The Heights April 14, 2016 by The Heights

ON THE FENCE

PARDON MY TAKE

THROUGH THE LENS

SPORTS

NEWS

SCENE

Rene Bichette’s unlikely journey has made her one of the ACC’s top fencers, B8

TV personality and dear, dear friend Stephen A. Smith spoke in Robsham on Monday, A4

Billy Foshay discusses his new art gallery in Carney Hall, B3

www.bcheights.com

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Vol. XCVII, No. 21

established

Thursday, April 14, 2016

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Previous Commencement speakers include Chicago Archbishop Rev. Blase Cupich, who spoke last year, and U.S. Secretary of State and former Senator from Massachusetts John F. Kerry, BC Law ’76, who spoke at the event in 2013. Moniz, who studied physics at BC, has been a key figure in major economic, security, and environmental issues in the U.S. since becoming secretary of energy in May 2013. He was involved in negotiations

E\nj <[`kfi U.S. Secretar y of Energy Ernest J. Moniz, BC ’66, will be the keynote speaker at Boston College’s 140th Commencement Exercises, which will take place May 23 in Alumni Stadium. Moniz will also receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree from University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., at the ceremony.

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for the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, helped promote American leadership in clean energy technology innovation, and spearheaded efforts to address climate change and its possible impacts. He began his career in public service in 1995 when he was the associate director for science in the Office of Science and Technology in the Executive Office of the President. He then oversaw science and energy programs, led a com-

prehensive review of nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship, and was special negotiator for the disposition of Russian nuclear materials as the energy secretary. Moniz began working in 1973 as a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, eventually becoming head of the department in 1991. He also led multidisciplinary studies on the future of nuclear power, coal,

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A report was filed Monday night regarding a suspicious person in or a ro u n d Ko s tk a H a l l o n Upper Campus. The man was supposedly attempting to look in windows from the outside of the hall, according to an email sent to residents of Upper Campus Tuesday night that informed them of the situation. A student reported to the resident director, Samantha Gordon, that she saw a white phone pressed against the window to her room, Boston College Police Department according to Executive Director of Public Safety John King. Gordon then reported the incident to the BCPD. The report was filed about one hour after the incident. BCPD responded and spoke with the student, King said. The department conducted a search of the area, but could not find the suspicious person. There is currently no description of the suspect. A separate email was sent out to residents of Kostka Hall the morning following the incident, in which Gordon advised the residents to report any suspicious activity to BCPD. She also told Kostka residents to close and lock their windows, make sure that the exterior doors to the building are locked, not let anyone that they do not know into the building, and walk with a friend at night for added security. BCPD is also increasing patrols in the area. “Your safety is of the utmost importance,” Gordon’s email to residents said.

9P AF< PL<E><IK ?\`^_kj JkX]] Widely regarded marathoner, athlete in York

as the greatest American Meb Keflezighi is the only history to win both the New City and Boston marathons and win an Olympic Medal. While already wellknown to fans of the sport, Keflezighi became a national hero after his 2014 Boston Marathon win, one year after the bombings of the 2013 Marathon. As runners and spectators prepare for the Boston Marathon this Monday, 2014 Boston Marathon Champion and Olympic Silver Medalist Keflezighi spoke to a packed crowd in Conte Forum Wednesday evening. The event, co-sponsored by the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics and WeRunBC, featured a talk from Keflezighi discussing his journey from refugee to Olympian and running icon. Keflezighi followed up this inspiring performance, in which he became the first American to win Boston since 1983, by qualifying for his fourth Olympic Games this summer in Rio de Janeiro by virtue of his second-place finish at the Olympic Marathon trials this past February in Los Angeles. After playing a short highlight video of Keflezighi’s Boston victory, WeRunBC co-founder Carson Truesdell, CSOM ’17, began the discussion by introducing Keflezighi and asking about his historic and meaningful 2014 Boston victory. “I have to be here [in Boston] next year to support the community, but I hope I am healthy enough to win for the people,” Keflezighi recalled saying to a reporter in the days after the 2013 bombing. Keflezighi recalled coming into the race as a major underdog, entering with the 19th fastest personal best in the field. However, early on in the race he decided to take an early lead and pushed the pace by himself, he said, because he saw that some of the better runners in the field decided to slow down the pace. By surprising the field with that early surge, and dropping a 4:30 16th mile, Keflezighi built up a sufficient lead to hold on and beat athletes with personal bests five minutes faster than his own. “I was proud to lead the 36,000 runners, we wanted something positive on Boylston street after the disastrous moments in 2013. I felt proud to be an American, to get the victory,” Keflezighi said. The discussion then shifted to Keflezighi’s incredible success story

See Meb, A3

nuclear fuel cycles, natural gas, and solar energy in a low-carbon world. Moniz returned to MIT in March to speak at the annual, student-run MIT Energy Conference. He talked about the rise in new jobs in energy-related fields that students from any academic discipline can enter. He also said at the talk that he believes the climate conference in Paris last fall was a great success.

See Commencement, A3

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Over the past several years, University Counseling Services (UCS) has experienced an increase in demand from the student body both nationally and at Boston College. Last year, reports indicated a 25-percent increase in student demand for counselors from UCS over the previous three years and this year. As a result, two more full-time staff members were added to UCS last month for fall 2016 after an anonymous donation was made to add a postdoctoral fellow to the department, and the Board of Trustees approved the addition of another staff psychologist. Despite the increase in staff, members of the administration have been searching for other ways to offer support to students and to better understand the causes for the influx of patients at UCS. “It’s nice, but it’s still not enough,” Associate Vice Provost, and previous director of UCS, Thomas McGuinness said in response to the positions added in the department. “You could double the staff, and they’d still be busy.” Similarly, Craig Burns, interim director of UCS, explained in an email that he has found when there is increased availability, there is often increased demand as well. Consequently, this past year, McGuinness has been working on something he’s dubbed the Resiliency Project. The project gets its name from its goal, which is to aim to increase the resiliency of the students at BC after national findings have shown that a decrease in the resiliency of children has contributed to an increase in mental health issues. McGuinness explained that the job in the project is to work with faculty to help it be better equipped to attend

See Resiliency, A3

ABBY PAULSON / HEIGHTS EDITOR

THE HEIGHTS

Top

things to do on campus this week

Eric Charette, GSSW ’16, and his mother Mary Jane will share their family’s experience of adopting and dealing with the foster care of 231 children. The event is on Friday at 3 p.m. in McGuinn 521 and is sponsored by the School of Social Work.

NEWS BRIEFS <DJ ?fefi\[ ]fi JXm`e^ C`]\

After an incident last October, when 86-year old Gregory Fulgione suffered from cardiac arrest at a football game, first responders were honored by St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center for their efforts in saving Fulgione’s life. Members of Boston College E MS, B CPD, TeamOps , and Armstrong Ambulance were honored at an event on March 23. When Fulgione went into cardiac arrest at the BC-Virginia Tech game, BC EMS members Nicholas Favazza, MCAS ’18, Rachel French, CSON ’17, and Andrew Bourque, MCAS ’18, were the first responders. Favazza used an AED—automated external defibrillator—on Fulgione, the first time that he had attempted to use one on a person. Bourque, who was working his first EMS shift at the time, helped Armstrong Ambulance by setting up the oxygen tank on the bag valve. Fulgione was transported to St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, where he continued to be fully treated. St. Elizabeth’s Chief of Emergency Services Mark Pearlmutter spoke at the event on March 23 and commended the first responders for their efforts. “It’s a wonderful success story. It’s a culmination of efforts that started well before he got to the hospital,” Pearlmutter said at the event. “This expertise in the field gives those of us on the receiving end the ability to further conduct intervention to enhance a patient’s ability to survive. Mr. Fulgione is a testament of those efforts.”

8cld HlXc`]p ]fi I`f Annie Haeger and Briana Provancha, both BC ’12, have qualified to compete with the U.S. national sailing team in the women’s 470 class at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August, according to teamusa.org. Haeger and Provancha were teammates on the BC sailing team, and together, they helped the team win the ICSA women’s doublehanded nationals in 2012. During her sailing career at BC, Haeger won three ICSA women’s singlehanded national championships and received recognition as a four-time ICSA All-American. Provancha won three national titles during her time at BC: match racing in 2011, co-ed in 2010, and team race in 2008. Together, Haeger and Provancha have had several victories while competing professionally, including a gold medal at an Olympic test event, a silver medal in the 2013 Delta Lloyd Regatta in the Netherlands, and three bronze medals in World Cup competition. Both women knew they wanted to go for the gold at the Olympics after their experience standing on the podium at the 2007 ISAF Youth World Championship in Ontario. This was Provancha’s most notable win and brought her to the forefront of competitive sailing. Haeger also came away with a victory, winning a silver medal for Laser Radial.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and political science at Yale University, will address students in his talk “The Rise and Fall (?) of World Constitutionalism.” The event is on Thursday at 5 p.m. in the Barat House on the BC Law campus.

On Saturday at 9 a.m. the Irish Studies Program will host a conference titled “Faith in the Future: Religion in Ireland in the 21st Century.” The panel will include Diarmuid Martin, the archbishop of Dublin, among other distinguished guests. The event will take place in Devlin 101.

<JGEËj Jk\g_\e 8% Jd`k_ KXcbj C`]\ GXk_j 9P E@:B ;<DFKK ?\`^_kj JkX]] Best known for his spirited debates with fellow sports journalist Skip Bayless on ESPN’s morning talk show First Take, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith urged students to work hard, to compete everyday in order to hone one’s craft, and to consider those sitting next to you—even friends—competition. Smith oﬀered Boston College students advice Monday night in Robsham Theater on what it takes to achieve career success. Growing up in Queens, N.Y., Smith recalled getting held back in the 3rd grade and again in the 4th grade for not reaching a high enough reading level. At the time, according to Smith, the kids in his neighborhood—each of whom he remembered by name—laughed at him. From then on he vowed to never get laughed at again. “That experience of getting left behind stayed with me forever,” Smith said. Smith attributed this moment to his steady work ethic, and harped further on this point by saying that the decisions you make could stay with you forever and have a lasting impact. Unafraid to talk about his respected fame and full bank account, it’s clear that Smith’s hard work has paid oﬀ. As well as being a co-host on First Take, Smith regularly appears on SportsCenter as an NBA analyst. He also currently hosts his own radio show on SiriusXM Radio and contributes as a featured

columnist for ESPN New York. Though Smith made his First Take co-host the brunt of many jokes, drawing laughs from the audience of sports fans, he also offered real and relevant nuggets of wisdom. “I’m brilliant because I know I’m not,” Smith said. As Smith recognized to be the case with his career, you must compete every single day. Though as Smith acknowledged, do not do so in a corrupt or unethical way in order to get what you want—be successful in a healthy fashion. Similarly, Smith emphasized employing a cutthroat mentality while competing and striving to get ahead in whatever field you desire to be successful in. Though you may think the person sitting next to you is a friend, said Smith, he or she is actually your competition. If you impede their path, they will cut your throat. “You only think you have friends,” Smith said. “But you don’t.” Smith also asserted that we must pay attention to everything going on around us. According to Smith, all fields and disciplines are so intertwined, and for him the number of complex issues that have permeated through the sports world has demonstrated this. Needing only to look at recent sports news, Smith highlighted exNew Orleans Saints player Will Smith, who was shot and killed this week, and how his death is tied to police relations. He discussed the NFL’s welcoming of its first openly gay player, Michael Sam, and the domestic altercations of Greg Hardy, Ray Rice,

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Stephen A. Smith spoke about the importance of competition Monday. and Adrian Peterson. These are all issues that have implications that go beyond the sports world and into corporate America. Because these sorts of problems will soon be the problems facing today’s college students, Smith’s advice was to have a keen understanding of America’s precarious state of aﬀairs. As it pertained to Monday’s event, the entertaining and vivacious Smith appeased the appetite of the die-hard sports fans by providing a generous and lively hour of questions and answers. Much like you see from Smith’s personality on ESPN, he never failed to deliver sharp and sometimes polarizing opinions. When asked to comment on who owns the better hairline, him or NBA superstar LeBron James, Smith answered himself. “Because I’m 50 … what’s his

excuse?” Smith said. Smith owned that he would consider the all-time home run recordholder and performance enhancing drug-user Barry Bonds a Hall of Famer. He also argued that college athletes should be paid, that the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls would defeat this year’s Golden State Warriors, and that the Boston Celtics’ Brad Stevens deserves to win the NBA Coach of the Year award. But when he was asked if Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time, Smith disappointed New England Patriots fans in attendance and engendered a collective, raucous applause from everyone else when he answered, “No.” For all of Smith’s humor, he did oﬀer a ﬁnal piece of life wisdom: prioritize things. “Ask yourself every morning when you wake up, ‘what’s important to you?’” Smith said.

Ê@e k_\ :cfj\kË IX`j\j J\olXc 8Ylj\ 8nXi\e\jj 9P ?<@;@ ;FE> ?\`^_kj <[`kfi Seventy-ﬁve percent of bisexual women have experienced sexual violence in their lifetimes, 64 percent of transgender people have experienced sexual violence in their lifetimes, and approximately one in eight lesbian women have experienced rape in their lifetime. For more than a decade, Boston College’s Women’s Center has dedicated one week each year, Concerned About Rape Education (CARE) week, to raise awareness and teach students about issues surrounding sexual violence. This year’s CARE week featured a program dedicated to exploring, discussing, and educating students on the sexual violence that occurs within the LGBTQ community within a safe and supportive presentation. In collaboration with the GLTBQ Leadership Council and Bystander Intervention Education, the Women’s Center brought “In the Closet: Supporting Experiences of LGBTQ Survivors” to students on April 11. The presentation began by stating the goal of standing in solidarity with the LGBTQ community, understanding the realities and factors of vulnerability within the LGBTQ community, and recognizing violence here

at BC, as well as feeling empowered and prepared to promote a safer community on campus. The two presenters, Christina “TT” King, MCAS ’18, and Catherine Larrabee, MCAS ’16, then spoke, establishing and emphasizing how the language that they use is fluid and not all-encompassing. The presenters stressed how everyone’s experience and definition of their experience is completely valid and is not constrained by the definitions that they provide. King and Larrabee then showed the audience statistics surrounding sexual violence in the LGBTQ community. King and Larrabee explained that these statistics are only the tip of the iceberg and that they were presenting in order to explore the buried and often silenced part of the problem. Engaging with the audience through small-group discussions, King and Larrabee facilitated conversation on media’s portrayal of bisexual people as promiscuous, the role of hyper-masculinity in the gay and transgender communities, and how the two ideas contributed to the statistics of sexual violence that were displayed on the projector. The presentation then shifted to popular myths—including the idea that violence statistics are high because the LGBTQ community is

POLICE BLOTTER

at O’Neill Library.

9:38 a.m. - A report was ﬁled regarding a property conﬁscation at the commuter lot.

6:42 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical transport via ambulance at Stuart Hall.

11:29 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a disorderly person at Upper Campus.

Tuesday, April 12 5:29 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious person

inherently violent, that violence and coercion are normal parts of the LGBTQ community, that LGBTQ sexual violence is diﬀerent from heterosexual violence, and that femininity dominates LGBTQ relationships more than masculinity. “Another layer of when you have these myths that supposedly ‘explain away’ the sorts of horrible statistics that you’ve seen before, that’s kind of maybe an excuse, but as a result people are going to not think they need to address this problem,” Larrabee said. Delving deeper into the factors that contribute to the statistics, King and Larrabee talked about the roles of toxic masculinity, trans/bi/ homophobia, the vulnerability of “outing,” media and societal messages about LGBTQ people, as well as additional vulnerability factors in sexual violence within the LGBTQ community. The presentation concluded with hope and a sense of empowerment as the presenters covered how to prevent and respond to sexual violence in the LGBTQ community. The presenters said that much of their message was an echo of the Bystander Intervention presentations—being aware and intentional with language use, being an “aware ally,” recognizing wrong situations, and aﬃrming others’ identities.

“As an LGBT person, there’s so few resources,” King said. “There are lots of allied people, but there’s no center I can go to—there’s nothing there.” This is an area, she said, where BC could improve. She referenced the Bible, saying that it tells each Christian to be kind, loving, and accepting to all peoples. Responding to the assault of someone in the LGBTQ community includes affirming their definition of their experience, confirming the situation was not their, nor their identity’s, fault, letting them know their options, and supporting the survivors’ decisions. While BC offers many services for survivors, there is not currently an LGBTQ center on campus. King and Larrabee, however, noted that the Women’s Center is open to everyone. “There’s a Mexican proverb that goes, ‘They thought they could bury us, but they didn’t know we were seed,’ and ... that’s something I think about a lot as an LGBT person on this campus,” King said. “There are little seeds everywhere. Next year, Bystander is hoping to implement more LGBT information to the PowerPoint, so all freshmen will see it. This event, little seeds. Some of the things GLC are doing, little seeds.”

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CORRECTIONS

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

4/11/16 - 4/13/16

Monday, April 11

7:02 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a well-being check at Kostka Hall.

