SING IT TO THE HEAVENS CARDINAL SIN
CROWNED FEATURES
ARTS & REVIEW
SPORTS
Mr. BC Elio Oliva talks impressions and male pageantry, A5
University Chorale came together in Trinity Chapel this weekend for its Spring Concert, B8
BC took two out of three from Louisville over the weekend to return to the playoff picture, B1
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The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Monday, April 25, 2016
Vol. XCVII, No. 22
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Andres Pastrana Arango, the president of Colombia from 1998 to 2002, spoke at Boston College Saturday about the four components of successful leadership: conviction, courage, confidence, and communication. The event was part of the day-long third annual Latin American Leadership Conference and was sponsored by the Latin American Business Club of BC. The Conference also included talks by Ernesto de Lima, CEO of Organizaciones De Lima, Dr. Daron Acemoglu, MIT economist and author of Why Nations Fail, Santiago Pena, minister of finance of Paraguay, and Juan Pablo Garcia, Guerilla Demobilizing Campaign leader. Arango’s talk closed the event. He wanted, he said, to show the audience how Colombia has been dealing with terrorist groups within Colombia from his side, the side of the government. He also emphasized how global problems impact his country. Today, oil, gas, and other commodities are cheap, just as they are across the world. But there are also many problems that exist specifically in Colombia. “In 65 years, I never have lived one day in peace,” he said. Over the past few years Colombia has worked to create a strong middle class, decreasing the percentage of Colombians living in extreme poverty. “We have a real, real challenge in going back and bringing these numbers up,” he said. “We need to grow 6 or 7 percent if we want to
With the completion of his first season as the head coach of Boston College’s men’s basketball came the release of Jim Christian’s 2014-15 salary. According to the University’s Fiscal Year IRS Form 990, Christian, who was hired in April 2014, received a salary almost twice that of his compensation at Ohio, the school he worked at prior to BC. Christian received a base salary of $930,215, with a total compensation of $1,140,225 when including various additional fees, according to the 2014-15 report. That’s about a $100,000 increase from Steve Donahue’s salary in his final year as head coach at BC. Donahue, however, still appears on the report. He received $685,234 in total compensation as a result of his firing on a six-year contract. Donahue will also likely receive a similar amount in the next fiscal year. Director of Athletics Brad Bates and football head coach Steve Addazio received similar salaries to their first year on the books. Bates’ total compensation was $643,739, a $50,000 decrease from 2013-14—however, Bates received nearly the same salary ($516,715 in 2014-15 vs. $516,701 in 2013-14). Like Bates, Addazio also had a slightly lower total compensation. His $2,333,628 intake in 2014-15 was $200,000 less than what he earned total in 2013-14. Yet, also like Bates, his base sal-
ary remained mostly the same ($1,890,130 in 2014-15 vs. $1,810,964 in 2013-14). For the second year in a row, Addazio was the highest-compensated employee at BC. The biggest jump in compensation went to men’s hockey head coach Jerry York, who signed a contract extension in December 2013 that kicked in after 2013-14 and will last until the 2019-20 season. York earned a base salary of $491,259, yet received $677,311 in “other reportable compensation.” That, combined with other figures, led to a final total of $1,249,617. That total represents a 100 percent increase from his 2013-14 compensation of $626,953. For the first time since he was fired in 2010, former men’s basketball coach Al Skinner was not on the books in 2014-15. He was paid $585,069 in 2013-14, the fourth consecutive year he had been paid after leaving BC. BC released the information this week detailing its fiscal year, which stretches from June 1, 2014 to May 31, 2015. The section of the 990 that includes the compensation for BC’s 20 highest-paid employees, however, ends in December 2014 at the conclusion of the calendar year. An employee’s total compensation is calculated by the combination of what is reported as base compensation, “other reportable compensation,” “retirement and deferred compensation,” and nontaxable benefits. Federally tax-exempt organizations such as BC are required to fill out Form 990s with the IRS every year.
