The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Established 1919
THE HEIGHTS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2010
Vol. XCI, No. 27
www.bcheights.com
UGBC Demand for tickets ‘unprecedented’ Students brave seven-hour line for Fall Concert Senate tickets, 400 remaining tickets to be sold today approves budget FALL CONCERT
BY MICHAEL CAPRIO News Editor
Students hoping to obtain tickets to Saturday’s Fall Concert lined up before 8 a.m. on Monday morning in front of the Robsham Theater box office. By the time the office closed around 3 p.m., some of those students had their tickets, some didn’t. Lines snaked around Robsham, down Campanella Way and into the Mods, early into the morning. The queue lightened around noon with the line ending at the entrance of the Mod parking lot by the time the office closed.
“The only thing I can say is that it’s unprecedented,” said Michael Kitlas, executive director of campus entertainment for the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC) and A&S ’12. “We’ve never had this turnout.” The UGBC has sold 4,400 tickets thus far, Kitlas said. The remaining 400 will be sold this morning at 8 a.m. in the Robsham box office. As students shuffled back and forth to classes. the line fell into various states of disarray, students said. “There was no etiquette at all,” said Peter Hsin,
MICHAEL CAPRIO / HEIGHTS EDITOR
See Tickets, A5
The ticket line (above) as it appeared early Monday morning
SPO plots a new course
CECILIA PROVVEDINI / HEIGHTS STAFF
For The Heights
See SPO, A5
INSIDE SPORTS
Wide receiver Johnathan Coleman tell his story, A10
THE SCENE
KEVIN HOU / HEIGHTS EDITOR
CECILIA PROVVEDINI / HEIGHTS STAFF
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick presented his views on both primary and higher education at Monday’s speaking event.
Made by his education
MARKETPLACE
The U.S. must find fresh ways to combat Mexican drug cartels, B10 Classifieds, A5 Crossword, C5 Editorials, A6 Editors’ Picks, B3 Forecast on Washington, D2 On the Flip Side, D4 Police Blotter, A2 Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down, A7 Videos on the Verge, C2 Weather, A2
The Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC) Senate approved the executive branch’s budget last night following a proposal that would amend a contentious $63,021 executive discretionary fund. The Senate failed to approve the budget in full at last week’s meeting due to disagreements surrounding a discretionary fund that, if approved in its original form, would have allowed the executive department of the UGBC to distribute the funds according to its own guidelines, bypassing Senate approval for each additional allotment. After failing to achieve passage of the budget last week, Micaela Mabida, UGBC president and CSOM ’11, presented a renewed budget with UGBC finance directors Brendan Driscoll, CSOM ’12, and John Stanley, CSOM ’11. The new budget included a renewed discretionary fund with line items for financial withholdings ($21,505), University speakers ($12,300), and traditional discretionary funds ($29,216). “This amounts from our ‘trimming the fat’ from the budget,” Stanley said. The financial withholdings will be held by the executive department for “foreseen costs,” or funds that specific departments expect they will eventually need but don’t have the paperwork to justify at this point in time. “Until we get those details from the groups, we won’t give them the full amount,”
See Budget, A4
Deval offers his view of education, sprinkled with anecdotes BY MOLLY LAPOINT Heights Staff
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick spent most of his youth living on welfare in the South side of Chicago. Now, at the age of 54, he holds the title of the first African-American governor of Massachusetts. Now, he resides in Milton, Mass., the same neighborhood he used to deliver newspapers to when he attended Milton Academy. Patrick spoke at Boston College about education on Monday in Robsham Theater. His talk is the first of the year in the Lowell Humanities Lecture Series, which brings distinguished writers, artists, and performers, and other dignitaries to speak at BC. Patrick opened the speech by discussing the effect education has had on his own life. “The power of education is real,” he said. “Now you hear that as