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Wednesday, April 13 12:44 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a a medical incident at Fitzpatrick Hall.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

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THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, April 14, 2016

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LIZZY BARRETT / HEIGHTS STAFF

DXiXk_fe Nèe\i KXcbj :Xi\\i è Ileeè^ Marathon, from A1 from being a refugee to achieving immense athletic success. Born into a family of nine in Eritrea, in East Africa, Keflezighi and his family faced hardships and poverty growing up due to a prolonged war between Eritrea and neighboring Ethiopia. He described the journey his father made to escape certain death from an Ethiopian soldier, a seven-day, 225-mile walk to Sudan, as a moment that helped cement his faith as a Christian. Eventually, Keflezighi and his family moved to San Diego when he was 12. He remembered his parents emphasizing to his siblings and him how blessed they were to have made it to America. “They said ‘You have this unique opportunity that we didn’t have, your uncles didn’t have, your cousins didn’t have, so

don’t waste it,’” Keflezighi said. “We took it to heart. My dad would wake us up at 4:30 a.m. before 7:30 class so we could learn English.” Keflezighi recalled this drive for hard work translating to athletics for the first time in his seventh grade physical education class when he ran his first-ever timed mile in 5 minutes and 20 seconds. Told by his teacher that he would be in the Olympics someday, he stated that this sparked his desire to compete at the highest level. After a successful four-year career in cross country and track at UCLA, Keflezighi recalled having to choose between representing his birth country of Eritrea or his adopted home of the United States in the 2000 Olympics. “My mom told me to follow my heart, so that’s what I did. Most of my memories were as an American, and I

wanted to represent the United States,” Keflezighi said. The rest of the talk focused on the past few years of Keflezighi’s career. He stated that his faith in God has helped him through tough times, whether it has been losing his shoe sponsorship for eight months in 2011 to being injured for long periods. Turning 41 in several weeks, he plans to retire soon after this summer’s Olympics. He said that he has run 23 career marathons, and plans on running three more competitively before he retires. As he prepares for the Olympics in August, Keflezighi said that he is running 90 miles a week now and will be running 100 to 130 miles a week as his training progresses. “I will not be ready to run the marathon Monday, but I will be ready to run on August 21,” Keflezighi said.

The University will also present honorary degrees to Nannette Canniff, the founding president of St. Boniface Haiti Foundation, John Joyce, managing director of Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management and BC ’61, Maria Eugenia McGowan, the principal of St. Matthew Catholic School in Phoenix, Ariz., and Rev. Emmanuel Mwerekande, pastor of Our Lady of Fatima parish in Uganda and STM ’06. Canniff, a mother of 10, transformed A Walk for Hunger into a non-governmental organization that now serves 65,000 patients and thousands more community members in the mountains of southern Haiti each year. In 1983, Canniff decided to donate half of the money that the Walk raised to the poor in Quincy, where the Walk first began, and the other half to Mother Teresa’s Home for Children, located in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Home said they would only accept the donation, however, if it was hand-delivered to Haiti. Following the inspiring trip to Haiti, Canniff dedicated herself to fundraising for Haiti. Over the course of 33 years, she has helped Haiti’s poor and established a school, a health clinic, and St. Boniface Hospital. Although she retired as president and CEO of the foundation in 2011, she still raises funds for the organization and visits the people she has helped. Canniff will receive an honorary Doctor of Social Service degree at Commencement. Joyce has worked over the past 50 years to give back to society and to BC. He is the chairman and founder of the Boston College Club, which has awarded 80 scholarships for inner-city students to attend BC, and has a foundation of over $7 million. He has also helped raise more than $500,000 for the Brennan Leadership and Ethics program in the Carroll School of Management, supported the McMullen Museum of Art along with his wife Nancy, and provided leadership to the Alumni Association as president. Previously, BC awarded Joyce the William V. McKenney Award and the Presidential Centennial Award, and named him as

honorary grand marshal for his class’ 50th anniversary in 2011. At Commencement, Joyce will receive an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree. As principal of St. Matthew Catholic School, McGowan has increased enrollment by over 100 students over the past decade. She also led the school through two successful re-accreditation processes and restructured the way the school uses assessment data. Each student in grades three through eight now receives an iPad for instruction. This has helped boost student achievement in math and reading. The largest change was the school’s adoption of a dual-language immersion curriculum, which requires proﬁciency in both English and Spanish. Two years ago, the school joined 18 schools that are part of the BC Roche Center for Catholic Education’s Two-Way Immersion Network for Catholic Schools. The Center provides curriculum support, professional development, and a network for dual-language Catholic schools. McGowan will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Mwerekande’s ministr y has been marked not only by his pastoral care for a vibrant faith community, but also by his tenacity toward improving the everyday lives of the people of Uganda. He has ser ved as parish priest at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Parish in Mubende since 2011. The parish has more than 50,000 members, 41 sub-churches, and 20 Catholic schools open to students of all faiths. Mwerekande has helped bring clean water to his community by implementing rain barrels, water tanks, and other facilities. He helped to build irrigation systems and new churches. He has also brought books and school supplies and established a lunch program in the parish schools. Mwerekande was ordained a priest in 1990, and he received his master’s degree in pastoral ministry from BC in 2006. While studying at BC, he served in St. Mark’s parish in Dorchester. Mwerekande will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at Commencement.

8 Glj_ ]fi @dgifm\[ D\ekXc ?\Xck_ kf :fd\ ]ifd =XZlckp# J\c] Resiliency, from A1 to the emotional needs of students before referring them to the counseling oﬃce. Meanwhile, Elise Phillips, director of health promotion, is working on the student side of the project. “We are working on developing educational programs for students to support them in becoming resilient,” Phillips said in an email. This job includes creating the Resilience Video Project, featuring staﬀ, faculty, and students sharing a story of resilience that they experienced in college as a way to help others, Phillips said. These will be posted on the UCS website. In fall 2016, the Bounce Back Campaign will begin. This program, headed by Phillips, will help students make social connections, manage stress, seek resources, and focus on self-care, through educational programs, key messages, and a three-week challenge that will occur in spring 2017. The project has been in the works for this past academic year and comes after Peter Gray, a professor in the psychology department, published an article in

Psychology Today in September titled “Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges,” in which he discussed meetings held by the head of a counseling center at a major university about the decline in resilience among students. In an archived version of the article, he indicates that this university is Boston College. In the article, Gray explained that the faculty at the meetings highlighted students’ reactions to grading, as well as interpersonal issues between themselves and their peers, as causes for emotional instability. Students who come to their professors with concerns in these areas are frequently referred to UCS, McGuinness said. “A lot of things that come to counseling services could be handled somewhere else,” McGuinness said in regard to these situations. “Not everyone needs psychotherapy, but if they run into some kind of diﬃculty, they want to talk to somebody.” McGuinness noted, however, that some faculty oﬀer support to the students that come to them, and he is aiming to expand this. “There are lots of faculty who do

…mentoring … but they haven’t gotten much support for that or nor have we provided any opportunities for those people to get some additional support and provide forums for them to talk about it, so that’s what I’ve been doing,” McGuinness said. McGuinness explained that for the Resiliency Project, he is working with a committee of faculty and deans to try to find ways to increase the resilience in the student body at BC, with a focus on empowering faculty to be more effective and expand its capacity to deal with issues brought to it by students. The Resiliency Project carries with it a larger national debate about from where the increase in mental health issues and the demand on UCS is derived. Though McGuinness is of the mindset that a lower overall resilience among students is a contributor, he, Gray, and Vice President of Student Affairs Barbara Jones noted that there are many factors that contribute to the demand on UCS. For example, the numbers of students who are entering college either on psychiatric medication, diagnosed with a mental health issue, or both are all in-

creasing, while the stigma surrounding mental health issues is decreasing. This could be contributing to an increase in students’ openness surrounding these issues. “University counseling centers and mental health services are being inundated with requests for services, which is a good thing that students feel more comfortable seeking psychological services,” McGuinness said. Gray expressed backlash from students throughout the nation, which he received from his article in Psychology Today in defense of these other issues. He explained that the responses he got ranged but were similar within groups. Students were among the most upset responders, Gray said, acknowledging that many felt they were being blamed for their needs. “There are many students on campus, at Boston College and other places, who are truly suffering,” Gray said. “You can’t blame them for it — that’s not helpful.” Gray explained that, for whatever reasons, many are fearful, depressed, afraid of failing, and/or hearing messages that are contributing to an increase in anxiety about their futures. As a result,

he said, blaming is not the solution. The aim instead should be to be supportive of the students in an autonomy-promoting way. This means supporting students in trying to solve their own problems, Gray said. Molly Newcomb, co-director of UGBC’s mental health committee, director of UGBC’s mental health policy, and MCAS ’18, also noted that the line between who needs to see a professional and who does not is not so clear-cut when it comes to mental health and the issues students are dealing with on campus. As a result, it’s pertinent that UCS is able to see as many students as possible, she said. Still, Newcomb expressed interest in the Resiliency Project as separate from the support UCS can offer. She said that UGBC’s mental health committee isn’t currently involved in the Resiliency Project but would like to be. “What we’ve heard, just from talking with students and administrators, is that need for students to feel able to open up and feel supported, but also at the same time having the agency to help yourself through a tough time,” Newcomb said.

L%J% Gi\j`[\ekj ?Xm\ KXi^\k\[ Gfm\ikp J`eZ\ (0-)# Gif]\jjfi <ogcX`e\[ By Kyla Nwede For The Heights Social scientist Christopher Sandy Jencks gave a lecture titled “The War On Poverty: Did We Give Up Too Soon?” on Monday afternoon. In the lecture, Jencks provided students with a history of America’s relationship with its impoverished citizens. Jencks has written a number of books on the topic of poverty in America, including The Academic Revolution (1968), The Urban Underclass (1991), and The Black-White Test Score Gap (1998). He currently serves as the Malcolm Wiener professor of social policy in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. “In 1962, poverty was hardly on the

agenda of the United States,” Jencks said. “And two things happened: the first one was that Michael Harrington published a book called The Other America, which, at the time, wasn’t a huge success.” Harrington’s book described the living conditions of the poor at the time. Further, Jencks said that Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency had a significant impact on the living conditions of the poor in the United States. “He wasn’t thinking about closing the gap between the poor and everyone else, he was thinking about how to bring up the poor’s standard of living,” Jencks said. He compared Johnson’s plan to the Marshall Plan and said that Johnson wanted his administration to be remem-

bered as the one that started down the road to ending pain and poverty. Jencks commented on the fact that people considered Johnson’s platform of focusing on the poor in America to be a repackaging of President John F. Kennedy’s administrative goals. Jencks, however, thinks that Johnson’s platform was more focused on making Americans care about poverty. He wanted them to think of the national issue as an “unnecessary tragedy” versus an inevitable part of society. Johnson’s successors, Jencks said, were Republicans, but the Democrats held a majority in Congress. The Republican presidents continued Johnson’s work in aiding the poor, however, because they did not want to be on the wrong side of history.

Jencks spoke further on the Vietnam War and how it severely reduced the rate of poverty in the United States. “If you look at the rates, it didn’t really go back up too much after that,” he said. “We had the Great Recession, which increased poverty a bit, but we have come down since then.” Jencks then moved on to discuss the poverty line, which was created by Mollie Orshansky in the early 1960s to determine what level of income a household had to be under to be considered poor. Jencks, however, does not think that the poverty line is an accurate representation of the poor’s living conditions in the U.S. “I would like to say it’s just a line,” Jencks said. “But it’s not just a line.” He spoke more on the “touch-ups”

economists have made on the concept of the poverty line to better gauge how many Americans are in fact impoverished. But it is still up for debate how we can accurately measure poverty. When asked about education in the U.S., Jencks said that schooling is only effective if the students are able to take the skills they learned in school and apply them to the workplace. If the recent rise in college graduates does not improve the odds of post-graduates receiving jobs, he said, then the rise in college graduates is not much of an accomplishment. Jencks noted the progress that the U.S. has made when it comes to reducing poverty, but he still believes that there is a significant amount of work to be done. “It is still quite impressive how far we have come,” Jencks said.

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Jkl[\ekj 9`b\ `e >Xjjfe HlX[# IX`j\ 8nXi\e\jj f] :_Xi`k`\j By Becky Reilly Heights Staﬀ

On Wednesday, the ﬁrst sunny day in the middle of a rainy week, two students beat the cold on stationary bicycles in the Gasson Quad. Daniel Sundaram, MCAS ’16, and Lauren Studiner, CSON ’18, biked outdoors to raise awareness in conjunction with Boston College’s Habitat for Humanity Club for their summer program, Bike & Build. Bike & Build is a program for young adults to cycle across the United States, either regionally or nationally, and to work building low-income housing along the way. Both Sundaram and Studiner raised $4,500 each to fund their excursions. BC’s two riders will be taking separate transcontinental routes that both span over 4,000 miles each. Sundaram will ride from New Haven, CT to Half-Moon Bay, CA over 76 days, while Studiner will ride from Charleston, SC to Santa Cruz, CA over 82 days. “I see this as both a great way

to transition out of college and a way to aﬃrm that commitment to service,” Sundaram said. “My goal is to really to aﬃrm that commitment to myself, and second to see the country and go on this great adventure.” Sundaram and Studiner sought to raise awareness about their cause and to encourage others to join them. BC’s Habitat for Humanity Club set up a table in the Gasson Quad today and, the two bikers rode stationary bikes next to it. They handed out Bike & Build brochures and bumper stickers to students and faculty and encouraged students without summer plans to sign up to ride themselves or to donate to the program. They also encouraged students to record their guess about the total miles the two bikers would ride between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. that day, with a gift card as a prize. Bike & Build was established in 2002 and has attracted over 3,000 riders. It has donated over $5.8 million and 200,000 buildsite hours at 2,700 homes over

the course of its existence. The program encourages lifetime personal growth through service and civic engagement during its cycling trips. It is not formally affiliated with Habitat for Humanity, but it partners with some of its sites along the way. This summer marks Sundaram’s first significant experience with cycling, an athletic domain to which he is a relative newcomer, he said. “I was a rower for many years, on the crew team and everything, so a lot of the moves for biking and rowing are very similar,” Sundaram said. “But I’ve never really spent a lot of time out cycling. So a lot of this stuff is very new.” But while Sundaram may not have much cycling experience, he has some prior knowledge of working with low-income housing and Habitat in Humanity in particular. He worked with the organization in high school and on one event in Washington, D.C. more recently. He then reached out to his connections in BC’s Habitat for

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Daniel Sundaram and Lauren Studiner will bike across the country this summer for the charity Bike and Build. Humanity branch to help to spread awareness of both Bike & Build and Habitat for Humanity on campus, originally conceived as a fundraising event. Sundaram commented that he was pleased with the turnout yesterday and was even pleasantly surprised to note that several students had requested information about riding this summer. Sundaram feels sure that parts of the trip will not be easy, but he feels optimistic about it overall,

he said. “As far as expectations, I expect it’s going to be hard,” he said. “I expect that when I’m biking through the middle of Kansas and Missouri doing 160 miles a day when it’s 90 degrees out, I’m going to go through a pretty dark time. But I think it’s going to be fun, and it’s going to help me build a lot of character with some great friends. I’m sure I’ll get very close with people.” He also remarked that he feels

especially connected to this program as a way of living out BC’s mission of service, a capstone for his four years at the University. “I’m graduating this year and I see this trip as kind of a way to affirm a commitment to service that I’ve really learned about at Boston College. I’ve had a great experience at BC, and as I wrap up my time here, I want to start a life as a person for others in a way to actually live that motto,” Sundaram said.

Gi`mXk\ C\e[\ij F]]\i 8efk_\i NXpj kf GXp ]fi :fcc\^\1 M`X GXi\ekj By Taylor St. Germain Assoc. News Editor It is no surprise that college tuition rates are on the rise. For prospective students and parents, concern about cost of attendance at universities like Boston College is a constant topic of conversation. There is now an additional option, however, for parents to pay for their child’s college education through private lenders’ parent loans. Several private lenders, including SLM Corp., SoFi, and Citizens Banks, have begun to oﬀer these private loans to parents of undergraduate students. This year, BC has begun to refer parents to these outlets as a possible

option when paying for their child’s education. In the past, the primary option for parents to receive loans for their child’s schooling was through federal Parent PLUS loans. These loans, however, often came with hefty interest rates and initial fees to receive the loan. Last year, this federal fee was 4.3 percent, even prior to the start of payments. Private parent loans, however, have no fees and lower interest rates than the federal option. By having parents take out loans as opposed to students, there are often lower interest rates because of their higher credit scores. According to Title IV data, which covers United States federal student ﬁnancial aid

programs, BC families took out 700 Parent PLUS loans last year. Each, on average, was valued at $24,815. That comes out to $17.4 million dollars in Parent PLUS loans, as compared to the $15.5 million pulled out in direct student loans. “Education loans in general, whether for students or parents, are spreading out the costs over time; they are not cutting college costs,” Mark Kantrowitz, vice president of strategy at Cappex.com, said to The Wall Street Journal. The typical BC student takes on a median federal loan burden totaling $19,000. While this average is less than a graduate of another Massachusetts school, tuition is on the rise. Next year,

@e I\klie ]fi G<GJ Jlim\p# L>9: >`m\j N_`k\ DflekX`e >`]k :Xi[j By Chris Russo Assist. News Editor To entice students to contribute to the Professor Evaluation Profile System (PEPS), the Undergraduate Government of Boston College offered students gift cards to White Mountain on Wednesday in the Rat. The event was sponsored by UGBC’s Academic Affairs Committee, a division of the Student Assembly. PEPS is a system in which BC students are able to read and write reviews on professors. Students are able to search for a professor’s name or a class title and read previous student evaluations. Professors are judged on five different criteria: difficulty, workload, knowledge, how interesting they are, and an overall score. These ratings are graphi-

cally depicted next to professor averages across BC. Each individual review contains a section in which a student can discuss the professor’s strengths, weaknesses, and other miscellaneous comments about the class. The website was created over 10 years ago and has some issues, according to Hagop Toghramadjian, chair of the Academic Affairs Committee and MCAS ’17. “The platform is old and a bit messy,” Toghramadjian said in an email. “Rather than scrapping the whole website and the thousands of reviews it contains, we’ve chosen to replenish PEPS with upto-date, informative entries and ensure that it remains a useful resource for years to come.” The event was created as a mutual benefit for students and the PEPS system. “We’re holding this event to incentivize students to add to the

database in a constructive way,” Toghramadjian said. Students who wrote five professor reviews approved by a member of Academic Affairs received a $5 White Mountain gift card. “We believe that candid, fairly written evaluations of professors can help students choose courses that are right for them,” Toghramadjian said. “People look for information on course organization and teaching style—they want to know if a professor emphasizes tests or papers, discussions or lectures. This is productive for everyone involved.” The event wound down by 1:30 p.m., according to Raymond Mancini, UGBG representative and CSOM ’19. “The event, overall, went well,” he said. “We received a lot of feedback and handed out lots of gift cards for ice cream.”

tuition and fees will sit at $51,186, and the total cost of attendance will be $68,294. This is a 3.8 percent increase from last year. The United States Department of Education (DOE) annually releases a scorecard that determines students’ median debt at graduation from universities across the country. It also shows the annual cost of a school and students’ median salaries postgraduation. This allows students to determine which college they would want to attend based on its graduates’ success. Neither federal Parent PLUS loans nor private parent loans are included on this document, however. BC Director of Financial Strategies

Bernard Pekala said that is because the scorecard only takes into account the debt accumulated for students, not parents. DOE spokeswoman Dorie Nolt told The Wall Street Journal that it is also because the DOE does not have access to private lenders’ loans. Because these figures are not included on the scorecard, however, universities can often appear more aﬀordable than they actually may be, Pekala told The Wall Street Journal. All of this comes as total national student debt rose to $1.23 trillion in the last academic year. Private student loans alone rose to $8.3 billion and the federal government gave out $10.7 billion in Parent PLUS

Loans. Wall Street Journal reporter Annamaria Andriotis said that there are no signs of the increasing student debt issue slowing down. Several universities across the country, including Stanford and Carnegie Mellon, in addition to BC, have begun to work with private lenders to make private parent loans an option for prospective students’ families. “Now that the economy is recovering, there are more options,” Pekala said. “Families like to look at it and look what is the best option for them, whether it is interest rates, or payments, or terms, or conditions, and whether there are fees or not fees.”

