Kravitz BY EMILY HIMES Asst. Arts Editor

“Lenny Kravitz is still recording?” seems to be the most common response to the “American Woman” singer’s new record, Raise Vibration. Indeed, he is, but his musical style has definitely evolved over time. Kravitz sounds nothing like he did 15 years ago, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Up to date with the 2018 trend of logo-less clothing, Kravitz’s album doesn’t display his name or the name of the album. Instead, it is a relaxing and natural shot of Kravitz, ankles in the ocean, dreads swinging through the air, pastel sky behind him. The cover truly foreshadows the overall

aesthetic of the album—calm, relaxed, slow and steady—completely different from the mood of his previous releases. Raise Vibration opens up with “We Can Get It All Together” to establish the record’s steady, feel-good summer energy. Albeit repetitive, the song is effortless and flowing, and its cyclical rhythm is easy to get lost in. “We Can Get It All Together” transitions into “Low,” which is easily the catchiest song on the album. It’s upbeat, but it’s still smooth. The song has a disco sound to it, making it perfect for dancing. (In fact, Kravitz was probably dancing to this song when they took the cover shot, because it’s the only song on the record upbeat enough for that.)

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RAISE VIBRATION LENNY KRAVITZ DISTRIBUTED BY BMG RELEASE SEPT. 7, 2018 OUR RATING

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Other songs on the record are intrinsic, but in a weird way. On “Who Really Are the Monsters?,” Kravitz sings about how it’s “not about the money, and not about the fame.” The song is harsh and hectic sounding, but a decent guitar solo and interesting drum rhythm make up for the fact that the rest of the song makes no sense. “Raise Vibration,” the album’s namesake, is another nonsensical yet feel good song. The lyrics are preachy, but the song is simple (and long—the intro alone is nearly two minutes long). “Love will lead us and complete us,” Kravitz sings, in an attempt to unify that only music can accomplish. “Raise Vibration” is another lengthy song, coming in at five minutes. It really doesn’t need to be that long—the extended introduction and drawn-out guitar solo make a decent song feel like an eternity. Long, repetitive songs are a trend on the album. “Johnny Cash,” an otherwise solid song, is drawn out for so long that it’s difficult to finish. It’s an unexpected love song amidst politically-tinged rock ones, and for that it stands out dramatically. “Here to Love” is another slow, uplifting track on the record. It’s inspiring—about doing right—and features some of the album’s strongest lyrics. Kravitz preaches positivity throughout the song, singing “We’re not here to

judge / Just here to love.” Kravitz jumps from the positivity of “Here to Love” to an impassioned political statement in “It’s Enough.” He points fingers every which way, saying “The whole wide world is corrupt / It’s enough, it’s enough.” The album becomes more engaging toward the end. On “5 More Days ‘Til Summer,” a happy, light, upbeat tune is mixed with a catchy baseline and nonsensical lyrics for a fun, pop feel. A similar quality is featured on “The Majesty of Love”—a fast, hectic beat makes it a busy, bass-heavy track. “Gold Dust” is the quintessence of Raise Vibration. Its long intro, solid piano, and sonic effects that accentuate the interesting lyrics give it a gospel sound and a good rhythm. The song is simple, but long (again). Raise Vibration is, in many ways, a solid album. It has a common theme of unifying against hate and negativity, which is greatly needed in this day and age. But from a musical standpoint, the album lacks cohesion on an auditory level. The songs are far too long, and they repeat the same message on a loop. They’re good quality, and many contain interesting and impactful lyrics, but each song could use a good minute or two chopped off. It would keep the listener engaged, instead of waiting for the song to finally end. 

