The Heights, April 9 2018

HEIGHTS

THE

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

EST. 1919 WWW.BCHEIGHTS.COM

MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2018

Mistake in Some Google Groups Permissions Left Sensitive Info Accessible to BC Students, Faculty, Staff In December, following notification by ‘The Heights,’ the University quickly secured the vulnerability. Google then made a systemwide change.

BY STEVEN EVERETT Creative Director AND

CONNOR MURPHY

Editor-in-Chief Until December 2017, Google Groups containing hundre ds of University communications and associated documents with restricted, confidential, or otherwise sensitive information had misconfigured permission settings such that anyone who could access the Boston College G Suite—known formally as Google Apps—could view them, a Heights investigation found.

The Heights notified the University on Dec. 18 of this vulnerability.

BC Information Technology Services (ITS) immediately secured the vulnerability that day, but it was not until the week of March 19 that Google instituted a platform-wide modification. The Heights withheld publication of this article until a wider fix was implemented, as publishing this story before that change could have made other institutions that use G Suite more vulnerable in the event that they also had misconfigured privacy settings.

Nora Field, BC’s deputy general counsel, said in an email that no other access to confidential information occurred outside of the Heights investigation. The Heights was using Google Groups for other purposes before discovering this vulnerability and notifying the University.

The Heights never retained any information contained in any of these

groups.

All of these records and communications were visible as a result of the email list feature of Google Groups, a web app available to anyone with access to BC’s G Suite.

“Since transitioning to Google [Apps] in 2013-2014, all current BC faculty and staff are able to access Google Groups,” David Escalante, director of computer policy and security, said in an email. All currently enrolled students are also able to access G Suite services including Groups, Gmail, Drive, and others.

Google Groups allows any BC user to create mailing lists that deliver emails to specific recipients, but also adds all the messages and attachments to the Google Group associated with the mailing list. Due to misconfigured privacy settings, some of these groups and the communications sent on such mailing lists—some of which contained confidential, restricted, or otherwise sensitive information—were accessible and searchable to those in the BC community.

Google’s fix now allows all IT administrators who manage G Suite to modify the default privacy settings for all newly created Google Group mailing lists. Previously, there was not a way to modify the default access level from “public” across an organization.

Now, the setting can be changed by administrators such that “private” is the default, meaning only those specified will be able to access it. Domain administrators could previously only set privacy levels on an individual,

group-by-group basis, and the creator of the mailing list had to specify “private” in place of the default setting when setting up their list.

Prior to this change, group creators still had the ability to select a private option when creating a group, even though it was not the default. Some BC administrative groups, for example, had privacy settings that restricted access to only specific users. The Office of the Executive Vice President, Office of Residential Life, and Office of Un-

dergraduate Admission, for example, all had settings such that neither the content nor the list of group members was accessible except to those with proper credentials.

Some of the communications and records accessible were what appeared to be thousands of internal emails retained in Google Groups for the Boston College Police Department. Some of these correspondences contained confidential, restricted, or otherwise sensitive information, including police

logs and incident reports.

A query on Google Groups of a person’s name or event in which BCPD was involved, therefore, could have potentially returned correspondences and associated documents that BCPD would not consider “public.”

“BCPD used Google Groups without realizing that access to their message archives was not properly restricted through Google,” Univer-

See Google Groups, A3

RESTRICTED Information that was previously defined as “confidential” and should not be stored on cloud-based services.

This includes: social security numbers, financial account numbers, driver’s license or state ID numbers, health and Defined in the Data Security medical records (including HIPAA-proPolicy as information protected tected records), and other information under privacy laws (including, withdesignated by a sponsor or out limitation, the Family Educational responsible vice president, Rights and Privacy Act and the without written permission Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), information concernfrom them. ing the pay and benefits of University employees, personal identification information or medical/health information pertaining to members of the University A “catchall” term community, and data collected in the course of used by The Heights research on human subjects. Institutional Confito describe any other dential information may include University personal information that financial and planning information, legally might not fall into any of privileged information, invention these categories, but indidisclosures and other information viduals would not reaconcerning pending patent sonably consider applications. “public.”

CONFIDENTIAL

SENSITIVE

MADISON MARIANI / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Two Students Face Sanctions for Chalking They expect to receive their disciplinary verdicts today.

BY HEIDI DONG Investigative Editor Around midnight on March 16, two students—Matthew Barad, MCAS ’19, and a graduate student who requested anonymity—were found by Boston College Police Department officers while writing chalk messages on a sidewalk in front of Stokes Hall.

They said they were then brought to BCPD headquarters in Maloney Hall, for “tagging.” The Gavel first reported on this incident on March 17.

At press time, Chief of BCPD John King had not yet responded to a request for information about the incident.

The students received official disciplinary summons from the Office of the Dean of Students for violating the “Property Damage” clause of the Code of Conduct. Barad said that he and the graduate student will receive their disciplinary verdicts Monday.