Thursday, January 17, 2014 Thursday, April 7, 14,2016 2016

THE HEIGHTS THE HEIGHTS

B5 A5 B5

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, April 14, 2016

START IT UP AMELIE TRIEU / HEIGHTS EDITOR

oston has historically been a city filled with students. Every year, over 250,000 people attend the 40 colleges and universities in the Boston area. With such a large proportion of the population being so young, the city has been infused with a plethora of new ideas, especially in the technology sector. To date, Boston has seen a great increase in attention paid to its innovation hub, seeing record numbers of venture capital investments in 2014. Fueled by high-profile success stories, and coupled with the presence of startup accelerators like Techstars Boston and business-centered universities like Babson, the sheer number of entrepreneurs has increased significantly. Over the past few years, Boston College has continued to rise through the ranks of startup powerhouses. These next few pages are dedicated to sharing the success stories of a few recent BC graduates who are emerging from the pack and establishing themselves in the startup scene. Michael Bryant, A | Salah Abdol, A | Alexander LoVerde, A | Jeff Impey, A

Eok]fli DXb\j :fcc\^\ 8gg C\jj GX`e]lc# Dfi\ JfZ`Xc 9P ALC@8 9F>@8><J =fi K_\ ?\`^_kj The admissions process for American colleges and universities is notorious for being an anxiety-producing web of deadlines, essays, and grades. Michael Bryant, BC ’15 and founder of the startup Nxtfour, which aims to ease the college application process for rising high school seniors, is no stranger to this process and the stress it brings. And he hopes to make it easier. Nxtfour is an online network for high school students. The organization enables students to actively upload grades and test scores, and arrange their activities, as well as add artwork and highlight tapes . Students can network with their peers and share their high school experiences with colleges. After the student uploads all of his or her work, Nxtfour creates an automated resume for the student and a QR code that links directly to the resume. “Back when I was a senior in highschool, I was under a lot of stress, and application deadlines were quickly approaching,” Bryant said. “I still had tons of questions.” The idea came from Bryant’s own college application process. He was struck by how the Common Application lacked the same social aspect that is present in Facebook and LinkedIn. The social aspect of this company and the online resume are what set Nxtfour

apart from other organizations also seeking to make changes in the world of college admissions. Through this company, Br yant seeks to connect students with other students and professionals, and to show professionals a more individualized view of high school students. “The idea is to help the counselor know the student better to write a better letter of recommendation, or help the admissions representative get to know the student better,” Bryant said. “We want to put a face to the name.” Bryant was not the only person to see a gap in how to best serve our high school seniors who plan on attending college. Vicki Ab eles ha s capture d the negative side effects of this process in her documentary Race to Nowhere. Released in 2009, the documentary has been used to start a conversation about creating a healthy balance between the academic and personal lives of students. Abeles’s call for action has been heard by other organizations around the country. The New York Times has written on a report called “Turning the Tide,” an account by the Harvard Graduate School of Education that considers the challenges in the college admissions process and recommends specifics methods to change the system. Educators across the country, including university presidents and deans

of admissions, have contributed to or endorsed the report, and administrators from MIT, Yale, and the University of Michigan were scheduled to be present at the news conference when the report was revealed. Recently, the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success was founded to aid in the college admissions process, as well. The Coalition, whose members include schools like Amherst, Harvard, and Tufts, was founded to improve the college process for all students as they seek their perfect colleges by giving students of all backgrounds access to tools to plan their futures. As Harvard educators, individuals like Abeles and institutions like the Coalition share Bryant’s goal. He is in good company. Although the idea came from applying to college, it was truly put into action while Bryant was in college. Bryant, who studied finance and marketing in CSOM and was on the swim team for three years, first pitched the idea of Nxtfour in the fall of 2013 to Boston College’s Elevator Pitch Competition and won first place with a prize of $500. Bryant then pitched the idea to the BC Venture Competition in the spring of 2014 and also took home first place, with a prize of $20,000. While at BC, Bryant pitched the idea with two other BC students and two Harvard students.

“For most kids [entrepreneurship] is a pipe dream, but at BC it can become a reality,” Bryant said. “I definitely wouldn’t be doing entrepreneurship if it weren’t for Boston College.” He lauded the amazing teachers, faculty, staff, and alumni connections that BC makes available for students seeking to become entrepreneurs. “Kids have the opportunity to win $20,000 for a business idea—it’s a pretty sweet deal,” he said. This support continued beyond BC’s physical campus as well. During the summer, Bryant participated in the Soaring Startup Circle, a summer accelerator program created by BC alumni to help students develop their startup ideas. The alumni were incredibly supportive of Bryant, and they served as mentors and advisors for Nxtfour. Bryant was able to meet and discuss ideas with people from many startups, including NBD Nanotechnologies and Jebbit. “We got to talk to these founders and learn from their mistakes and successes,” Bryant said. “The alumni were eager to see us succeed.” With such a timely idea, the company has received a very positive response. The company started off with one high school in North Carolina, and has now spread to other schools in the district. Bryant will travel to North Carolina soon to discuss how students are

using Nxtfour and opportunities for expansion. To help with expansion, Br yant now works with Shihua Wu, a current high school senior at Boston Latin who will be attending BC as a management major in CSOM in the fall. Wu heard of Nxtfour through a friend, and was brought on board to help bring the product to high school students and connect Boston organizations to the company. “It’s a small team, though, so everyone does everything,” Wu said. But, finding a balance between working at Nxtfour and being a high school student can be difficult. “Sometimes I just have to stay up late and be motivated to do more,” Wu said. Although Wu has not officially become an Eagle yet, he is excited. When asked what he’s looking forward to most, he joked that he can’t wait for the parties. But more seriously, he’s looking forward to being around the entrepreneurial scene and innovative people next year. Wu is also excited to come to the birthplace of Nxtfour and continue to build the company. Wu plans to pursue entrepreneurship in the future, as it is something he thinks that can change lives, and the world. With such an attitude and with a motivated co-worker in Bryant, the next four years hold a lot of promise for the company.

“The idea is to help the counselor know the student to write a better letter of recommendation ... we want to put a face to the name.” - Michael Bryant, BC ’11, and founder of Nxtfour.

NXTFOUR

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, April 14, 2016

START IT UP

G`o`\ ;ljk CXYj Jgi`ebc\j JkXiklg JZ\e\ N`k_ C`^_k_\Xik\[ 8ggj By Madeleine D’Angelo Asst. Metro Editor

he best ideas are born out of a need to follow one’s passions. So when Salah Abdo LGSOE ’16, entered the professional world after playing basketball for Boston College in 2012, and professionally in Dubai in 2013, he was upset to ﬁnd himself struggling to meet people interested in playing a pick-up game. But after a conversation with his friend and fellow professional basketball player, James Valladares, the two discovered that they were suffering from the same problem despite their diﬀerent locations, and the seed of an idea was born. Throughout 2014, their idea evolved:

they wanted to create a platform that would find and connect people in the same area for games of pick-up sports. The two entrepreneurs created the mobile design studio Pixie Dust Labs (previously Wildcat Initiative), and reached out to the network around them for advice about the world of startups and mobile applications. Eventually their seed of an idea became their ﬁrst mobile app, Jump In, which informs users of activities taking place in the area around them. Jump In went live last June, less than a year after their ﬁrst idea was born. But the startup world had captured Abdo and Valladares, and they didn’t stop there. Abdo, who sees Boston as the sec-

ond coming of Silicon Valley, highlights how fortunate Pixie Dust Labs is to have access to the Boston community. With resources like as the great minds of professors at institutions such as MIT, Harvard, and BC, just a phone call away, Abdo was able to easily reach out to the generous network around him for guidance and advice. “We got Jump In out there, and then we just kind of got hooked,” Abdo said. “The startup world is such a fascinating and unique world with so many people. Once you get involved, it’s so exciting because there are so many opportunities.” One of those opportunities was Shot Lab, the tool that Abdo and Valladares never had during their basketball careers.

PHOTO BY PIXIE DUST LABS

James Valladares (left) and Salah Abdo LGSOE ’16 (right) head Pixie Dust Labs and have developed multiple mobile applications.

Shot Lab is a mobile app that allows players to easily keep track of their progress and set goals for their playing. And with their increased experience and insight into the world of startups following the launch of Jump In, the two were able to expedite their creation process and launch Shot Lab in just three months. bdo and Valladares’ dream tool became a reality, and as it was embraced and promoted by some of the players on the Celtics, it became visible to the public eye. The duo continued on, eager to grow Pixie Dust Labs further. They stumbled across the idea for their latest project during what is an everyday conversation for former professional athletes. “One day James and I were reminiscing about 5 a.m. workouts in college … waking up in the morning is miserable as it is, so we thought about what would have made that process a little easier,” Abdo said. “Having been in the startup world for some time, we need an app that eases waking up for athletes, where you can wake up in the morning to a different image, something that inspires you.” Their simple idea, easing the universal pain that is waking up in the morning, has been their most successful yet. The app, #Alarm Clock, links a conventional alarm clock with Instagram, allowing users to wake up to an image that inspires them and brightens their early morning. Users can link this image to a particular hashtag, or even a specific Instagram profile that they follow. Abdo said that the app has been a particular success with college and highschool students, who can wake up to Instagrams from their favorite celebrities, or pictures from the profile of someone that they are currently dating. #Alarm Clock even features unique alarm tones, like the sound of a ball going through a hoop followed by the cheers of a crowd, or the soft murmur of a Paris café, which allows users to personalize their wake-up experiences even further. #Alarm Clock takes advantage of a certain trend that Valladares has

observed in the startup world—an increase in effective social integrations. Valladares noted that Venmo, for example, has become popular because it turns sending money to someone into a social experience. And as Abdo and Valladares become experts in the startup industry, they better recognize these trends within the startup world and understand how to temper ideas that arise from their passions to the customer base they cater to. “With each idea, we knew the market that we were catering to … our audience are folks that are millennials, and millennials are easily distracted,” Abdo said. “If they can’t figure out your product in seven seconds or less, they won’t use it. So that’s our inspiration: whatever we do, can folks figure it out in seven seconds or less? And if the answer is no, we reconsider that particular project. So that’s where the lightheartedness comes from.” This lightheartedness that Abdo highlighted is a common theme in the products that come out of Pixie Dust Labs. he former athletes are able to effectively appeal to the passions that inspire each individual, and they clearly understand the modern need to connect with the world around them in as simple and clear a way as possible. But Abdo and Valladares both admit that life in the fast-paced startup world is not without its challenges, with Valladares pointing to the changes in what investors look at in an app’s monetization strategy, and Abdo underscoring the industry’s competitive nature, and lack of clarity regarding what exactly creating an app entails. Given Abdo’s and Valladares’ everincreasing savvy in the startup world, those challenges should present less and less of an issue in the future. Valladares said that Pixie Dust Labs plans to expand, developing not only its own products, but also helping other innovators with designing mobile applications. As the duo works on projects that appeal to larger markets, Pixie Dust Labs will reach a larger and larger customer base.

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hen thinking of where most technological innovation is taking place, one geographical area usually comes to mind first: Silicon Valley. There’s a reason for that, with giants like Facebook, Google, Lockheed Martin, and Netflix choosing the area to house their corporate offices and innovation centers. Many entrepreneurs believe that they need to be there in order to thrive. Boston often does not even factor in the conversation about technological development, at least not in the service industry. Until now. Over the past few years the city has become one of the blossoming innovation centers of the country, with hundreds of startups now calling Boston their home. Driven by the high-profile success stories of local companies, entrepreneurs are now looking into the area with a careful eye, and they are not the only ones. Venture capital firms have been keen to financially back local startups to such an extent that investment in the innovation economy hit $4 billion in 2014, according to CB Insights. But, what has caused this boom? Yes, we have all heard the famous Harvard-based Facebook story, one that was highlighted by the movie The

Social Network. Could that have played a part in sparking interest in the technology sector in the city? Likely, but interest in itself was not the only factor at play here. Boston has always been known as a key area of the country for scientific discovery and medical advancements, so it is not as if the resources and tools did not previously exist. They are just being utilized in a different way. The American economy has been consistently based on services for decades now, with most manufacturing jobs now moved overseas. The way these services are provided has changed dramatically since the invention of the smartphone. Almost everyone nowadays carries a little supercomputer in their pockets that possesses huge amounts of processing power, and companies are taking note. Many new ventures are basing their entire product on Web applications that can be run by smartphones, eliminating the need for large amounts of physical capital, such as large factories, to create a business, with huge corporations like Uber needing just a server to function. Students around the nation have taken notice, and with such a large cluster of institutions in the city (over 40) that have historically taken part in technological innovation, it was only a matter of time before Boston became a hub for startups. But, back to the original question: what caused the boom in the sector? The interest of students and their collaborative nature in the city has

seen the rise of student-run organizations that promote the development of concepts within institutions. Moreover, universities have begun to actively support these ventures by creating startup accelerators and venture competitions to promote these developments. lumni have taken notice as well, with the large networking circles present at the larger universities becoming investment wells for the new ventures. Support does not stop there, however, with a large amount of internships available in Boston to provide students with the necessary skills and experience to run a business on their own. Recently, the city has played its

part, with Mayor Martin J. Walsh, WCAS ’09, announcing the launch of Starthub, an online platform supporting the startup community. “Boston is a city known for its creative talent and innovative spirit, and I am proud to announce the launch of StartHub, which will connect entrepreneurs and innovators with the tools and resources they need to grow and thrive in the City of Boston,” Walsh said in a press release in August 2015. “I am excited to offer our startup community this centralized online platform and I thank all of the partners for their collaboration as we continue to establish Boston as a hub of entrepreneurship.” The city has experienced a renewed energy since the onset of the

innovation movement, with areas like Fenway undergoing a renaissance both in infrastructure and in relevance—many startups now call it home. It’s clear that the state of technology in Boston is strong, and its long-term momentum as a home to startups and innovation is the direct result of collaboration and innovation starting at the university level, with a passionate and talented workforce and an abundance of investors and government support—all the things that position this city as a high-tech force to be reckoned with.

AlXe FcXmXii`X `j k_\ D\kif <[`kfi ]fi K_\ ?\`^_kj% He can be reached on Twitter @Juan_heights.

KELSEY MCGEE / HEIGHTS EDITOR

THE HEIGHTS

EDITORIALS

QUOTE OF THE DAY

I\j`c`\eZ\ Gifa\Zk J\e[j ;Xe^\iflj D\jjX^\ A s student demand for ment al health counseling rises across the nation, Boston College’s University Counseling Services has struggled to keep up and has found itself understaffed and overbooked. Recently, the University announced that two new full-time staff members will be added to the services, a positive step previously commended by The Heights. Yet there is another part of the effort to curb this influx of students seeking UCS assistance, while also attempting to relieve the burden on counselors: the Resiliency Project. The goal of the project is to increase the resilience of students against the regular stresses and obstacles of college life. This is meant to be accomplished by working with the BC faculty so that it can better handle the emotional needs of students, and by developing educational programs to help students become more resilient. While this project does well in educating faculty members on how to better deal with the emotional difficulties of students, it also sends a dangerous message to students. The idea that students aren’t working hard enough to stay emotionally strong or that their mental issues are byproducts of a lack of resilience can be harmful to students suffering from serious mental issues. Deciding to seek counseling help is a difficult choice for many students, who would not be willing to reveal their difficulties and personal problems to a stranger. Adding another layer of doubt to this can be harmful to these students. This problem goes beyond just BC. Universities across the nation are at-

Thursday, April 14, 2016

“You wouldn’t abandon ship in a storm just because you couldn’t control the winds.” -St. Thomas More, Utopia

tempting to deal with increased numbers of students seeking counseling services. According to the 2014 National Survey of College Counseling Centers, 26 percent of schools that participated in the survey increased counseling st af f, while 29 p ercent incre a s e d part-time counselors and 64 percent increased the time devoted to training faculty and staff to respond to troubled students. These results demonstrate the difficulty many schools have faced in attempting to bolster their counseling services.