Walls EMILY HIMES

Earlier this week I was walking down the hall to my apartment when I encountered my neighbor for the first time—he was around 30, sweaty, disheveled, and alone. His only words to me were “I’m smashed, dude,” before disappearing into his corner abode. Five minutes later, I heard a beat drumming from his apartment. I put my ear against the wall, not sure what to expect, and was rather surprised by what I heard—“Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver. He was blasting it. Then he switched over to “Hotel California,” but halfway through turned it off and switched back to “Country Roads.” I was disappointed in him—he switched songs right before Joe Walsh broke into his fantastic riff. “Country Roads” is one of those songs, like so many songs from the ’70s, that have completely prevailed. They withstand the test of time. Fifty years later, everyone still knows all the words to a John Denver song with the exceptional ability to get stuck in your head and never leave. I can’t begin to understand why “Country Roads” has become the absolute cultural phenomenon that it is today. The song—fantastic but unconventional in terms of 2018’s standards for popularity—has had a sudden uptick in movie features (Logan Lucky, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, and Alien: Covenant, to name a few). One plausible reason for the song’s increased popularity in film is that people who grew up fans of Denver are now adults and in the position to decide what music goes into movies. Denver was a major proponent of kindness, peace, and warmth. If you watch any movie scene that features his music, especially “Country Roads,” you’ll probably notice that it’s used to exemplify compassion. The song itself is simple and advocates for an appreciation of the little things in life: nature and going home. And in today’s political (and cultural, social, and overall emotional) climate, we need all the positivity we can get. Another reason for the song’s continued popularity is the surprisingly large number of memes featuring the song. They usually poke fun at the out-of-body experience people have when the song comes on—you can’t not sing along. One particularly popular meme features a dramatically singing duck, with bright red eyes. It’s completely demonic looking and slightly terrifying, and if this doesn’t highlight the insane problems our world has with Gen Z, I don’t know what does. So, if my neighbor happens to be reading this: If listening to Denver soothingly sing about West Virginia helps you escape from your crappy apartment in Brighton, I guess you should let it. I’m not judging—it’s 96 degrees, there’s no A.C., and you’re living alone in a building inhabited mainly by 20-year-old kids. You were totally hammered at 5 p.m. on a Sunday. Life can be rough. And as long as you’re playing “Country Roads,” I guess I’ll enjoy it too. The walls aren’t thin enough for me to really hear the entire thing, but I can hear the chorus clearly from my bedroom, and that’s the only part that really matters anyway. I’ll let the country roads take me home, back to summer, air conditioning, a full-size bed, and most notably, no homework. If there’s one unifying factor in this world, it’s music. It let me find common ground with a middle-aged drunk guy who is slightly concerning, a person I hope to avoid at all costs. I guess we all need something to take us home sometimes.

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

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Lost Articles: Backstage With BC Admission BY KAYLIE RAMIREZ Assoc. Arts Editor

Admission counselors spend countless hours getting to know you: the hours you spent running football drills on thousand-degree summer days, the lessons you learned from the kids at the preschool where you volunteered, and maybe even the first song you learned the words to in the back of your mom’s car on long road trips. But if you ventured into Devlin Hall on a regular weekday, you might hear passing conversations about the admission counselors’ lives that would surprise you: the theatre productions they participated in when they were Boston College students, The Strokes concert where they nearly lost their hearing, the time they spent climbing Machu Picchu this past summer, and the North Attleboro-based festival their band plays every summer. Pete Caruso, an associate director at the Office of Undergraduate Admission and LGSOE ’98, marvelled at the close arrangement of the drum kit in a Carney Hall practice room, drawing parallels between the weathered instrument and that of Vampire Weekend drummer Chris Tomson. Across the room, David Weber, also an associate director in the office, sifted through a cluttered closet full of guitar amps before selecting a Marshall amp and setting it on the ground. Outside the window of the practice room, students walked across lush green quads between their Friday classes for the first time since May. Caruso and Weber are just two of the 20 admission counselors who played a role in each current undergraduate student’s journey to BC. Together the two make up one half of Lost Articles, a rock band that plays bars, backyard barbecues, and the occasional presidential library throughout the Northeast. The other two members are Chris Connolly, a loss prevention and quality control manager for Lowe’s, and John Weber, a technical solutions specialist for Agilysys and David’s brother. At first glance, the grungy dive bars they sometimes find themselves playing seem worlds away from the bright Devlin presentation room in which they give hour-long information sessions to eager prospective students and helicopter parents—yet the band derives its name and eight-year existence from the admission office. Lost Articles, whose name is an allusion to the articles in the Statements of Principles of Good Practice—or the admission code of ethics—were first conceived in spring of 2010 at The Barking Dog, a tavern in Bethesda, Md., during downtime on one of the many admission visits the two make during any given academic year. The thought had independently crossed both of their minds before, but Caruso and Weber saw a unique opportunity that year: Their coworker Kelly Bellavance, an associate director of admission, was chairwoman of the annual New England Association for College Admission Counseling (NEACAC) regional conference in Stonehill, Mass. for the following year—each conference includes entertainment for the attendees. Prior to picking up a guitar and sticks together, the Lost Articles’ first order of business was to convince Bellavance to add their band to the entertainment