In an email, Dean of Students Tom Mogan said that he was unable to discuss individual conduct cases due to federal privacy laws.

The chalking by Barad and the

graduate student is part of a wider organized demonstration. During the week leading up to this incident, similar messages written in chalk could be found throughout campus beginning March 12. In the public police blotter, eight total incident reports were filed for “Damage to Property

by Graffiti/Tag” between March 13 and March 16.

According to the “Crimes Against Personal Property” chapter of Massachusetts G eneral L aw Section 126A, “tagging” is the act of spraying or applying paint or placing a sticker upon any object or thing on public or private property “with the intent to deface, mar, damage, mark or destroy such property.”

“I was writing a number of messages,” Barad said. “I wrote ‘Black Lives Matter,’ ‘BC doesn’t have an LGBTQ Resource Center,’ ‘Our School, Our Sidewalk,’ and others.”

The “Property Damage” section of the Code of Studnet Conduct, which the students were charged under, does not explicitly specify chalking as an act of vandalism. The only policy surrounding chalking can be found on the Office of Student Involvement (OSI) website under the posting policy for event planning, which states

See Chalk, A3

SAM ZHAI / HEIGHTS STAFF

The 2014 Dance Through the Decades was hosted at the popular Boston night club Royale. This year’s tickets cost $50 plus fees.

Students Feel Senior Week Costs Add Up The total cost of all Senior Week activities is over $250, plus fees.

BY CHARLIE POWER Asst. News Editor For most, Senior Week is an occasion to celebrate, filled with family, friends, and activities. In the months and weeks leading up to commencement, the Senior Week Committee plans a variety of events designed to celebrate the end of four years at BC. While these events are open to all seniors, several of them entail a price tag that is beyond the means of some.

The Senior Week website currently lists the prices for a number of, but not all, the

events, which students must pay for out of pocket. The 100 Days Dance, which occured on Feb. 23, was priced at $40, the Dance Through the Decades Event is $50 not including fees, the golf tournament held at Newton Commonwealth is $46.50, and the Commencement Ball is $107.50.

“It is hard to imagine some people paying for these events when students are struggling to buy books,” said Lauren Kaufman, CSOM ’18. “People assume that BC students all come from a relatively homogenous financial background, but this isn’t the case as BC accepts people regardless of their financial situation.”

“I think making Senior Week events more fiscally possible for students should be a major priority because we’ve all given both our tuition and our time to BC for the

past four years and all seniors deserve to have the chance to close out their BC experience celebrating with their class,” said Heidi Danckers MCAS ’18.

The committee does offer several free events, including Battleship water games in the Plex, a Mods Relay, a Boston College Police Department Barbeque, and a Class of 2018 Senior Toast.

“Senior week is not a University funded program, meaning the committee receives no funding from BC to put on the events,” said Julia Martelli, one of the chairs of the Senior Week Committee and CSOM ’18.

“The committee works extremely hard to put on a variety of events, and the money brought in from any ticketed event goes

See Senior Week, A3

B0ST0N C0LLEGE MARATH0N RUNNERS, A4 INSIDE THIS ISSUE

METRO: Restaurant Mission

Zambrero has a mission to serve 1 billion people in need by 2025..................................A8

NEWS: BC GET Expands

The BC GET app has expanded its services from Hillside Cafe to Coro Cafe.....................................A3

INDEX

NEWS.........................A2 OPINIONS................... A6

Vol. XCIX, No. 12 MAGAZINE..................A4 SPORTS......................B1 © 2018, The Heights, Inc. METRO........................ A5 ARTS..........................B8 www.bchelghts.com 69

The Heights

A2

TOP

3

things to do on campus this week

1

Rev. Ken Himes, O.F.M. will be the speaker at the Agape Latte event on Tuesday. The talk will take place at Hillside Cafe from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. The event is open to all students, faculty, and staff, and is hosted by Campus Ministry and the Church in the 21st Century Center.

Monday, April 9, 2018

2

The Boston College Career Center will be hosting a networking event entitled “GovConnect: Getting Started with Careers in Government” on Wednesday from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Murray Function Room. The event is geared towards those who are interested in careers in state and federal government.

3

Anna Deavere Smith, playwright and actor, will lecture Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Robsham Theater as part of the Lowell Humanities Series.

She has worked on the popular television shows such as The West Wing, Black-ish, and Madame Secretar, and is a recipient of the National Humanities

NEWS BC GET Expands Services from Hillside to CoRo BRIEFS

By Abby Hunt

Finney Plays at Symphony Hall This weekend, John Finney, conductor of the University Chorale and director of the Symphony Orchestra, celebrated his 25th anniversary as the conductor of the Chorale at a concert at Symphony Hall in Boston. The University Chorale and Boston College Symphony Orchestra performed at the event.

Finne y was named Distinguished Artist in Residence at BC in 1999.