GABE PASTEL / HEIGHTS STAFF

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The Undergraduate Government of Boston College offered $5 White Mountain gift cards to students who came to the Rat yesterday and filled out five Professor Evaluation Profile Systems (PEPS) class evaluations. The evaluations are student-written reviews of professors and classes that can be accessed through the UGBC website. PEPS has gone largely unmaintained over the past few years. The system is old and many of the reviews are outdated. UGBC has done well to provide incentive for increased reviews. PEPs has seriously needed recent and informative reviews in order to serve any sort of meaningful purpose for the student body. This is an example of the practical and tangible work that UGBC should be striving to consistently achieve. It is something that UGBC can point to as producing legitimate and immediate results. While it seems relatively simple, it is a good way to attract student’s interest and demonstrate something UGBC can achieve. With this in mind, the event had some weaknesses in execution. The PEPS system used to fill out new evaluations was still using the old class code system. A numb er of cla ss e s were not available in this old system and some were only available under a different class code. A Google form was made available for evaluating these new classes, but this still presents a general issue with PEPS. It would have been better to improve

The views expressed in the above editorials represent the official position of The Heights, as discussed and written by the Editorial Board. A list

the PEPS system before holding this event, so that the classes listed would have reflected the current course load of students. Doing this would have boosted the benefit of the event and allowed for further efficiency in its execution. The system is old and needs a full revamp in this manner before it can once again become a tool frequently used by students during registration. Student interest in this event was higher than expected, with the original table no longer large enough to hold all the students who wished to fill out evaluations. This led to a spreading out of students to different tables, where they were asked to fill out the evaluations on their own.

K_\ G<GJ jpjk\d `j fc[ Xe[ e\\[j X ]lcc i\mXdg Y\]fi\ `k ZXe feZ\ X^X`e Y\Zfd\ X kffc ]i\hl\ekcp lj\[ Yp jkl[\ekj [li`e^ i\^`jkiXk`fe% While this was not ideal and might have contributed to some disorganization, it demonstrates the overall success of an event such as this. Students are interested in participating in well-advertised initiatives that have incentives. W h e n th e y a re e n co u r a g e d to participate like this, they will, and organizations like UGBC should take advantage of this and reap the benefit by boosting struggling programs like PEPS.

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

HEIGHTS

THE

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The Heights reserves the right to edit for clarity, brevity, accuracy, and to prevent libel. The Heights also reserves the right to write headlines and choose illustrations to accompany pieces submitted to the newspaper.

Letters and columns can be submitted online at ww bcheights.com, by e-mail to editor@bcheights.com, person, or by mail to Editor, The Heights, 113 McElro Commons, Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467.

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THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, April 14, 2016

?fn 8ik K_\iXgp ?\cg\[ ?\Xc Dp J`jk\i JXmè^ k_\ Fi`^èXc 9: D8;<C@E< ?8P MARATHON MONDAY - This is the last issue of The Heights you’ll see before that fateful day. Hold your weeping, child. Let’s all take a moment to appreciate the glory of Patriots’ Day. Everywhere across this nation poor saps are going to class, walking around and acting like this is some sort of normal Monday. But not in Massachusetts! Here we rise and watch marathoners marathon in a glorious tribute to liberty and the founding fathers. We wander around campus and try to avoid that one guy puking on the sidewalk. We band together as one to appreciate the beauty of a three-day weekend while most likely being completely unaware that we’re supposed to be commemorating the anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord. But still! MASSACHUSETTS - Wow! That was quite a commotion back there! Exclamation points everywhere! Incomplete sentences! While we’re still caught up in that Marathon fervor, let’s take a moment to appreciate Massachusetts: the rolling hills, the revolutionary battlefields, the cobblestone streets. Four years of college in Boston is unlike any other college experience. Now, we can watch The Departed, 21, Gone, Baby, Gone, The Town, Good Will Hunting, and Mystic River with people and point out places we’ve been. That’s all we’ve ever wanted. JOHN ADAMS - We’re on a roll with the Massachusetts, Revolution, patriotic stuff here. Go John Adams! Go preRevolutionary Boston!

I pass Charlotte a thick black Sharpie so she can move onto her next design. She’s drawn the outline of a flower on a square piece of white cardstock and now she starts filling in the petals with doodles. I’ve sketched my initials in block letters on my own piece of paper. Another patient sits across from us at the table, making zigzags in the middle of a heart with a thin black marker. We sit under a colorful ceiling made up of tiles painted by children in the art group. Dream catchers woven from yarn and feathers, crafted by other hospital visitors, dangle from the ceiling. We’re sitting in Georgetown Hospital’s outpatient clinic practicing Zentangle, a form of art therapy, which helps calm Charlotte before seeing the doctors. Drawing repetitive patterns relaxes patients and distracts them from the pains of treatment. The only tools needed: pen and paper. Most of the patients in the clinic’s art therapy program are being treated for cancer and blood disorders, or have had a transplant. My sister Charlotte was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, acute promyelocytic leukemia, on Halloween of 2014. She was enjoying her senior year of high school when doctors told her she’d never be able to go back to class. Charlotte had blackouts while running on the field hockey turf, and her gums bled every night after she brushed her teeth. My sister hid her symptoms from our family, knowing that if she said anything, she’d have to get a blood test. Her crippling fear of needles kept her quiet for weeks. She had almost died of internal bleeding by the time our mother noticed bruises on her legs and brought her into the hospital. Charlotte’s serious fear of needles made her the perfect candidate for Zentangle. When doctors first admitted her into the hospital, she refused

to move or look at her arm connected to an IV stand by needles and tubes. The art therapists at Georgetown were the first people able to get her to move her arm by having her start a creative project. She made collages and friendship bracelets, but Zentangle quickly became her favorite activity. Practicing the easy-to-follow designs helped to curb her anxiety while waiting to get a shot or a blood transfusion. Zentangle occupied her while the nurses wiped down the injection spot on her skin and prepared the needles. The first few weeks of treatment were a nightmare for my entire family. Charlotte turned out to be allergic to the blood from her transfusions and she suffered from retinoic acid syndrome, a life-threatening side effect of her APL chemotherapy. She couldn’t walk for weeks afterward, so she spent a lot of time doing art therapy in bed.

8ik k_\iXgp _\cgj gXk`\ekj ]\\c `e$Zfekifc n_`c\ dfjk Xi\Xj f] k_\`i c`m\j Xi\ flk f] Zfekifc% Art therapy helps not only pediatric patients, but also their siblings and parents, who feel just as upset, stressed, and confused about a cancer diagnosis. The art therapists usually bring extra supplies to patients’ rooms so everyone can be included in the daily project. There are activities for every age group and Zentangle is a type of art for an older group. Art therapy is just as important for six-year-olds as it is for 16-year-olds. The benefits of Zentangle overlap greatly with the benefits of meditation. Art therapy helps patients and their families feel in-control while most areas of their lives are out of control. Sick children have full power over their drawings, painting, and crafts, helping them forget their feelings of helplessness associated with their fragile bodies. Most art therapy activities emphasize some element of repetition, which relaxes the mind and puts the patient in a state of meditation. The hospital’s

bright lights, rooms with crying and screaming children, beeping machines, and constant conversations between the nurses and doctors create an incredibly stressful environment. Art therapy gives these children something new and fun to focus on while in a hectic setting. They feel accomplished and proud after creating a piece of art, leading to feelings of confidence and increased self-esteem and happiness. The hope is that these children will use Zentangle to deal with stress even while outside of the hospital. Zentangle helps participants learn how to deal with mistakes. By using pen, patients and their family members can’t erase anything. The goal is to move on and keep drawing even if the design isn’t perfect. Hospital life is unpredictable and Zentangle helps patients practice calmness when something unexpected arises, which could be a drawing mistake or something like a neutropenic fever. Charlotte liked Zentangle immediately. She now uses it before having her chest port accessed to feed medicine into her bloodstream, because it distracts her from her fear of needles. When she was first admitted, she struggled when nurses drew her blood or switched IV needles, which happened every day, and sometimes every hour. My entire family now enjoys drawing Zentangle patterns. I like to doodle during plane rides or when I feel stressed during finals week because it helps me clear my head. I didn’t know the continued benefits of practicing Zentangle outside of the hospital setting until I brought an official Zentangle book to school with me. Charlotte plans to bring a Zentangle sketchpad with her to college next year and will use other pieces of art she’s created this year as dorm room decorations. The practice of Zentangle is not restricted to the hospital setting. All types of people across the world can reap the benefits of art therapy exercises.

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;feËk C\k =\Xi :Xjk Pfli Mfk\ TEA - Who needs it? Let’s toss it in the harbor! WOOOO-EEEEEEEEEE UNFORTUNATE JACKET CHOICES - When you woke up for your 9 a.m. it looked cold outside. Your iPhone led you to believe it would be in the 30s. But your iPhone lied. Gasp. The sun’s shining and the air is humid. You look like a fool and a nincompoop in your heavy winter jacket. You’re sweating like a manatee, your shirt turning into a wrinkled swampland of unimaginable odor. Remembering that time you read that amazing thumbs down column about back sweat, you take a moment to reflect on the genius and astounding humility of whoever writes those things. OUT-OF-CLASS TRIPS - “I didn’t sign up for this, man. I can’t handle the pressure. You expect me to figure out how to get on a bus and go somewhere to do some stuff. Maaaaaaaaaan, why can’t I just sit in class quietly for two and a half hours every week and not have to do this extra junk?” These thoughts run through your head as you jog toward the bus stop, hoping desperately to make it in time to attend the offcampus lecture on Pre-Optomalian Ornithological Predicates. Just as your turn the corner you see the bus pulling away, along with all your hopes and dreams.

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E@:?FC8J ?@JJFE> There’s no more popular talking point in politics than the decline of America, and the corresponding promise to restore this vaguely defined American strength. A strength that, for entirely different reasons depending on who is talking, has eroded to the point of international and economic helplessness over the course of the last two decades. This election is an election of fear. The rhetoric surrounding it, on both sides of the aisle, is increasingly pessimistic, increasingly desperate, and increasingly alarming. But instead of calling for evidence or pausing to evaluate the causes of said fear, voters have embraced the urgent negativity. They have taken it and run with it, sending it flying across the Internet and hanging on campaign posters everywhere: “If my candidate isn’t elected, the world is going to devolve into a whirlwind of fire and brimstone and definitive American un-exceptionalism.” This vague retrospective longing takes away from the actual, feasible problem-solving that should be discussed in debates and speeches. Candidates are so busy trying to articulate what America has lost over the years that they don’t concentrate on dealing with the dilemmas of the 21st century with the tools of the 21st century. But even the longing itself might not be justified. Perhaps a bit of a historical refresher is necessary. Why must we “Make America Great Again” when it never stopped being great in the first place? America is the leader of the free, peace-inclined world. It is a great experiment in self-government that has produced incredible results: military might, economic prosperity, scientific progress, and international esteem beyond anything its founders could possibly have imagined.

The sophistication and size of our economy is untouchable. There are those who lament the current state of market affairs, but there is no denying that the climb out of the financial crisis of 2008 is well underway. Unemployment is falling and consumer spending is at an all-time high. The rapid growth of China, which some predicted would move the United States into the passenger seat of the global economy, has waned over the last two years, cementing America’s role as the unchallenged leader of the financial world. Look no farther than last year’s desperate Chinese stimulus packages to see the relative steadiness of the U.S. economy. Why, then, the fear? Beyond economic factors, the supposed terrorist threat undoubtedly contributes to the current environment. There is a belief that, for the first time in our recent history, our oceans cannot protect us from our enemies, nor can the longstanding conflict deterrent of mutually assured destruction. Traditional diplomacy doesn’t seem to work either—the United States doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. There is no denying this sentiment, but is it legitimate? The number of Americans killed by terrorism every year pales in comparison to just about every other cause of death. Heart disease is the leading killer of Americans, not jihad. In fact, crunching the numbers on American terror deaths shows that it is statistically just as likely that you will drown in your own bathtub as it is that you will be killed in a terrorist attack. By these metrics, however ridiculous, the war on terror, a war conducted largely beneath the surface of American popular knowledge, actually appears to be working. But for some reason, it is hard to trace the source of the great American fear, with one exception: the conduits through which it is unleashed—the presidential candidates. Donald Trump rails on and on about America losing to every other country on the face of the earth, claiming he has some non-specific fix somewhere up the sleeve of his designer suit. Ted Cruz offers to carpet bomb the Middle East into oblivion,

to a standing ovation. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders like to ﬁnd monsters closer to home: the amoral right, out to steal your beneﬁts, and the greedy Wall Street CEOs, out to steal your savings. Does anyone, on either side of the aisle, have anything non-terrifying to say? Voters seem to be buying this kind of talk, so why should the candidates stop? These are troubling times, indeed, or so you would think if you turned on the TV and caught the tail end of a primary debate. Yes, this is an important election, one that will affect the international standing of our nation and potentially some of its economic policies. But, regardless of its outcome, the world is not going to go up in smoke tomorrow. There are certain damage-control mechanisms written into the Constitution, known commonly as the judicial and legislative branches of government. Our next president will not unilaterally shape the country into a heavy-handed conveyer of his or her worldview. He or she must work alongside a large system of elected representatives and a network of highly educated appointed judges. For instance, the president needs the approval of Congress to declare war, and any executive order of mass deportation would be subject to the process of judicial review. The terrorists will still be out there, but the United States military will continue to adapt as quickly as is necessary to counter whatever threats arise. The possibility of fire and brimstone is as unlikely as it ever was and, on top of that, the United States has an unbroken record of success when confronting its fears, and there doesn’t seem to be anything keeping that record from continuing. So don’t fall into this rhetorical trap. Don’t let the fear of 2016 cast your vote for you.

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D8KK?<N 9<;L>E@J Recently I traveled to the South End to visit Boston College’s roots for a writing workshop. My destination was the original red brick schoolhouse on Harrison Avenue that housed BC from its founding in 1863 until the historic move to Chestnut Hill half a century later. Now, both the former Jesuit residence and schoolhouse are luxury condominiums and apartments. For a cool $2 million you can live in a unit constructed out of the former gymnasium. Half of that will buy you a 1,400 square-foot two-bedroom condo in the same building. These numbers display the tragic irony of the situation and, moreover, they raise a broader question about how we as a society value historical landmarks. Industry and necessity gutted the innards of BC’s humble original campus. Classrooms originally designed to educate Boston’s poorest now house some of the city’s wealthiest. The simple red brick facade stands, but holds no trace of its original spirit behind the heavy doors and dormer windows. And it is desperately hard to tell whether this is a blessing or a curse. Is the schoolhouse now simply a zombie propped up by the exploitation of its historical value? Or has it been saved, at least in some part, by a renovation that generated jobs and revenue and continues to ensure the building’s existence in the world? These questions are more easily considered when one takes into account the building next door. The Immaculate Conception Church was built by Fr. McElroy at the same time he was building BC, attempting to provide a stronghold for the poor Irish-Catholics of Boston. The church remained a central figure in BC history for years after the move to Chestnut Hill, until travel to the South End became impractical, especially after the completion of St. Ignatius Church. Now it stands as an abject derelict, chain-link fencing running around its perimeter and hemming in the overgrowth. Windows are boarded or cracked and the exterior walls are pitted in more than a few places. The last Mass in the church was held in 2007, and it was sold in 2013 with the intent of renovating it in much the same way as the schoolhouse and Jesuit residence. The exterior of the building is a national historic landmark, but its interior is up for grabs. Fifty-four apartments are planned to someday stand where parishioners once practiced sacred rites, as has already happened with two other South End churches. And while that may seem like sacrilege, is it any worse than the church’s current undeveloped state of dereliction? So I had to ask myself which fate I prefer, the immaculately kept exterior of the former BC, or the dilapidation of its undeveloped former church. Though it arouses some indignation to see the schoolhouse inhabited by people who probably don’t fully appreciate the historical weight of their dwelling, it is hard to deny a preference for the former. BC’s first building doesn’t have the luxury of being a national landmark. Given the years and distance between modern BC students and the South End campus it might hardly even qualify as a landmark to us. By all rights it could have been demolished to make room for a significantly larger condominium absolutely devoid of historical value. So it is something of a miracle that the building remains at all and that some 150 years after its completion a BC student can still take a pilgrimage to it. And while my heart of hearts would prefer that the building still held some proud connection to the University, be it as a museum or the home of the BC Club, I realize this is mere fantasy. Realistically there are neither the funds nor the inclinations to foster that vision, and in any case the red-hot housing market of the South End would not justify it. So we are forced to face the fact that developers saved our former home and if they profit off the historic nature of the building then it is only just. It would decidedly not be better that the building was demolished and lost to history. It is a boon just to be able to visit the relic, to see the steps Fr. McElroy and Gasson once climbed or just to stand in the courtyard where our predecessors relaxed. I encourage you to go visit the old building and experience the tangibility of history, even in a place that has been repurposed and redeveloped into something new.