lineup for a conference that would be host passion, the fact that Weber and Caruso not expect to stay in the field for to many of their admission colleagues. ended up working in the same admission the duration of his career—hav“My first question to them was, ‘Are office is almost serendipitous. ing been involved in the college you guys any good?’” Bellavance said. Few enter college expecting to spend radio station at Stonehill, he “And they said, ‘yeah,’ which I found out more than four years there, and this was expected to eventually enter the later that they didn’t even know because certainly the case for both Weber and field of recording. they hadn’t ever played together yet.” Caruso. When it came time to make Having secured a spot on the lineup, Weber graduated from the University the switch, Caruso found himit still took a while for the newborn of Maryland, College Park in 2002 and self “dreading the prospect of band to get the wheels turning. With a during his time there worked a job in leaving [admission]” and has goal of creating a full setlist of 17 songs, Campus Recreation. now worked in the field for a Lost Articles had their work cut out for He developed an admiration for total of 30 years, 22 of which them. have been “ Th i s [ p r o spent at BC. posal to play] was BC is known to in May [of 2010],” be a black sheep in Caruso said. the world of college “We didn’t start admission. The Ofrehearsing until fice of UndergraduNovember.” ate Admission, unIn some ways, der the direction of the two musicians John Mahoney, the had been rehearsrecently promoted ing for live pervice provost for enformances their rollment managewhole lives. ment and BC ’79, for Weber gravithe past 28 years has tated toward guiplaced its focus on tar at a young age, the lives of current his main inspirastudents to convey tion in his early the BC story and years being Billy includes a studentJoel. Although he led Q&A session as had taken piano a part of its college lessons before, visit itinerary. he found himself College admisfrustrated that he sion is a field that is couldn’t play connotorious for high temporary music. turnover rates, but Weber began BC aims to hire emtaking ele ctric ployees who want to guitar lessons spend a long portion from a longof their career at the haired instructor university—many with heavy metal of the current emposters on his wall ployees in the Office named John Rosaof Undergraduate rio when he was in Admission are BC sixth grade. Tograds themselves, day, Weber’s 13including the newly Lost Articles have played countless shows around the Northeast since their 2007 debut. year-old son takes hired director of unKAITLIN MEEKS / HEIGHTS EDITOR lessons from the dergraduate admissame man. Although his love for music his manager’s leadership style and was sion, Grant Gosselin, BC ’97, LGSOE ’02. didn’t die out, he went through periods intrigued by the idea of leading a profes- This close relationship with the University devoid of playing. sional life on a university campus. and the long tenure of admissions counCaruso’s story is similar: His early Weber accepted his first position selors allows for genuine relationships interest in music to form organically w a s s p a rke d b y within the office, and bands like Led these are part of the Zeppelin and The reason Caruso and Rolling Stones, and Weber have been able he began playing to remain in Lost Artithe drums in fifth cles for eight years and grade. have received such During his first great support from drum lesson, the their colleagues. instructor left him In preparation for alone with the kit to Lost Articles’ pubsee if he would play, lic debut, Bellavance and Caruso passed hosted a private perthe test with flying colors, drumming up as an assistant director of admission at formance in her backyard in Dudley, a storm in the basement. Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., but Mass. in June of 2011. Most of the office He joined his first band during his always felt the desire to eventually return attended the event, including then-difreshman year of high school, but after to his home state of Massachusetts. The rector Mahoney, who was “sitting in his graduating college and starting his pro- North Attleboro native returned home in lawn chair, [with a] ball cap and craft fessional life, he didn’t pick up the sticks the fall of 2007 when he took his current beer.” Steven Koo, an associate director of for a full 18 years. A run in with the el- position at the BC Office of Undergradu- admission, recalled recognizing the openementary music teacher of his oldest son, ate Admission. ing of “Silent Lucidity” by Queensrÿche John Caruso, MCAS ’19, inspired him to Caruso attended Stonehill College during the set. revisit his musical talents, and he hasn’t in Easton, Mass., where he worked for “They can pretty much play anything looked back since—prior to forming Lost groundskeeping. The time spent outside as a band [and it’s] recognizable,” Koo Articles, Caruso played drums in a band allowed him to see college tours go by, said, who framed the setlist and photos named Forbidden Logic. thus sparking his interest in college ad- from the band’s first performance and Although admission was the starting mission. Although he took a job in Stone- presented it to each of the four members point for a new manifestation of a shared hill Admission after graduating, he did as a gift that year.