a rhetorical point, I’m sure, a lot, but I’ve thought a lot about it.” Patrick recounted the story of his youth, sharing one bedroom of his grandparents’ two-bedroom tenement with his sister and mother. “You’d go from the top bunk to the bottom bunk to the floor,” he said. “I went to big and broken, underresourced, sometimes violent public schools. I can’t think of a time when I didn’t love to read, but I don’t remember ever actually owning a book until I got my break in 1970, through a program called A Better Chance, to come to Massachusetts to Milton Academy, which for me was like landing on a different planet.” He shared an anecdote about his first encounter with the dress code at Milton Academy. “The boys wore jackets and ties to classes,” he said. “So when the clothing list arrived at
home, my grandparents splurged on a brand new jacket for class. Now, a jacket on the South side of Chicago is a windbreaker. And the first day of class everybody’s putting on their blue blazer and their tweed coats, and there I was in my windbreaker. I’d like to point out I have figured it out.” His daughter, Katherine, has known a different life, he said. “[Katherine] has always had her own room, most of that time in a house that we lived in for about 22 years in a leafy neighborhood in Milton, where I used to deliver newspapers when I was a student at Milton Academy,” Patrick said. “By the time she got to high school, she had already traveled on three or four continents, she knew how to use and pronounce a concierge, and she had shaken hands in the White House
See Patrick, A4
LOCAL NEWS
Landmark theater to be razed
Developer looks to build hotel at site of Cleveland Circle cinema By the grace of God, Zach Galifianakis is comedy’s king, C1
BY MICHAEL CAPRIO News Editor
BY CHELSEA NEWBOULD
Over the summer, the Student Programs Office (SPO) underwent a large organizational change. While still organized to provide guidance and advisement to registered student organizations on campus, the department restructured itself in order to establish a more efficient way to assist student groups and become a better resource for all students. Most prominent among the changes to SPO is the division of its staff to fulfill two distinct functions: leadership development and student engagement. Diverting from the previous system for handling clubs and organizations, SPO will be assigning its associate dean, Jean Yoder, and its assistant dean, Mer Ursula Zavko, to the task of creating more leadership opportunities, including training sessions and retreats, for club members. Assigned to the student engagement sector of the SPO will be Mark Miceli, assistant dean of SPO; Karl Bell, assistant dean of SPO; Sharon Blumenstock, assistant director
Discretionary fund to remain
BY MICHAEL CAPRIO News Editor
The property hosting the vacant Cleveland Circle National Amusements Cinema and Applebee’s may soon be home to a “limited service” hotel with approximately 150 rooms and 24,000 square feet of retail space. The property, located at 399 and 381 Chestnut Hill Avenue in Boston, is held by National Amusements. The movie theater was closed in the fall of 2008 and has since been unoccupied. The potential purchaser, the Boston Development Group, recently filed paperwork with the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) to purchase the property from National Amusements. David Zussman, CEO of Boston Development, told reporters that, pending approval from the City of Boston, the plan will be finalized in the coming weeks. Boston Development submitted a letter to the City of Boston on Sept. 1
NICOLE CHOINSKI / HEIGHTS STAFF
Boston Development seeks to build a hotel on the site of the Cleveland Circle Cinema. requesting permission to begin the proposed plan, which includes demolition of the Cleveland Circle Cinema and construction of the hotel.
The proposal is currently under review. BRA officials told reporters that no timetable has been set regarding the construction of the project.
AP FILE PHOTO
Barney Frank (D-MA) is one of several candidates for which students will campaign.
Candidates find campus support BY PATRICK GALLAGHER Assoc. News Editor
When the dust settled following Tuesday’s primary elections, the results showed two major victories for Tea Party-backed candidates. In Delaware, upstart Christine O’Donnell, a former abstinence counselor, took 53 percent of the vote to win the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that was vacated by Vice President Joe Biden. O’Donnell beat out U.S. Representative Michael Castle, a longtime politician and former two-term governor of Delaware. Carl Paladino defeated former congressman Rick Lazio for the Republican nomination for governor of New York in what amounted to a potentially debilitating blow to Republican hopes to gain traction in the state. Both results place newcomers to the political scene in the spotlight for the Republican Party in nationallymonitored races with November’s general elections quickly approaching. Kay Schlozman, a professor in the
See Campaigns, A5