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THE HEIGHTS

A10

Thursday, April 14, 2016

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PHOTO COURTESTY OF WYMSEE

Brett Beaulieu-Jones, Jeff Impey, and Alexander LoVerde, all BC ’11, left their day jobs to create Wymsee, an online database to search for products like clothes or props used in the making of various films. 9P AL8E FC8M8II@8 D\kif <[`kfi For Alexander LoVerde, BC ’11, it just took a whim for him to leave his corporate job in New York City and chase the uncertain future of the startup life. He never could have imagined that he would one day leave his current position and create SynconSet, one of the most widely used cataloguing softwares in the film industry, through Wymsee, the company he and his co-founders formed. He and his co-founders decided to start the company because they wanted to work for themselves, and avoid the predestination of the next 30 years. “We became [disillusioned] with the prospect of spending all of our careers climbing a pretty well-defined ladder,” LoVerde said. During his time at Boston College, while studying psychology, he was involved with the startup culture on campus, at one point taking part in the BC Venture Competition (BCVC). Coming from the liberal arts side of BC, he felt isolated from the business side of things, even joking that the only reason he took part in the competition was the flyer he saw in the Quad advertising the $10,000 grand prize and thinking of the different ways he could use that money. “I remember very clearly the information session that I attended about it and that the organizer had brought along with him a fellow by the name of Bill Clerico, [BC ’07], the founder of WePay,” he said. “To me it was the most inspirational moment, because he was a very humble sort of BC bro who said that if he could build such a company that we could all do it too … it would not be easy but it would be definitely within our reach.” And with the competition, LoVerde got his first taste of what the venture world would be like. He began having constant hypothetical conversations with his friend and co-founder Jeff Impey, BC ’11, about what would constitute good product ideas for a new company. Then, out of nothing more than a gathering between friends, the idea came, one that made them both—as well as the other two co-founders Brett Beaulieu-Jones, BC ’11, and Dan Stefanis, BC ’11, quit their jobs and dive head-first

into their new lives. One day, while Impey and Stefanis watched the Jason Statham action flick The Mechanic at home, one of them really liked the sunglasses Statham was wearing. Intrigued, he went online and started searching, only to realize that he could not find what brand they were. The two started talking, shocked that an online database for products in movies and television shows did not exist. From this—their whim, and the fact that they saw it—they developed the name “Wymsee.” From there, LoVerde said they really started talking about really going for it and its large consumer application. They needed to find a way to keep a digital record of every single thing used in film productions, but did not have access to this information. In order to gain access to it, they got in touch with a friend of Impey’s sister who worked in costume design in New York. During a meeting, they discovered that all of the records of all of the different articles of clothing, props, sets, and locations were kept by hand in a large 3-ring binder. They saw an opportunity to improve upon that paper-based system that would take long hours to compile. LoVerde said that they realized two things: first, they should create a tool that would help digitize and organize all of this information, and second, that if they developed a new software tool that could collect all of this information easily, then they could then create an improved experience for those tasked with cataloguing within the film industry. “What is interesting is that we started with the thought process that we wanted to create a consumer product, only to realize that we stumbled upon an exciting business-to-business tool that really needed to exist,” he said. The decision was made then to pursue this idea full-force, setting aside the initial consumer-side product, which could then be revisited in the future, and focus on creating world-class software for the film industry, according to LoVerde. But one thing stood in their way: not all of them knew how to code. At this time they asked Beaulieu-Jones to join their team, whom they met through working at Deloitte. “It all moved so fast, from getting the idea in January 2012, meeting with people and creating a business plan, we started

to quit our jobs in April,” LoVerde said. From the time that LoVerde left his job in New York and returned to Boston where the other founders lived, he lived in his apartment and slept on an air mattress over the summer. They all then bought coding books, since it was going to be a technology company and they all wanted to be as knowledgeable as possible about the inner workings of the system. The group had the most contacts and possible investor networks in Boston. It all took a turn for the better when they got accepted into Techstars Boston 2012, an accelerator program where companies are able to quickly develop connections and have access to investors. They received office space, mentorship, and an equity investment for three months. Fast-forward four years and the company now has two offices, one in Boston and one in Los Angeles, where it conducts most of its sales. A typical day for LoVerde begins when he walks from his home to the office at 3767 Overland Avenue in L.A. There, he sits at his desk for a while, answers emails, and makes calls. Then, he spends time with the team and discusses product development and the engineering behind it, discusses marketing strategies, checks in on how the company is doing, often conducts interviews for possible candidates, speaks with potential customers such as Universal Studios, and tries to find the time to eat some food or drink some coffee. Impey agrees, saying that each new day brings brand-new experiences. “It’s been extremely rewarding to see the team grow see each of our employees [develop] professionally,” Impey said. “Creating a reliable product for our consumers is also an extremely rewarding experience.” Looking back through all of the time that has elapsed, with SynconSet having been used in over 2,500 productions and in 50 percent of productions in the U.S. mid-season television schedule, LoVerde remembers most that information session for BCVC, and getting inspired to be one of those that make it. “If you want to start your own company and create your own business, make sure that whatever problem you set out to solve is something that you love,” LoVerde said. “Make sure that you will pursue it no matter what the financial outcome of that is … it’s very doable, it’s hard, but it’s doable.”

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D8;<C<@E< ;Ë8E><CF The longer I’ve spent in the Boston area, the more I’ve been continually shocked by the sheer amount of creativity that exists within the city itself. It often seems like Boston is just a constant stream of brand-new startups, restaurants, exhibitions—the ﬂow is endless and, when I think about it, it takes my breath away. I mean, Boston even has an ofﬁcial Innovation District, an initiative spearheaded by the late Mayor Thomas M. Menino to convert the South Boston Waterfront into what the organization’s website calls “an urban environment that fosters innovation, collaboration, and

entrepreneurship.” And even though BostInno pointed out that Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, WCAS, ’09, seems to have stopped using the title “Innovation District,” or saying much about the initiative at all, the area still has a certain spark. It is now home to General Electric’s new headquarters, and is teeming with popular restaurants (anyone been to the Bee’s Knees or Bon Me?), and lively spaces such as the Lawn on D, which currently houses a glowing swing set that is hypnotic for both small children and people of all ages with the hearts of small children. But there is a part of me that can’t help but wonder how sustainable this kind of manic innovation is in the long run. Part of the beauty of living near a city is the exposure to new opportunities and advice, but how many mobile applications and earth-shaking dining experiences can a city produce before the ideas just become recycled trends?

Creativity definitely isn’t finite, but people have been around for a while now, and in the close confines of a city, how long can they keep generating new ideas that blow the rest of us away? This question really began to nag at me after I spoke with entrepreneurs who, although relatively new to the startup world, were already well-versed in the industry’s fast-paced and competitive nature, particularly when speaking of the industry in the context of Boston. They mentioned the importance of getting a product out into the open as fast of possible, and worrying about working out all the kinks and imperfections later. Unfortunately, this intense competitive nature actually makes sense the more I think about it. In any major city, and Boston certainly is one, people live on top of each other. In our packed quarters, we not only see an impressive amount of ideas and resulting success, but also feel a pressure to perform and live up to that

standard. In some sense, this pressure is one of the factors that must make cities like Boston such hubs for creativity and innovation. Just like students who wait until the last minute to ﬁnish an assignment, some people relish in the adrenaline rush that the pressure brings, even believing that it helps them produce inﬁnitely better results. But pressure demands that we work with speed, and that culture of a quick turnover, which is becoming ever more normal, is what worries me. For some minds, this high-pressure climate might be useful for a period of time, but I am not sure that it’s sustainable in the long term. Take the fashion industry as a recent case study. In the world of clothing, the consumer demand for new, trendy items is constantly increasing. This pressure has resulted in the boom of fast-fashion retailers (think Zara and H&M), but the

designers of major design houses are also feeling this pressure. Even designers and creative directors for established names such as Chanel, Dior, and Lanvin are pushed to produce over six collections a year with a kind of speed that has pushed many designers to leave their positions after only a short time. These designers have lamented the danger of burnout, and have called for greater change within the fashion community and consumer culture. But so far, no action has been taken. What this means for Boston, I don’t really know, but Walsh cannot abandon the Innovation District. A safe space for creative minds to come together in harmony might be an answer for the modern question regarding the fast pace of life. Who knows, it might even set Boston ahead of the pack.

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REVIEW

‘CRIMINAL’

THE NEW KEVIN COSTNER ACTION FILM LACKS ENGAGING SUBSTANCE,PAGE B4 COLUMN

GUITAR BANDS IN 2016

HOW POPULAR MUSIC IS SHAPING THE GUITAR’S ROLE IN THE INDUSTRY, PAGE B3

REVIEW

‘The Jungle Book’

DIRECTOR JON FAVREAU REIMAGINES THE CLASSIC DISNEY CARTOON, Page B4

THURSDAY | APRIL14, 2016

THE

ABBY PAULSON / HEIGHTS EDITOR

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, April 14, 2016

A FULLER PICTURE

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With a “certified rotten” rating on rottentomatoes.com, it’s safe to say that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was not a critical success. It’s hard for audiences to sift through its massive, messy, and generally uninteresting plotline. There are times when the green screen-heavy action sequences look mediocre, while Doomsday and all the explosions that followed in his wake seemed like they were pulled out of Dragon Ball Z. Across the board, critics from every echelon of the movie review world have some grievance with the superhero blockbuster, save for one exception. Most people seem to agree, aside from everything else, that Ben Affleck’s Batman was actually pretty great and, in a lot of ways, he was unlike any Batman that has been seen in cinema before. With Warner Bros. Studios’ confirmation Tuesday night that Affleck will direct and star in a stand-alone Batman film, there’s a lot to be excited about with the Bat-fleck hanging around theaters for a while. The Dark Knight has flown in and out of popularity repeatedly, but since Christopher Nolan revived Batman in film in 2005 with Batman Begins, it’s safe to say that Batman has held a steady position toward the top of the list of icons of American culture. It’s important to date Batman’s rise in popularity back to 2005 because, for a while, it had seemed as though the Dark Knight had seen his last day in 1997. Joel Schumacher drove the franchise into the ground with his two entries in the series, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. Tim Burton’s Batman movies were popular for their grungy, goofy, and gothic Gotham and Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito’s takes on the Joker and Penguin, respectively. Schumacher’s films ditched Burton’s edgy grittiness for flamboyant bat-nipples and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pun-rific Mr. Freeze, which more devoted Batman fans and casual moviegoers alike seemed to disagree with—violently. Seven years after the horrific Batman & Robin, which George Clooney, who played Batman, still apologizes to fans for, Nolan revived the series, introducing his iteration of Bruce Wayne to a modern, realistic metropolitan setting. While The Dark Knight Rises was a little outlandish with its nuclear bomb and occupy-Gotham movement, the Nolan Batman series established a realistic setting and approach to the Dark Knight that was evidently appealing to fans across the spectrum. The Ben Affleck Batman is a bit darker and a lot more gritty and grimier. He’s been the Bat in the night for over 20 years, lost friends along the way, and isn’t afraid to rob people of their lives (he definitely kills more than a couple people in that movie). This sort of inherently cynical, ruthless Batman hasn’t been explored on the silver screen and, even in the context of such a bad film, it’s really engaging to see Ben Affleck’s version of the world’s greatest detective. There’s only one problem. I don’t want to see him fight alongside the Justice League. Batman is, to a degree, useless when compared to Superman, Wonder Woman, or the Flash. Sure, there are moments in the Justice League animated series when Batman proves his worth, making useful inventions to take down evil-doers or solving mysteries that the rest of the crew couldn’t, but, in my thinking, Batman can’t fit in with any of the Justice League members. He’s too well-liked by the fan-base to be downplayed and too ineffectual a superhero to make a large (and well-developed) contribution to whatever is happening on screen. Besides, if Batman v Superman is any indication of how cluttered Zack Snyder’s Justice League movies are going to be, Batman could fall back to the depths of obscurity once more if he were just part of Snyder’s next ensemble. Affleck needs to make the standalone Batman films his priority. He’s shown a wholehearted, genuine interest in the part, and he has fans and critics backing his Dark Knight. If he puts his full attention and effort into his Batman movie(s) and treats the upcoming Justice League movies as auxiliary projects, Ben Affleck could possibly solidify his place as not only a Dark Knight, but as the Dark Knight.

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JENNIFER SIEBEL NEWSOM

I<8:K kf =@CD :fe]ifekj ÊK_\ DXjbË f] DXjZlc`e`kp 9P :?I@J =LCC<I 8ikj I\m`\n <[`kfi In today’s society, gender roles are often contested. People constantly question what it means to be a man or a woman and how to handle sexuality personally and openly. Especially in the last few years, there has been a motion in American society to move past gender stereotypes that have permeated the very different cultures that culminate in the American experience. Whether black or white, Asian or Latino, everyone is susceptible to both the good and the bad influences of gender roles in society. This Monday, Boston College’s REACT to FILM club screened The Mask You Live In, a documentary from Miss Representation director Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The ﬁlm aims to examine the many facets of American culture that promote, sustain, and emblemize male gender stereotypes that have taken root over the last few generations. Blending several personal narratives describing the struggle of living in a society that promotes aggression as a key factor in manhood with statistics, The Mask You Live In is poignant in its message and emotionally striking. The most commendable quality of The

Mask You Live In is the broad spectrum of figures interviewed for the film. Everyone from high-school football coaches, parents, and students to psychologists, neurologists, and sociologists discussed the many forms that distorted masculinity takes on in American society. Whether they were experts in the “boys’ vs. girls experience” on a preschool playground, the teen drug culture, or male portrayals in the media, The Mask You Live In offered an eclectic group of analysts that offered well-developed insights into the causes and effects of many aspects of the masculinity problem in modern culture. Some of the film’s darker moments highlighted an urgent need to quell aggressive manifestations of masculinity. A newsreel of national stories involving mass shootings and murders, even in the midst of such a sobering film, increased the tension of the atmosphere in Fulton 511. Some of the multitude of statistics that the film cut to left the room in an uncomfortable silence. Amid the broader conversations that the film is trying to have, the many personal stories interspersed throughout The Mask You Live In keeps the documentary personal and engaging. Teachers explain the programs that they had brought about at their schools to chal-

lenge the macho personalities that they feel their students force in order to avoid discussing their emotions or feeling emasculated. Parents who grew up without fathers describe what they are doing to encourage their young children to express their feelings healthily and how they are learning from their kids what boys could be like without a debilitating masculinity complex. Kids discussed the hierarchy of boys’ groups in elementary schools and the consequences of trying to break away from the masculine norms. These testimonies added a more accessible component to the film and kept the audience invested in the statistic-heavy, informative documentary. After the film, REACT to FILM invited Brett Ingram, who teaches a course on masculinity for the communications department, to comment on and begin a discussion on the film, masculinity at BC, and what he can do to make men feel more comfortable outside of masculine bounds. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Ingram said, pacing back and forth at the front of the classroom. “I don’t know if taking a pledge is going to stop anything on a Saturday night at 11 at some party, which is where a change would actually matter.” Ingram was referencing the film’s

solution to many of the problems that it covered. Besides taking personal efforts to discuss and push away from aggressive masculinity, the filmmakers asked viewers to take a pledge at therepresentationproject.org, which states, “I pledge to use my voice to challenge society’s limiting representations of gender.” Ingram went on to say that he thought a lot of the movie’s message, which he says has appeared in many different, yet very similar documentaries over the years, works well for certain demographics. “You can use that with elementary school kids, middle school kids, and even in high schools to a degree,” Ingram said. “But I don’t really see how this type of message works for colleges.” Students from the audience then offered a few points to the room on where they had seen representations of aggressive masculinity on campus, though no one really offered any solutions to the problem that Ingram had proposed. In the end, Ingram answered his own question to a degree, saying that he felt the best way to stamp out the issue with young men and adults is to saturate masculinity with sarcasm. “Making this over-masculine front something funny, something to laugh at can go a long way in disarming it,” Ingram said.

=è[è^ >l`kXiËj E\ok ?\if è k_\ Df[\ie Dlj`Z JZ\e\ SHRAVAN CHALLAPALLI What makes a guitar player good in 2016 when the guitar in general is largely considered optional? For many years, concerned critics have lamented a perceived decline in the production of guitar-based music, or, more specifically, guitar rock. There actually may be a little truth in this recurring concern. After all, how many guitar-based songs are currently trending on the charts right now? There may be a few songs with guitar arrangements added for texture, but for the most part, there isn’t really a big, new guitar band that has popular attention. The situation is perhaps a little unique. For the longest time, popular music proceeded forth from the same lineage that initially started with artists from the British Invasion. The late ’60s seem as appropriate a time as ever to designate as the founding point of the currently massive popular culture that exists in America. From this vein were born acts like Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Nirvana, and Jack White. Each generation seemed to live out a unique, context-dependent interpretation of the basic rock-and-roll formula. As

the culture evolved, so did the guitar players. As we sit in 2016, however, it becomes increasingly difficult to pinpoint a guitar player who has captured the broader public’s attention. It’s as though rock music in general has finally realized that it’s not the only relevant genre in the cultural marketplace. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, I applaud that a diversity of musical styles are being presented for popular consumption. This trend suggests that popular music may actually be reflecting the wide diversity within our actual society. Other genres like hip-hop and R&B are gaining popularity as a result of record labels featuring talented and accessible artists. Regardless, new and exciting guitar-based music is happening right now for those willing to dig a little deeper. Bands with new ideas are constantly sharing new material to increasingly small and tight-knit communities. We tend to be possessive about our tastes in music. For instance, everyone has a friend who still thinks Led Zeppelin is the best band ever—that there exists no possibility that anything being created now could ever be as good as that. I know I have a preoccupation with the ’90s and tend to venerate

the culture of that era far more than our current one. My favorite guitar players, like Stephen Malkmus of Pavement, played in ’90s alternative bands. All of this is totally fair and reasonable. But in a sense, I can’t help but think that my tastes were developed through convenience. It’s easy to see how people come to appreciate universally celebrated guitar players like Jimi Hendrix or even Kurt Cobain. What more can actually be written about these kinds of figures? The very idea of classic rock serves to expose listeners to the works of these great artists. Whole swaths of magazines and other collections exist to reinforce the legendary appeal of these guitar heroes of the past. It’s all prepackaged and accessible to anyone with enough time to casually browse Rolling Stone. Finding the next influential guitar player in 2016 will be a completely different task. You can’t expect to find him or her in the same mainstream outlets that are still attached to covering the glory days of the increasingly distant past. Coupled with the fact that rock music is losing some traction in the popular conscience, finding dynamic and new guitar-based music requires a

willingness to appreciate bands that are just starting out. These bands won’t have the built-in mythology that surrounds historically well-known artists. Nonetheless, it’s easier than ever to ﬁnd interesting new music on media, such as Frankie Cosmos on BandCamp and SpaceWasters on SoundCloud. The best rock artists and guitar players in 2016 are going to be those who are able to take a broad survey of the historical trends in guitar rock that have existed to this point. They will be comfortable and familiar with certain aspects of traditional tone and style. Then they will take this working familiarity and subvert it. They’ll show glimpses of an accessible style and inject it with something new. It’s easy to think that everything has been done before. Our society’s tendency nostalgia conﬁrms this general attitude. If we can distance ourselves just a little bit from this bias, however, it becomes increasingly evident that guitar rock is changing along with our culture, just as it always has.