Together the two make up one half of Lost Articles, a rock band that plays eclectic sets at bars, backyard barbecues, and the occasional presidential library throughout the Northeast.

Lost Articles guitarist David Weber became an associate director of admission at Boston College in 2007.

INSIDE ARTS

‘Egypt Station’

Despite their capabilities, the two admission counselors felt the pressure of the high stakes for their first performance. Few processes are as universally anxiety-inducing in young people’s lives as the college application process, and students who choose to apply to topranked schools like BC put themselves in an especially vulnerable position: Only 27 percent of applicants received admission to BC last year. Caruso and Weber found themselves in a similar position while seeking acceptance from their fellow admission counselors. “When you blur the lines between professional and personal life … I remember thinking, ‘Should I be doing this?’” Caruso said. After the year-long buildup of nerves and excitement for their admission conference debut, Lost Articles rocked Stonehill and went on to play the NEACAC regional conference for four straight years. In the age of Snapchat, it is hard to imagine, but Weber recalled that it was so long ago that no quality video exists of their debut night because audience members still wielded flip phones with limited filming capabilities. “It is almost like this lost night, but it is so magical in our memory,” Weber said. “I remember the moment people started to get into it: We went into this little mashup of ‘I Want It That Way’ by the Backstreet Boys and ‘Slide’ by The Goo Goo Dolls. [There were] these massive iconic melodies and hooks that everybody knows, and everyone let their guard down at that point.” Seven years later, the band has illustrious performances and original songs under its belt. Its stint entertaining the admission world didn’t stop with the regional conference—Lost Articles took to the stage before a crowd of more than 2,000 at the National Catholic College Admission Association conference at the JFK Presidential Library. Weber has delved into solo acoustic work as well, opening for Imagine Dragons and Rascal Flatts at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Mass. this past summer, two experiences he was happy to share with his son. The two estimate that they have played over 100 songs to date, eight of which are originals that heavily drew influence from Third Eye Blind. When discussing the application reading process, Caruso noted that he looks for students with “generosity of spirit,” a term that circulates around the office—BC hopes to find students who have a concern for others. This same generosity of spirit shows up in the Lost Articles’ music: Caruso and Weber stressed that their purpose is anything but self-indulgent, and that their favorite part of the whole experience has been bringing together the office and their families. “We want everyone to come, have fun, and sing along,” Weber said. 

Pete Caruso has worked in admission for a total of 30 years, 22 of which have been spent on the Heights.

‘Raise Vibration’

Paul McCartney returns to the forefront with his new Lenny Kravitz aims high but misses with his new album, a conceptual album ‘Egypt Station,’ ................................................A17 personal departure in sound for the artist...........................A17

KAITLIN MEEKS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

‘Peppermint’..........................................A16 ‘Young Sick Camellia’.....................................A16 ‘Atypical’...........................................A16