change those numbers.” He ran for president in 1994 after serving as a senator but lost the election. He ran again in 1998, however, and won at 42 years old, making him the youngest president of Colombia. The are several parts to being a good leader, he said: what he calls the “four C’s.” “The first one is conviction—the leader has to be convinced on what he wants to do,” he said. He pointed to the drug problem. They had to change the strategy in how to deal with the drug problem when he came into office. Colombia is the largest producer of cocaine, he said. In 1998, it planted 180,000 acres of coca. Looking at these figures, he said he was convinced to change the strategic efforts in combatting the drug issue. He also knew that he needed to talk to Europe and to the U.S. about the drug problem. He came to the U.S. first to convince President Bill Clinton that the U.S. and Colombia needed to work together on the issue because Americans were the largest consumers of cocaine. The plan gave Colombia bombs, helicopters, and other equipment to combat the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (RAFC), which was at the time the largest terrorist group in the world. They successfully strengthened the army, he said. Colombian forces numbered 10,000 in the beginning, and today they have over 110,000 soldiers—the largest army in the region. The U.S. gives Colombia $750 million a year, which he credits with helping to change the country. Next, he aimed to strengthen Colombia’s justice system. Arango knew that if the government wanted to end the drug issue, it needed to give the peasants and farmers a different way
to make a living. For guidance, the president looked at other nations that had dealt with similar issues. They found that Malaysia also had drug problems and that they had turned people off of the drug industry by establishing a palm oil industry. The Colombian government then decided to begin growing palm oil. When the president first began there were only 120,000 acres of it, but when he left office, there were almost 500,000 acres. The palm oil industry has proven to be a successful alternative to the drug industry, Arango said. Now, farmers and peasants are making much more money than they were before and are less involved in the drug cartel. A good leader also needs courage, he said, to defend his ideas and fight for what he believes in. In between his two elections for president, Arango knew he needed to make a change in his message. He saw that many people in Colombia wanted the government to work toward establishing peace in the country, so he told the voters that if he were elected president, the first thing he would do was go into the jungles where the leaders of the RAFC were stationed and talk to them. When he was elected, Arango escaped from his bodyguards to go into the jungle. He explained that during his presidency he had 60 bodyguards with him at all times. His friend, who was the head of his security, accompanied him on the trip and helped him get away from his bodyguards. When they landed, the people who met them in the jungle kidnapped the pilot and the co-pilot of the plane. The president was driven
See Arango, A8
21 and the finish line, but when I asked him that, he got a little quieter and thought a bit. Um, he said, it’s his best experience as an individual. He didn’t want to be unfair to the other stuff he’s done. Fair enough.
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uring an admissions panel last Tuesday, Russell Simons, next year’s Undergraduate Government of Boston College president and MCAS ’17, started crying. He was talking about his favorite BC tradition, the Marathon, and—well, he got a little overwhelmed. “It’s become such a big part of who I am, which is a big, sweeping statement to make, but I’ve never had a happier day in my entire life,” he said Friday morning. Simons ran the Marathon last year, on a whim, to raise money for Wellspring, a small social services center in Hull, Mass. that got a bib last-minute and was looking for a runner. Simons jumped at the opportunity to run Boston and raised $6,500 for the organization. He didn’t start training until after Winter Break—a tight schedule, but he got it done. “I literally felt like I was the only person running down Boylston, and I didn’t even recognize myself,” he said. “I was screaming at the top of my lungs—26 miles in and I was literally jumping up and down.” Meredith McCaffrey, next year’s UGBC executive vice president and MCAS ’17, laughed and looked at me: “I personally have no plans to run the Marathon.” I asked Simons if it’s the best thing he’s done at BC. A second before he was animated, jubilant, visibly nostalgic for the rush of Mile
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n terms of sheer length and complexity, this year’s election was messy. Candidates had to declare their intent to run in early February, but when two of three teams dropped out, the Elections Committee reopened the ballot and postponed everything until after Spring Break. After five more teams got in it, there was a primary and, finally, a general election, which didn’t wrap up until April 1. Simons and McCaffrey were one of the teams that got in it after the extension. McCaffrey was going to run with Olivia Hussey, UGBC’s current EVP and MCAS ’17, but Hussey dropped out for personal reasons. So she asked Simons instead. “It was very clear from the beginning that we had the same vision on everything,” McCaffrey said. Simons is the current UGBC vice president for student organizations, which means he meets with prospective clubs and helps decide whether they should be referred to the administration’s approval process. McCaffrey is a senator in the Student Assembly, where she has done a lot of work on the free-expression proposal. And yeah, they said, of course they’ve thought about leading UGBC before this year. It was hardly spur-of-the-moment. “I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t
See McSimons, A8
AMELIE TRIEU / HEIGHTS EDITOR