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THIS WEEKEND in arts

BY: HANNAH MCLAUGHLIN | ASST. ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR

AHANA SHOWDOWN (SATURDAY AT 6 P.M.)

FRANKIE BALLARD (FRIDAY AT 7 P.M.)

This weekend, the AHANA Leadership Council brings its annual Showdown dance competition to campus. This highly anticipated event features competing BC dance teams of all genres, themed dance numbers, and impressive student-made choreography.

Country crooner Frankie Ballard will take the stage this Friday at the House of Blues. Country fans can expect the singer to play his hit, chart-topping songs like “Helluva Life” and “Sunshine and Whiskey.”

BREAK THE BUBBLE (SATURDAY AT 1 P.M.) Take a day trip to Boston’s Faneuil Hall this Saturday afternoon for the Music Guild’s “Break the Bubble” music festival. Come support your favorite BC bands, rappers, duets, and many more at this oﬀ-campus event.

‘CRIMINAL’ (OPENS FRIDAY) Starring Kevin Costner and Ryan Reynolds, this new actiondrama is sure to be a suspenseful thrill ride for the crimebuster types. Human experimentation, mind-transplants, and secret agents collide as a criminal-turned-CIA agent attempts to thwart a sinister international conspiracy.

DREW HOO / HEIGHTS EDITOR

‘GUYS AND DOLLS’ (THURSDAY THROUGH SATURDAY) Grab your tickets now for this weekend’s theater performance of the popular musical Guys and Dolls. Boston’s historic Cutler Majestic Theater is your destination for a rousing story of what happens when glamor, gambling, and gangsters collide.

JUICE / WILL BOLTON AT THE GARAGE (FRIDAY AT 9 P.M.) Popular night club Garage will play host to two of BC’s most beloved music acts. If you want to hear Juice and Willy B play at an exciting venue, get to the club’s Crystal Room early, for the event is expected to ﬁll up quickly.

STAND UP FOR A CAUSE! (FRIDAY AT 7 P.M.) Don’t miss this exciting Robsham show featuring hilarious BC comedians as well as professional stand-up comedian Dana Jay Bein. All proceeds will be donated to the Prevent Child Abuse America Foundation. Enjoy the show and support a great cause!

‘THE JUNGLE BOOK’ (OPENS FRIDAY) A beloved Disney animated film is getting a makeover. The gripping story of young Mowgli and his jungle friends will come to the silver screen with human actors, impressive CGI effects, and a whole lot of playful jump scares.

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, April 14, 2016

A MCLAUGHLIN MINUTE

Life Between Frames

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JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

“This means something to you:” Billy Foshay on identity, selfhood 9P :8C<9 >I@<>F 8jjfZ% 8ikj I\m`\n <[`kfi

Art is a mirror. As artists point their cameras out into the world, spin their brushes about the canvas, and bring life to their otherwise cold instruments, it is unsurprising that their work continues to hold meaning long after the last snap, brush stroke, or note. Art is a personal labor of love, making it an abundant resource of materials infused with personality. Finding out more about ourselves is rarely the goal, but is instead a happy coincidence. Much like mirrors and reflections, we may catch glimpses of ourselves in the pursuit of other things. William Foshay, CSOM ’16, explores ideas of self-perception, discovery, and growth through his new Carney Hall gallery, Ori (Beginnings). Through compelling photographs, sculptures, and mixed media displays, Foshay shows that, often, the person behind the camera is as important as those on the other side of it. In an age when identity crises manifest themselves throughout our culture through topics of race, gender, sexuality, and purpose in life, Foshay grasps at our shifting selfhood in an ever-changing world. His work is broad and expansive. From aesthetic photos of paint and water, to a performance in film, to composite images of personal notebooks and journals, Ori (Beginnings) covers a lot of visual ground and viewers will find themselves pulled from piece to piece across the gallery. To understand his work, it is important to examine the process Foshay goes through in fleshing out an idea. Much of his work is laced with ideas about identity and consciousness, but these tend to be discovered later on, as a simple dose of curiosity usually dictates where his artistic projects lie. Foshay does not set out expressly to make art other people will like. Instead, he uses art as a medium to

explore ideas and interests. “It’s about following a curiosity that you have,” Foshay said. “I didn’t really understand the importance of some projects until a little bit later.” As he pursues ideas, Foshay prefers acting spontaneously, then doubling back and asking why he was attracted to a project or image. “A little of it is about trusting your subconscious,” he said. “There has got to be a reason why I’m choosing to do this over something else.” These kinds of spontaneous, tangential pursuits lead to a more genuine sense of artistic discovery. Sometimes the purpose is not found in the concept of an idea, but in the pursuit of it—actions speak louder than words. And in this way, it is no wonder so many of Foshay’s pieces contain personal elements, though they are not overtly present from the beginning of a project. It is through this kind of unearthing process that Foshay ﬁnds the more meaningful aspects of his art and by proxy himself and the world around him. And, thus, discovery comes in retrospect. In his photograph compilation In Between, Forshay captured images of people walking through doors. The idea behind the piece was literally to capture people walking through doors, an act so banal that people are rarely conscious of the action. To sate a curiosity, observing unconscious action, Foshay set out to capture it. “We never say or think ‘I’m walking through a door right now’,” Forshay said. But people became aware of him snapping pictures as they passed. “I brought consciousness to them walking through the door,” he said. While some of the people he photographed continued on, others covered their faces, and one man admonished Foshay for taking his picture. Even that was interesting

to him, he said. “You are kind of bringing observation to his own life,” he said. [...] “What would his experience have been like if I wasn’t there?” His part was integral to the piece in its final state. The process, in this way, is as important as the final work. Beauty is inherent in images, but a story does not end once an image has been seized. The In Between collection, like many other pieces, is shaped by an ongoing sense of discovery. It is a foray into observing and being observed on both sides of the camera, as the title suggests. Though Foshay is able to flesh out his place and meaning in relation to his art, his work serves as more than just a venture into self-introspection. His work says as much about his own personal journey as it does about the human condition in general. “Who am I?” and “What do I think I am?” are questions Foshay is trying to tackle or at least wrestle with. It’s almost as if the midlife crisis hits you when you are young. The digital age seems to impede attempts to answer these questions. This kind of lens can be attributed to several of Foshay’s works, like “Untitled Demonstration I,” a performance-art piece in which Foshay attempts to paint a self-portrait using a brush on a long pole. The three panels of footage, stacked vertically, capture his face, the length of the pole, and the portrait. Proving difficult, the portrait undergoes revisions and scrapped drafts as Foshay becomes more dissatisfied with the results. Speaking to ideas of digital profiles and the discord between crafting oneself and the reality of oneself, this visual shows the ungainly pole—digital media—is ineffective at communicating the portrait of himself. Another work projects a digital scan of Foshay’s face onto a grainy television. His face is present, and the grainy oscillations of the TV screen give it the appearance of life, but

leave an unsettling feeling. A projection of a scan. An abstraction of an abstraction. The notion evinced is striking, as it calls into mind the effects media has on our fundamental existential questions. “There is more and more documentation of who we are, and yet the question is bigger than ever,” Foshay said. Many of his other pieces speak to these ideas of identity, self, and self-discovery on distinct, fascinating levels—not only in the context of the digital age, but in our interpersonal relationships and memories. Foshay’s works are truly multifaceted, giving different vantage points on these same fundamental questions in indirect and provocative ways. The dynamism of artistic pieces may lead to interpretations as diverse and varied as those who create them. Speaking on how others view his work, Foshay stated that despite their intimate nature, others may find meanings completely different from his own. “I think people sometimes in your art look for a point, ‘Well, what are you trying to say?’ [...] but I just like to show where I’m at, what I’m investigating and what I’m interested in,” he said, motioning around the gallery. “And maybe someone else sees this and thinks, ‘I never thought about it that way.’ You start making new knowledge.” Foshay’s work is raw and emotional, leaving ample room for contemplative discussions. His pieces are as much striking images as testaments to the process behind creation and creativity. In the existential age, as we become distorted and obscured by mirrors and false reflections, when selfhood is constantly assailed, multiple voices searching for the same answers can help untangle the mess. “For some reason there is something in your head saying, this is important, this means something to you,” he said. “People looking and people talking about it can help you to see that.”

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

WZBC’s Spring Concert: Foxes in Fiction, Emperor X

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

I was so excited. I mean, my tights were itchy, the stiff black dress that my mom picked out for the occasion was way too restricting to run around freely in, and those patent-leather shoes felt fine until I walked more than two blocks in them. But in spite of my general discomfort and a less-than-ideal outfit decision (cheers, mom), I charged ahead of the others and marched bravely on through Boston’s bustling Theater District. I was 6, and I was so excited. Clutching my ticket for Annie the Musical tight in my right hand, I imagined all of the wonders my first real theatre experience would behold. Costumes and choreography and intricate set design, oh my! It would be all the magic of Disney’s 1999 film that I grew up with, complete with talented show-biz singers and really cool lighting. We’re talking Little Orphan Annie in the flesh, belting out ballads about hard child labor and sleazy tyrant Miss Hannigan. It was the stuff of dreams, and the Boston Opera House’s marquee lights gleaming in the distance beckoned me to come inside. Word on the street (or, at least at my kitchen table and according to my dad) was that a live orchestra would be stationed in some scary-sounding section called the “pit.” And, to add an even scarier element to the escapade, mom announced that we would need to dress up. This so-called “theatre” sounded nothing like the theaters I was familiar with. Only the outdated carpets and worn leather chairs of movie theaters came to mind. After mom’s explanation that this type of theatre we were headed to was special—far fancier than our local movie theater, the Boston Opera House doesn’t take kindly to kids sneaking snacks in—I felt a little dejected about missing out on my theater snack of choice (Junior Mints and overly-buttered popcorn, obviously). Thankfully, though, I was assured that there would be snacks. After processing this information as best as a kindergartener can, you can bet your bottom dollar my six-year-old self was more than enthralled by the theatrical glamour of it all. The menu for the night called for dinner and a show, and it did not disappoint. This wasn’t Broadway, of course—comparing Boston’s Theater District to the Big Apple’s would be like trying to equate Jared Leto‘s joker to Heath Ledger’s. Morally, it’s just not right. For an aspiring entertainment enthusiast who couldn’t yet tell the difference between New York’s Broadway and our little city’s colorful Washington St., however, Boston’s comparatively tiny performing arts scene was more than fine with me. Fourteen years later, I’m sitting in the same red velvet seats. Again, I’m wearing a dress paired with equally uncomfortable heels. This time, though, the teenage girl next to me sports a zip-up Sox sweatshirt and leggings. A group of tweens nearby chatters incessantly throughout the entire play. In the middle of the first act, my little sister taps me on the shoulder and whispered, “Do you know when this thing ends?” At the risk of sounding over-dramatic, I am heartbroken. The theatre has always been an escapist’s paradise, a place whose gilded ceilings and dazzling chandeliers evoke a comfortable vintage feel of yesteryear. Fourteen years ago, people really cared. As far as I can tell, going to the theater used to mean a whole lot more to people than it does now. It was a special occasion you had marked on your calendars months in advance, not a time-filler for just another Friday night. Though the apathy I witnessed from those audience members around me was certainly not allconsuming—a handful of others were just as enthralled by the show as I was—the dream-like feel of theatre had diminished at least a little bit. Like a lot of things these days, I guess, the theatre experience just ain’t what it used to be.

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THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, April 14, 2016

@kËj X Ale^c\ Flk K_\i\# Ylk J`dgc`Z`kp# M`jlXcj Nè 9P :?I@J =LCC<I 8ikj I\m`\n <[`kfi Major blockbusters have recently run themselves into a corner with their special effects. Films like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Batman v Superman have relied on finales and action sequences in which buildings are destroyed left and right, and these incredible superheroes are being beaten to a pulp by their enemies. This all sounds very exciting except for the fact that nobody cares. Nothing on-screen holds any real consequence. The near-invincible men and women almost always walk away from the

brawl without a scratch, literal or metaphorical to show for it. Enter The Jungle Book Disney’s live-action reimagining of its classic cartoon. While the new ﬁlm shares many aspects and plot points of its predecessor, it also delves into the darker depths of the jungle, playing with a spectral color palette, grimmer tones, and scarily realistic CGI animals. Following the lines of its predecessor, The Jungle Book follows Mowgli (newcomer Neel Sethi) as he attempts to escape the clutches of the malevolent tiger Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba). Mowgli’s mentors and family

figures, Bagheera the black panther (voiced by Ben Kingsley) and Raksha (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), Mowgli’s wolf mother, will stop at nothing to see that Mowgli’s safety is guaranteed. Along his journey through the jungle, Mowgli comes across new friends, like Baloo the bear (voiced by Bill Murray), and dastardly fiends, like Kaa the snake (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) and King Louie the giant orangutan (voiced by Christopher Walken). These accolade-laden actors lend their voices and motion-captured facial expressions to an extraordinary use for this film. It’s hard to imagine the technology and effort that went

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into crafting the likenesses of Murray, Walken, and Kingsley onto their animal counterparts, but the familiar faces bring a human essence to the CGI beasts that is at once marvelous, frightening, and accessible. Murray and Kingsley are of special note when it comes to the film’s voice actors. It’s easy to imagine Murray adlibbing some of his funnier lines in a recording studio, and the actor’s light-hearted sound fits Baloo’s carefree character very well. Kingsley’s elegant accent and soothing voice emanate friend Bagheera with grace and unparalleled fluidity. yet authoritative voice. This film’s ensemble of top-notch performers was perfectly chosen and is never under-utilized throughout the film. Sethi, as Mowgli, deserves the most praise, though. The 10 year-old actor interacted with the sets and CGI characters in an unbelievably realistic manner. It’s hard to spot a single point in the film where Mowgli’s discussions and interactions with the film’s many animals don’t feel genuine, even though he was most likely dealing with puppets in place of the animals that were edited into the film. Sethi also brings a quick wit and sarcasm that are impressive coming from a 10-year-old kid. Child actors can be troublesome to big-budget films like The Jungle Book, but Sethi’s professionalism and synergy with the

settings and characters around him is remarkable. Both the animals and jungle settings are impeccably rendered in The Jungle Book. It is near impossible to tell which sets and which parts of a set are real or fake, while the painstaking effort to have the animals naturally move through and change the environments they inhabit is evident. This is where The Jungle Book differs from its blockbuster brethren. With its welldeveloped character relationships, and near-flawless visual effects, each of the film’s action sequences draws the viewer’s fully tuned attention to the screen. The Jungle Book doesn’t need to drop cities from the sky or level them with an energy bomb from a horrendous monster in order to grab an audience’s genuine interest. The funny part is, the same effect is still at play among all blockbusters. As a viewer, you know Captain America and Batman aren’t going to die, and neither will Mowgli. The difference is, when a film puts time into showing an audience Mowgli and giving us a glimpse of what he means to the world around him, that’s when the audience is afraid they’ll lose him. The Jungle Book doesn’t need huge explosions to impress audiences. It uses the simple, bare necessities.

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Tired, predictable, and unquestionably weak, Criminal is a disappointment, but not a surprise. Unfortunately, there’s not much more to say than that—Ariel Vroman’s latest work is just…bad. And, yes, there’s a whole host of technical reasons why this is the case, but there’s no getting around the fact that Criminal simply isn’t fun to watch. Of course, good films are not necessarily required to correlate with the “fun factor,” but when the movie is marketed as an action-packed, high-octane thriller, audiences are in store for a big disappointment. Criminal stars Kevin Costner as Jericho Stewart, a death-row inmate who has his memories replaced with a deceased CIA agent’s so that he can complete the agent’s final mission, which the agent failed to finish. Does this premise sound incohesive and potentially frustrating for the audience? Bad news: it is. At the heart of Criminal is extremely fractured writing, which serves to splinter the story into various shards of action, character development, and storytelling. How these pieces are supposed to fit together is obvi-

ous, but they never truly slide into place to form an enjoyable, complete film. Actors stumble through their parts, not because of incompetence, but a mere lack of material to work with—this is an especially sad reality given the exceptionally stellar cast that Criminal has. Costner, talented as he may be, does not make for a convincing anti-hero. At this point in his career, he is far too intertwined with his Field of Dreams, “goodol’-boy” charm, and it rubs the nature of his character in all the wrong ways. Ryan Reynolds is nothing more than mediocre, standing in stark contrast with his big hit this year, Deadpool. This is mostly irrelevant anyway, considering his minimal screen time. In fact, Criminal tragically underuses its cast across the board. Tommy Lee Jones has one of the more enjoyable performances in the film, but barely makes it into the final cut. Gal Gadot falls into much the same trap—audiences spend the entirety of Criminal waiting for her to deliver at the level she typically does, but her performance never seems to come to completion. Gary Oldman is perhaps the only major star besides Costner who is used properly,

but once again, his efforts this go-around fall rather short compared to previous work. On the technical end of the film, some proper strides are made: for example, the cinematography, done by Dana Gonzales (Crash, Iron Man 2), is the high point of the movie. Shots are wonderfully crafted, and nearly every action scene, while violent and flashy, is simple to follow without becoming worn out. It is clear that Gonzales has a talent in the area of shooting chase scenes, as these are the

best elements of Criminal’s action. The score, by Brian Tyler, is passable, adding to the experience while not being overly distracting. In its production, Criminal makes a fair run at being a good film, making it all the more unfortunate that its writing is so laughably weak. Criminal, at its core, is simply seeking to be something that it isn’t. Vroman’s inspirations are obvious: The Bourne trilogy, Die Hard, Mission: Impossible, and every other hardline action film that seeks to have a brain on the

side. And therein lies the problem: Criminal has no brain at all. And not for a lack of trying, either—its premise is original, but it’s executed so poorly that any joy derived from watching the film comes in extremely small quantities, if at all. It does its action right, yes, but with no substance to back it up, the entirety of Vroman’s work just falls flat. Criminal is an exercise in stupidity, proving yet again that explosions without stories are entertaining to no one.

It’s Rob and Sharon’s three-year anniversary. The baby, their second (Muireann, a girl, correct pronunciation TBD) is still asleep, and the couple gets to sleep until a blissful 7:15 a.m. The ﬁfth episode opens in a pre-morning instead of post-coital haze. Director Ben Taylor, who shot all 12 episodes of the show, has an eye for the bedroom—both for the acts

of passion, as well as the more subtle moments that occur there. Rob, gesturing to himself and his wife in bed, sighs, “I’m more proud of this than I am of the kids.” He continues, “I mean, who doesn’t want to take care of their kids? You’d have to be a monster to not want to do that. But this, maintaining this, this is the slog.” The slog has never been so fun. With all due respect to Mother’s Day and whatever side holiday-based fare

TOP SINGLES

1 Work Rihanna ft. Drake 2 7 Years Lukas Graham 3 No Meghan Trainor 4 Pillowtalk Zayn 5 Panda Desiigner 6 Love Yourself Justin Bieber 7 My House Flo Rida 8 I Took A Pill In Ibiza Mike Posner

TOP ALBUMS

1 Life of Pablo Kanye West 2 Traveller Chris Stapleton 3 Lukas Graham Lukas Graham 4 Weezer (White Album) Weezer 5 TWENTY88 TWENTY88

Source: Billboard.com

MUSIC VIDEO LEIGH CHANNELL

“DANGEROUS WOMAN” ARIANA GRANDE

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CHART TOPPERS

Hollywood is trying to resurrect the rom-com with these days, Catastrophe is the best romantic comedy you’ll ﬁnd this year (though You’re the Worst and parts of Girls have an outlier argument). Coming in at a tidy three hours, Catastrophe is a delightful way to spend a few nights or an afternoon. If you missed the ﬁrst season, it’s not hard to catch up. American boy Rob knocks up Irish school teacher Sharon in London. Rob comes in

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from Boston to give things a go with Sharon, and they make their way in London. Written by stars Delaney and Horgan, the creative team has hit fastforward on their ﬁctional romantic partnership. The show adds a kid after season one and the second season delightfully stumbles along. If the ﬁrst season tackled adult courtship sans cliche, then the second is about marriage and raising kids, and more precisely the balance between man and wife, parents and kids. Catastrophe feels real, in the way great pop art can look gorgeous and make you happy and sad at the same time. The second season features prostitutes, dementia, death, and a job that’s festering within Rob. This may all sound weird, but money exists in Catastrophe. Rob has to keep his job marketing pharmaceutical drugs because, as much as his anger may be festering within. Delaney and Horgan make you feel the burden. Catastrophe boasts some of the most engaging small-screen performances, both in the foreground and background. No one ejaculates as well or as often on television as Delaney. Whether Catastrophe is television or something else is a discussion

for another time. Horgan somehow conveys sincerity and incredulity at the same time. Carrie Fisher is more alive as an overbearing ebay shark and witch of a mother-in-law than she was in her brief scenes as Leia in The Force Awakens. Mark Bonna—in the best-friend role—smokes an e-pipe like freaking James Dean. Catastrophe is interested in exploring all the things that surround and prop up a marriage. We’re left to wonder if Sharon and Rob are two (funny) folks chugging along in a rotted relationship, propped up by a nice house and cute kids. Catastrophe is wondering if the sparks we saw in the first season can grow into a sustainable fire. One of the charms of television is that it lives and grows over time, though some enviable fella will find Catastrophe in 2022 and have a torrid few-day affair with the show. Finding the first season was like having a crush on the girl a few rows up in class. But it lasted for a week. You got over it. The second season wants a bit more. It stakes an emotional footprint. It wants a relationship. And well, it’s got one. Hi. It’s the viewer. We want more.

Imagine Ariana Grande. Whether you picture a young, red-headed ditz from Victorious, or a sassy pop diva, Grande carries an air of innocence with her youthful image. For a bestselling 22-year-old pop star, Grande looks remarkably young—and the world has made sure she’s aware of that fact. When she was involved with Big Sean, the Internet constantly mocked their relationship, calling him her “babysitter” or “sugar daddy” while he was only a few years her senior. Even after they broke up, the joke prevailed, with comments about her elementary school enrollment or Little League championships constantly being made. In “Dangerous Woman,” Grande is trying to prove that she is a woman—not the child everyone thinks she is. No, it was not enough to ask for “all you got, skin to skin” in the song’s risque lyrics—a leather mask and gloves were necessary as well. While her vocal performance is truly impressive, if not remarkable, the gimmick is distracting and detracts from the video’s quality. “Dangerous Woman (Visual 1),” the track’s first official video release, falls into the same trap of shameless sex appeal. The video consists of Grande dancing around in lingerie, seductively serenading the camera under soft pink and blue lights. With no costar or plot, the video should by default be called performance-based, but the performance Grande is advertising is not her singing. Embracing her sexuality and being comfortable in her body, however, is not Grande’s flaw with this video. It’s the apparent fact that this song and its accompanying videos are an attempt to prove herself as an adult. Maturity isn’t something that’s earned through sexuality, but through emotional resilience, which Grande clearly does not yet possess if she’s sinking to the level of her tormentors and compromising her music in order to retaliate to their jokes.

SINGLE REVIEWS BY BAILEY FLYNN DRAKE “Pop Style”

TEGAN AND SARA “Boyfriend”

FRIENDS “Blake Shelton” This low tempo track, released with the Drake single “One Dance” is yet another hit from the Canadian-born rapper. Despite its name, the new track as the antithesis of pop music, for it features none of the over-produced elements characteristic of the pop genre today.

Created for the upcoming Angry Birds Movie, this upbeat new track is rife with kid-friendly and cliche lyrics and bouncy background beats. Blake Shelton strays far from his usual love-soaked barroom jams with this jaunty ode to friendship. The over-produced instrumentals make true country fans cringe.

Pop icon Jason Derulo strikes out with “If It Ain’t Love.” The song is peak Derulo, utilizing his vocal range, bubbly synth, and love-story lyrics. It feels as if it is trying way too hard to suit his found niche of success. While it will appease his fans, success comparable to hits “Want You to Want Me” or “Talk Dirty” is unlikely.

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THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, April 14, 2016

FENCING

I\e\\ 9`Z_\kk\ DXb\j X EXd\ ]fi ?\ij\c] Xj 9:Ëj 9\jk =\eZ\i Bichette, from B8 Competing pairs stand on a thin strip of carpet while pointing sword-like weapons at each other. But there’s so much more to it than meets the eye. Walking into a fencing bout is like walking into battle. You need to think about your physical endurance, but you also are thinking about the best strategy you can use in order to make sure the tip of your blade touches your opponent in the quickest, most efficient way possible. You’re also considering what your opponent’s strategy may be as well—what are your weaknesses? All of these thoughts are bundled up into about three minutes for one bout, and you need to have multiple touches to win. “It’s a combat sport,” BC fencing coach Sydney Fadner said. “It requires agility, it requires strength, it requires enormous mental and physical discipline, emotional resiliency, tactical thinking.” The general gist of the rules of fencing is that competitors work to touch the blade part of their non-dangerous weapon onto part of the other competitor’s body. The vests fencers wear contain a cord that will conduct electricity when a hit by a blade is registered, and this will turn a light on. A valid touch, one that will lead to a point, is called a touche. Whichever fencer gets the most touches wins the bout—usually five to win. It may seem simple enough, but Bichette challenges anyone who dares to watch. “If you’re watching and you have no idea what’s going on, it really seems like it’s very easy,” Bichette said. “Try it and see how you feel after fencing for two hours.” There are three different weapons— epee, foil, and sabre. Each weapon has its own characteristics and set of rules,

like which part of the blade can touch which part of the opponent, and which competitor has right of way. For example, Bichette fences epee, which has a spring-loaded tip that can hit any part of the opponent. In addition to athleticism, quick thinking and patience are required for fencing. Epee, however, doesn’t have right-of-way rules. With right-of-way rules, if two fencers make a hit at the same time, only the person who acted on offense first receives a point. Or if a fencer makes a hit but violates right of way, that fencer would not receive a touche and a point. Therefore, a foil or sabre fencer could receive touches based singularly on right of way. An epeeist can’t, and when losing a bout they must think very strategically to get touches without giving them up. At 5-foot-2, Bichette is short for a female epeeist. Most are around 5-foot-6 or 5-foot-7, so Bichette has had to adapt her play for her height. She opts to play more defensively, planning around the bout so she can get her opponent to try to attack her so she can take advantage of the opponent’s vulnerability by getting the first touche. Epee was chosen out of necessity— that’s all Bichette’s longtime coach from Florida teaches. In contrast, her coaches at BC, Fadner and Brendan Doris-Pierce, coach foil and sabre, respectively. Having coaches who specialize in different weapons is the result of having three distinct styles with different sets of rules. Although the two don’t teach epee, Fadner and Doris-Pierce provide Bichette with support and help her with mental concentration during a bout. Due to the technical differences between weapons, Bichette’s coaches may not always be able to give Bichette specific technical advice, but Bichette regards the emotional support and mental coaching just as highly.

New coaching was not the big adjustment when Bichette moved into collegiate fencing. After fencing for 11 years individually—there were never any other girls to form a team with at her club—she finally was part of a team. Bichette admitted the transition was a big adjustment, but pointed out that the largest part of it was changing her mindset and realizing most of her fencing efforts influenced the team. Sometimes it’s difficult for Bichette to get into the right fencing mentality. Last year in her first NCAA championship, she placed 21st. She admits that she got caught up in the bouts she lost, and wasn’t thinking in the moment. This year, she attributes her improvement to focusing on taking one step at a time and staying positive to be there for her teammates. And it worked. Despite a busy year in which she changed her major to nursing her sophomore year and began working at Hillside, Bichette managed to jump 14 spots to seventh, and was named to the All-American team. Fadner praised Bichette’s growth and approach to the mental aspect of fencing. “It’s just really wonderful to see her able to now have the same passion and drive coupled with control and mental toughness, and weave those two together,” Fadner said. “It’s remarkable what she’s accomplished.” Among the Eagles, Bichette has found a family. Besides her placement at the NCAA championship, Bichette says that her favorite memory from this season is when the team realized they had won the New England Championships before the results were officially announced. In a team competition, multiple bouts for each weapon fence at the same time, and individual results are compiled into a team score. There’s no scoreboard or any indication of what exactly the score is. You don’t know the

PHOTO COURTESY OF RENEE BICHETTE

One of Bichette’s biggest challenges has been working without an epee specialist. team standings until everyone is done. The most you can do is some mental math to calculate where you are and hope that you are correct. The final result keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end. In the New England Championships, the BC team didn’t want to jinx its placement by saying anything—what if by some fluke the Eagles didn’t win? When the results were finally announced, there was a collective uproar. For Bichette, it was an unforgettable moment. Nevertheless, Bichette’s individual accomplishments stand tall. She qualified for the NCAA Championships all on her own, and worked for her placement by herself. She fenced a total of 23 bouts—15 on the first day and eight on the second—against the top collegiate epee fencers in the country.

Fencing over the course of two days is a different format than most one-day meets, and it can make or break a fencer. Competitors must keep control of their physical and mental fatigue over those two days. Bichette came out of those days triumphant. Olivia Curry, a former fencer and BC ’13, worked as a volunteer coach Bichette’s freshman year and commended her passion and drive. “Renee is a fighter and she always has been, both in athletics and in life,” Curry said. “She’s overcome a lot and I’m so impressed and proud of her.” When Bichette steps onto the strip, it’s just her. She is full of concentration and determination. And for a moment, every obstacle from her humble fencing upbringing fades away. The bout, the target, and the touche are all that matter.

MEN’S HOCKEY

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JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Steve Santini (below) and Miles Wood (above) have departed BC for New Jersey.

one despite being a freshman because of his two years in prep school—thereby increasing their need to sign both as soon as possible. The two signed three-year entry-level contracts (ELC) that will pay them $925,000 per season. Given the NHL’s rules on ELCs, their ﬁrst years began in Saturday’s season ﬁnale against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., a 5-1 win for the Devils. Neither recorded a point, though Santini spent two minutes in the penalty box. The two spoke to nj.com about their decisions to join the NHL’s “BC Alumni Team”—former Eagles Stephen Gionta and Cory Schneider currently play in Newark. Neither stated that he anticipated joining the Devils at the season’s outset. Yet once BC’s year ended with a 3-2 loss to Quinnipiac in the Frozen Four, the serious discussions began. “I was fully committed to this Boston College season,” Santini told nj.com. “We wanted to win the national championship. When we didn’t, my family and I talked yesterday morning and we felt it would be best for my career to come down here and make the step to pro hockey. That’s a decision I’m fully comfortable with, and I’m ready for this journey.” Santini had one goal and 18 assists in

all 41 games for BC this season. Wood was BC’s fifth-leading scorer, with 10 goals and 25 assists in 37 games. He was also one of the nation’s most undisciplined players—Wood had 23 penalties for 78 minutes, including two suspensions from the Hockey East league offices. While the Devils struck quickly, the Minnesota Wild took a couple of days before pillaging the Eagles. Adam Gilmour and Alex Tuch, the longtime linemates and integral parts to BC’s offense in 2016, will join the team for practices throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but are not eligible to play. It had not been a surprise that Gilmour, a player who has put up steady albeit not mind-boggling numbers at BC, accepted an ELC. Tuch’s decision, however, was a huge and unexpected blow to the Eagles, as many close to the program had expected he would stay for his junior year or at least wait until the summer to make his decision. Yet the Wild had made a convincing push for the sophomore from Baldwinsville, N.Y., and must have struck all the right chords. “He’s a big power winger with quality hands and an NHL shot,” Wild assistant GM Brent Flahr told the Star Tribune. “He had a strong finish to the season and was eager to get his pro career going. We are very excited to have him in the organization and look forward to working with him in his development process.”

Over his three-year career at BC, Gilmour compiled 28 goals and 45 assists. Tuch had 32 goals and 30 assists in a two-year career on the Heights. His overtime goal against Boston University in the Beanpot final provided the Eagles with their most exciting moment—and only tournament trophy—of the season. The Eagles are now awaiting the decisions of several other key players on the roster. Defenseman Ian McCoshen is expected to sign with the Florida Panthers after projecting to graduate in three years. Freshman forward Colin White, a first-round draft pick of the Ottawa Senators, was also expected to sign, yet may hold off with the decision given the Sens’ changes in the front office. The biggest watch will be starting goaltender Thatcher Demko, who has been repeatedly courted by the Vancouver Canucks. Though general manager Jim Benning joined Demko and his family in Tampa, Fla., for the Mike Richter Award ceremony, Demko has not signed an ELC and may remain at BC to become an unrestricted free agent next year. BC is also awaiting the decisions of juniors Chris Calnan and Ryan Fitzgerald, and sophomore Zach Sanford, the latter of who is the only remaining sophomore at BC. Though those three are expected to stay, the quick and massive departure of BC’s key contributors may lead to the fringe players that were previously not expected to leave to accept ELC offers as well.

LACROSSE

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Days like today make it hard to believe sophomore Kenzie Kent was still going full-throttle in ice hockey just a few weeks ago. Today she led Boston College lacrosse over Dartmouth College in a 14-9 victory. It was the first time the Eagles (8-6, 1-5 Atlantic Coast) beat the Big Green (5-6, 1-3 Ivy League) in the teams’ 12-game series history. It was a back-and-forth game for the entire first half. Kate Weeks opened up the scoring in the first 30 seconds, but Dartmouth’s Jaclyn Leto responded to tie the score at one apiece. Sarah Mannelly put BC ahead again, and Kent recorded her first assist of the game five minutes into the first frame. The Big Green tallied another tying goal, leaving the score gridlocked at two. BC then exploded for three straight goals, including another goal and assist from Kent. But Dartmouth would not back down and scored five more goals in the half. Kent managed another assist to Weeks before the frame ended, leaving the halftime score at 7-6 in Dartmouth’s favor. BC came out of halftime ready to play and dominated the second half, scoring eight goals on its way to a commanding victory. The game also marked the first time in over a year that the Eagles trailed

at halftime and won the game. Mannelly tied the score at seven before Kent assisted a Mary Kate O’Neill goal to reclaim the lead for the Eagles. Kent scored four additional goals and recorded two total assists in the second half, dominating the game and building a comfortable lead for BC. Weeks and Caroline Margolis would also add goals, bringing the final tally to 14-9 in the Eagles’ favor. Kent’s five goals and five assists earned her 10 total points on the day, tying the program record for the secondmost number of points recorded in a single game. She is also only the seventh player in the entire NCAA this season to record 10 points in one game. What’s more, the 10 points are her personal career-best for a single game. Kent was the dominating force throughout the game, exploding especially in the second half to reclaim the lead and increase the cushion for the Eagles. Weeks also made major contributions in the game. She tallied four goals, a career high, in her ninth multi-goal game of the year. She also opened up scoring and helped build momentum for BC in the first half. Meanwhile, Mannelly scored twice and added a career-best five assists, including her 70th total assist as an Eagle.

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Kenzie Kent ’s 10 points carried the Eagles over the Dartmouth Big Green for a commanding victory on April 12.

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, April 14, 2016

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Saturday. The second game of the series saw ex-closer Justin Dunn make his first start of 2016, and he certainly lived up to the hype. About 15 scouts’ radar guns followed Dunn’s every pitch until he exited the game after five scoreless innings. In the bottom of the ninth inning with the score knotted at 2-2, the Eagles began an unlikely two-out rally. Pinch hitter Chris Balogh knocked a single up the middle before pinch runner Dominic Hardaway stole second and advanced to third on an errant throw from UVA catcher Matt Thaiss. With the winning run standing 90 feet away, shortstop Johnny Adams struck out, but a dropped third strike forced Thaiss to make a routine throw to first to end the inning. But his throw barrelled into Adams’ leg, trickling into right field as Hardaway scored the game-winning run from third base. A walk-off strikeout: perhaps the epitome of small ball. On Friday, Cavalier ace Connor Jones blanked BC in a 3-0 victory. The projected first-round pick in the MLB draft tossed a complete-game, one-hit shutout. But even in the loss, the Eagles discovered something astounding: Jacob Stevens, a freshman right-hander who squeaked into the starting rotation in February as the Sunday arm, could handle the transition to the Friday role and compete with filthy ACC aces. Stevens allowed zero earned runs in six innings of work, improving his ERA to 0.45, best in the country as of April 12. Gambino’s

secret weapon has only allowed two earned runs in 40 innings pitched this season. Yet, even after the crazy series win against the reigning national champions, Birdball received zero media attention outside of a few local outlets. Collegiate baseball rarely grabs national headlines, but BC’s thrilling weekend barely generated buzz within small circles of the college baseball community. The real slap in the face came on Monday, when the weekly New England Baseball poll ranked Bryant ahead of BC in the Division-I rankings. Now, Bryant is a great club with top-notch facilities that would make any Eagle jealous. But while BC was walking off against the No. 16 team in the nation, Bryant was busy losing to Fairleigh Dickinson (a New England Conference school with a 14-16 record this season). Perhaps the national view of BC baseball was best exemplified by Virginia’s drop in the top-25 poll from No. 16 to out of consideration entirely: “The Cavaliers lost two of three to Boston College? Are they really that bad?” No, Birdball’s new and improved pitching staff is just that good. Together, Dunn, King, and Stevens have a combined ERA of 1.61. I’ll take my chances with that trio up against any pitching staff in the country. Plus, despite Donovan Casey’s long-term injury, the bats in the lineup are finally coming alive: outfielder Michael Strem has eight hits and 10 RBIs in his last three games. And don’t forget that all of this

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Dominic Hardaway takes a swing during the Beanpot semifinals yesterday. has been against elite competition. You have to venture all the way down the current top 25 list to No. 16 Clemson in order to ﬁnd a program with more top 25 wins than the Eagles’ four. Not only should BC be the unanimous top dog among New England baseball programs, but the team deserves a top 25 nod if it can sweep Notre Dame on the road this

weekend. As much as the disrespect irritates fans like Youkilis, Gambino & Co. can only shrug it oﬀ with a laugh. After all, they’re used to it.

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9lccg\e J_è\j è 9\Xegfk Nè Fm\i LDXjj Baseball Beanpot, from B8 third base on a steal and pass ball, respectively. Cleanup hitter Joe Cronin fell behind 1-2 to UMass first baseman-turned-reliever Mike Geannelis. But the senior worked the count well, taking advantage of a down-and-away slider to drop a blooper into right that knocked in Strem and gave BC (18-11, 5-8 Atlantic Coast) the decisive 2-1 lead. Cronin added a diving stop at third in the top of the ninth as Jesse Adams—the Eagles’ starter-turnedreliever who earned two wins over the weekend—picked up an easy save to send the Minutemen (7-14, 2-4 Atlantic-10) back to Amherst. The Eagles will advance to take on Northeastern in Northborough, Mass. for their second-consecutive Beanpot final. “I was just chasing breaking balls down pretty much all day,” Cronin, who was 0-3 with three strikeouts before his game-winning hit. “You know coming up in the eighth there with two bases open that you’re gonna see more breaking balls, especially with that kid, he had a good slider so

I anticipated slider away and with the way I was feeling at the plate, which was not great, I was just trying to slap it the other way, just get it out there.” The game was still tied in the eighth despite BC giving the Minutemen a few chances to break it open earlier in the game. Thomas Lane, Zach Stromberg, Brian Rapp, and John Witowski all hurled well on a day when the Eagles desperately needed a strong bullpen performance. But UMass’ meager showing on the scoreboard is also due in large part to the work of catcher Nick Sciortino. UMass leadoff hitter Brett Evangelista reached base in the first on an infield single and then tried to steal second. Sciortino established a no-fly zone for the rest of the game by hosing him down with a good step and a half to spare. Lane later issued a leadoff walk in the fifth but his catcher took care of that for him by picking off said runner at first base after a failed bunt attempt. The junior also stymied a couple rallies by framing some questionably

?\`^_kj JkX]] There is a saying that gets tossed around frequently and almost always sarcastically that “it ain’t over ’til it’s over.” Anyone who might have happened to tune in to Boston College baseball’s game against the Harvard Crimson Tuesday afternoon in Cambridge would have probably jokingly muttered the platitude after the top of the third inning upon seeing that the Eagles were up 10-0. To anyone other than the Crimson, this lead may have seemed insurmountable, but despite the double-digit deficit, Harvard (9-18, 2-6 Ivy League) continued to make things happen with the bat and pushed the Eagles (17-11, 5-8 Atlantic Coast) to their limits before BC ultimately won, 11-9. The Eagles started the afternoon by getting on the board early and often. Sophomore Jake Palomaki opened the scoring for the Eagles after a walk and a stolen base put him in position to be singled home by Michael Strem just two batters into the game. Strem made his presence felt again in the top of the second, when his bases-loaded double tacked

on two more runs to make the score 3-0. A fielding error led to the fourth run to cross the plate and the Eagles sat firmly in the driver’s seat at 4-0 at the end of two. The Eagles exploded in the top of the third as errors and hits kept Eagles on the basepaths and provided Strem the chance to knock in two more RBIs—his fourth and fifth of the day—with a single. Joe Cronin followed Strem by singling in two runs to bring his RBI total to three on the day. After putting up a whopping sixrun inning, BC was firmly in control of the game. With a stingy pitching staff that gave up just nine runs over three games to No. 16 Virginia over the weekend, many would believe that the game was well out of reach. But this would not be the case. Harvard responded swiftly and convincingly, putting up a muchneeded five-run frame in the bottom of the third to keep itself in the game. All pitchers know the saying “walks kill.” Harvard managed to work out four walks in the inning, and three doubles from the Crimson made them all hurt. With the score now 10-5, the energy began to return to the Harvard dugout and BC began

M. Hockey

scoreboard

BC QU

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BASEBALL UVA BC

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Well, some team at BC has to have SOME momentum, right? With how good BC’s pitching staff has been of late, it’s hard to pick against them. The second-squad of Thomas Lane, Brian Rapp, and others in the bullpen did so well against UMass in the first game of the series that I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens again next week against Northeastern. It’s just a crying shame that it won’t be played at Fenway.

Prediction: BC 5, Northeastern 1 RILEY OVEREND

Assoc. Sports Editor

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Joe Cronin drives in the winning run against UMass on Wednesday. low strikes well enough that home plate umpire Rob Healey almost always ruled in favor of Sciortino’s pitchers. “I think he’s the best defensive

catcher in the conference and i think he’s in the conversation for best in the country,” BC head coach Mike Gambino said. “It’s awesome having him back there.”

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Sports Editor

to play nervously. Strem continued his brilliance at the plate by singling in another run for his career-high sixth RBI of the day in the top of the fourth to push the lead to 11-5, but Harvard would not relent. A leadoff walk in the bottom half of the inning was followed by a double off the bat of senior Mitch Klug, who would himself come in to score on a groundout. Now only ahead by four runs, BC fans everywhere undoubtedly began to writhe in their seats in hopes that their team could find a way to put the Crimson rally to bed. After scoreless fifth and sixth innings, Harvard add another run in the bottom of the seventh courtesy of freshman Edwin Owolo, cutting the lead to just three. Harvard freshman Patrick Robinson lead off the bottom of the eighth with a walk made it all the way around the diamond to make the score 11-9. As darkness descended upon the field, BC caught a huge break when the umpires determined that there would not be enough light for the game to continue, ending the game at 11-9 after eight innings of play. With the Crimson bearing down and

TAMPA, FL 4/7 R. FITZGERALD PPG SMITH GWG

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SOFTBALL UNC BC

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cutting into their once-massive lead seemingly every inning, it is likely very fortunate for the Eagles that the ninth was forgone. While BC managed to escape from Cambridge with a win, it was certainly not its best day. After winning a weekend series against ranked conference opponent Virginia, it will certainly leave a sour taste in the mouth of Birdball to have to squeak out a win over lowly crosstown rival Harvard. While the offense performed admirably, scoring in the double digits for just the ﬁfth time this season, the defense will certainly lament three costly errors that all resulted in Harvard runs. The Eagles pitching staﬀ, which has been the team’s most reliable attribute all year, will be disappointed when looking back on the seven walks the surrendered along with the twelve hits to a team who is well below the caliber of other teams they’ve dominated thus far. While it was not pretty, and certainly not ideal, a win is a win, and Birdball will be more than happy to take it as they continue to put together a successful season for the program.

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SOFTBALL

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UNC BC

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Prediction: BC 7, Northeastern 5 ANNABEL STEELE

Asst. Sports Editor Suffice it to say that Birdball is pretty hot right now. The Eagles are coming off a series victor y over the defending national champion Virginia Cavaliers and have recorded four victories over top-25 teams this year. By contrast, Northeastern is hovering just above .500 right now. All the conditions are ripe for a commanding BC victor y. The Eagles’ hot pitching will shut the Huskies out to earn BC’s second Beanpot trophy of the year.

Prediction: BC 4, Northeastern 0

CHESTNUT HILL, MA 4/10

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Midweek games are always a toss-up for BC, as Gambino generally reserves his best starting pitchers for weekend series. Luckily, the Eagles have found an effective way around the problem of less-than-stellar arms: slug it out. The Beanpot final against Northeastern has potential for a high-scoring, back-and-forth game. But if Michael Strem and the rest of the bats in Birdball’s lineup can stay as hot as they’ve been in the past week, they’ll come out on top against the Huskies for their second straight Beanpot title.

CLEMENT 3 H STREM 3 RBI

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BASEBALL BC HARV

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BASEBALL

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SPORTS

THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

MEN’S HOCKEY

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Shortly after the college hockey season ends comes the saddest moments for any program: the day the boys grow up and sign deals with professional teams. For Boston College men’s hockey, the attrition happened almost immediately. And when the dust settles, it could mean trouble for the program’s immediate future. As of this publication, ﬁve members of the Eagles have begun the next stage of their careers. On Saturday, Teddy Doherty—the team’s best senior—signed with the Missouri Mavericks of the ECHL, a minor league aﬃliate of the New York Islanders. An undrafted free agent, Doherty was BC’s captain in 201516. Over his career, he switched between defense and forward, and amassed 22 goals

and 58 assists as a four-year starter. “Doherty is a true two-way player with a good eye for the ice,” Richard Matvichuk, head coach and director of hockey operations for the Mavericks, said in a statement on the team’s website. “He’s coming to us fresh from a great season with Boston College, and we are excited to bring him into our locker room.” Days later, Doherty announced the signing himself on Twitter. The other four, however, have left BC early, some much earlier than expected. On Friday, junior Steve Santini and freshman Miles Wood joined the New Jersey Devils, the team that drafted them. The Devils faced the prospect of having both players become undrafted free agents next season—Wood would have become

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JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

See Hockey Departures, B6

Alex Tuch became the latest Eagle to sign with an NHL club, joining the Minnesota Wild.

FENCING

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9P :8D@CC< ?FD8 ?\`^_kj JkX]] When you think of Orlando, Fla., you may think of warm temperatures, palm trees, and Disney World. Fencing might not be the first thing that comes to mind. Boston College junior Renee Bichette didn’t first think of fencing, either. The only reason she got into the sport was because of her mom, who worked out at the ESPN Wide World of Sports, a sports and recreational complex located in Disney World, and noticed a fencing tournament there. Her mom thought Bichette would be interested—and like moms usually are, she was right. Fencing, however, isn’t very popular or widely known in Florida. Its popularity lies abroad and in metropolitan areas like New York and Texas. People don’t get drawn into it because of local interest, but rather because of random piques.

In a place like Orlando, most kids start fencing because they watch a movie with sword-ﬁghting, like Pirates of the Caribbean, and their moms search for fencing programs nearby. Fencing in Florida is nothing like your standard Little League baseball or football camps, and there are no high school teams to play on. Bichette’s coach runs a private club, at which she was the only girl. What drew her to fencing as a 7-year-old wasn’t a movie, but the individual nature of the sport. Fencing consists of matches between two people, called bouts, so unless you are in a team event where all bout scores are compiled for a total result, you’re on your own. And part of the reason that she didn’t develop a liking for team sports was because people only ever picked their friends for teams. “It’s who’s the most popular kid on the team, and that’s who we’re going to give the most time to,” Bichette said. “ And I didn’t really appreciate that, so with fencing, I could still be an athlete but rely a lot on my own ability.”

But even though Bichette picked up fencing instead of basketball, a sport she never took a liking to, the preteen angst and cattiness of others caught up to her. At school, Bichette says she would get made fun of all the time because of fencing. She doesn’t like boasting about her accomplishments, partially because of the kids that didn’t understand the sport. But she ended up all the better—she recently placed seventh at the NCAA Fencing Championships and received All-American honors for her talents, the first woman at BC to do so. How many people can say that they’re in the top eight in the country for what they do? Not many. *** Bichette gets why people don’t see fencing as a sport. She gets why the white uniforms and masks look silly, and why the seemingly random yelling and strange referee calls are confusing.

See Bichette, B6

Last Monday, former Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis, a longtime friend of head coach Mike Gambino, stopped by Boston College to check in on Birdball before its big weekend series against defending national champion Virginia. He couldn’t believe what he saw. Youkilis watched as Gambino’s team grabbed shovels and cleared the blanket of snow surrounding home plate in order to take batting practice in 20-degree weather. The very next day, the Eagles did the same thing. On Thursday, they took swings outside in the pouring rain before their Friday matchup with the Hoos. But players weren’t complaining—they’re more than used to this by now. Birdball has embraced its identity as a Northeast ACC program with lackluster facilities, a team that shovels snow off its own field while its conference opponents bask in the sun. This squad spent six weeks on the road before finally returning to the comfortable confines of the Birdcage, only to see three consecutive home games postponed due to weather. Not to mention, the Eagles were forced to share the Bubble with intramural and club sports during winter training and didn’t actually use Shea Field until their home opener (which actually got postponed … twice). Maybe it’s the grit and brotherhood developed over the last few months—and, for some, the last four years—that can somehow explain what the hell happened this weekend against No. 16 Virginia. Sunday’s series finale featured yet another pitching duel in the rubber match. Junior ace Mike King tossed seven innings of one-run ball, but the score remained tied at 1-1 until the 10th inning. After a hit and a walk put two runners on for UVA, Gambino opted for lefty specialist Kevin Connor to face lefty cleanup hitter Tavin Smith. Connor’s only pitch of the game was swatted over the right-field fence for a three-run home run, pushing the Cavalier lead to 4-1, essentially out-of-range for a scrappy, smallball lineup like BC. Boom. Game over, right? But while UVA was celebrating its surefire victory, the Eagles quietly loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the frame. Down to their last strike, they turned to doubles machine Michael Strem for late-game heroics. The outfielder sent the Birdcage into a frenzy when he ripped a 3-2 pitch down the third-base line for a basesclearing, game-tying double. With two minutes left before Birdball would have to settle for a tie, late-game substitute Scott Braren launched a game-winning single in the 13th inning to complete one of the craziest comebacks in recent program history. To find the last time that BC walked off against the reigning national champions, you’d have to go all the way back to …

See Birdball Respect, B7 BASEBALL

SOFTBALL

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It was a cold, windy, and shadowy day at Shea Field on Wednesday, and all seven pitchers who took the mound took advantage. There were a combined sixteen pitchouts and just two walks between both Boston College and UMass as pitching and defense dominated most of the afternoon’s Beanpot semiﬁnal. BC’s middle of the order ﬁnally manufactured a winning edge in the bottom of the eighth inning. With two outs, Eagles’ center fielder Michael Strem clapped a base hit through the left side before taking second and JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

See Baseball Beanpot, B7

Michael Strem slides into second after another solid game in which he drove in a run.

INSIDE SPORTS THIS ISSUE

Boston College softball’s Megan Cooley has been named a top-10 finalist for the NCAA’s Senior CLASS Award. The honor, which stands for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School, focuses on the athlete’s contributions both on and off the field. The CLASS Award originally had 30 players on the ballot, but was narrowed down to 10 by media contributors across the country. Cooley was picked as a result of her role as a captain for the Eagles, as well as her excellent play. She currently holds four records at BC, with 84 career stolen bases, and hits in a single season with 63 for 2014. She also holds two records for 2013, with 44 runs scored in a single season and 31 stolen bases. In addition to showing off her

L a c r o s s e : K e n t D o m i n a t e s Ye t A g a i n The two-sport star crushed Dartmouth to the tune of 10 points in a 14-9 victory in Newton........B6

athletic skills on the field, she also represents academic excellence with her double major in economics and political science, receiving awards such as the Athletic Director’s Award for Academic Achievement every year in her career at BC. Cooley has contributed greatly to BC’s 20-15-0 season, with a batting average of .263 and a fielding percentage of .976. She has notched 17 runs this season, fourth behind a three-way tie between teammates with 18 runs. As of April 13, Cooley has claimed 3.5 percent of the votes. Outfielder Erin Miller from the University of Oklahoma is in the lead with 22.1 percent of the votes. Fan votes are paired with coach and media votes to tally the final winner. Votes can be cast once a day, every day until May 9. The winner will be announced during the Women’s College World Series in June.

Scoreboard........................................................................................................B7 Editors’ Picks.......................................................................................................B7