“Symphony Hall is one of the finest concert halls in the entire world, and I am absolutely thrilled the University Chorale and the BC Symphony Orchestra will have the opportunity to perform there,” Finney said to BC News.

“It is an immense honor for me to conduct these fine students in making music in this glorious hall,” Finney said. “The excitement among the members of the Chorale and Orchestra is tremendous.

“There is a feeling among them that this will undoubtedly be one of the most exciting concerts they will ever perform.”

In discussing his students, Finney said one of his primary goals has always been for the Chorale and the Orchestra to perform high quality music, at the highest possible standard of excellence.

“My hope is that these student musicians experience a great sense of accomplishment and pride when they have achieved a fine performance of a concert which they have so carefully rehearsed,” he said.

Burns Scholar Honored A conference this past Saturday, entitled “Is There an American School of Irish History,” honored Jason Knirck, the spring 2018 Burns Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies. Knirck is a professor of history at Central Washington University and is the first American to hold the position.

“We are delighted to have Jason Knirck with us this semester as Burns Scholar,” James Murphy, director of the Center of Irish Programs, said to BC News. “His selection as the first Americantrained and based scholar of Ireland to hold the Burns Chair is a sign that Irish Studies has come of age in the United States. One of my goals is to make Irish Studies at Boston College a home for Irish history in the U.S.” Knirck studies the Irish revolutionary period in the 20th century, the Irish Free State, and the history of Ireland’s relationship with the British Empire. At BC, Knirck has used Burns Library archives to aid his research.

“BC’s eminent reputation in Irish Studies, especially as one of few universities offering doctorates in Irish history, is well-deserved,” Knirck said to BC News.

“I’ve been fortunate to meet a lot of people associated with the program and now, having the opportunity to be at the Burns Library and to teach BC students, my appreciation has deepened.”

Knirck will be presenting some of his work at a 4:30 p.m lecture in the Burns Library.

“B esides sharing research, we’ll be having a roundtable on the place of Irish history in the American academy, and of Irish historians in the US. I think there’ll be some very interesting discussions,” he said.

Copy Editor

Through BC GET, the on-campus food delivery service run by students, Boston College students can now order pizza, ice cream, and any of the iced tea, kombucha, or Starbucks drinks from CoRo Cafe, in addition to the items already offered from Hillside Cafe.

Students can use the GET Mobile app to order delivery from CoRo Cafe seven days a week—from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, and 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends.

Since first launching delivery services out of Hillside in January, BC GET, founded by JB Bruggeman, CSOM ’19, has grown quickly: The company now has a base of 40 deliverers, and so far a total of almost 500 orders have been completed, with the number of orders per week growing consistently.

“We’re growing really quickly in the places that we are and also in the number of people that we have,” Bruggeman said.

“We’re kind of getting this really good mix where we’re seeing orders rise because we offer more times and offer more locations, and we’re also able to satisfy those demands because we’re growing.”

While the number of student deliverers working for BC GET has grown over the past months, Bruggeman says the company is still actively looking to hire more, facing increased demand following the launch of its services.

“One of the things that our deliverers love is how flexible the

Photo Courtesy of BC GET

BC GET began its delivery services to students on campus from Hillside in January, and has since completed almost 500 orders.

schedule is,” Bruggeman said. “Some of our deliverers work only an hour every day, others … work half a day if they don’t have any homework.

“At Boston College, it’s really hard to find a job that fits with your college schedule—because you’ll have three weeks where you have nothing, and then you have one week where you have five tests.

“We’re the only place on campus that offers a job that allows you to manage that schedule however it is that you want. We don’t require a certain amount of hours per week— we just want you to be the most suc-

cessful that you can.”

According to Bruggeman, BC GET is working in tandem with BC Dining in planning its next steps.

“The reason we expanded to CoRo Cafe is because we saw such a good reception to Hillside, and we wanted to give students more options and more flexibility,” Bruggeman said.

“So we are definitely looking to expand to other dining halls.”

He noted that he has gotten great feedback from students regarding the delivery services, both the way they are done and how quickly they

are carried out.

“I think that students have responded really well to the fact that they don’t have a Domino’s pizza man calling them and telling them they’re at Walsh—when they’re not at Walsh, they’re at Welch,” he said.

“Because we use students we’re able to do these deliveries to exactly where they’re supposed to go.

“We’re doing something special.

There’s not many colleges that offer what we’re offering, and we’re just really excited about being able and continuing to do great things for Boston College.” n

Georgetown Union Reaches Voluntary Election Agreement

By Jack Goldman Copy Editor In February, Boston College reiterated its commitment to not voluntarily recognize the Graduate Employees Union in the aftermath of the union’s decision to drop its petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

But on April 2, BC’s fellow union in Washington, D.C., the Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees (GAGE), reached a voluntary election agreement with Georgetown University, joining Fordham University as the second Jesuit university to enter into a labor agreement. GAGE’s election will take place sometime this fall.

“This is everything we’ve been bargaining for the last couple months,” said Kevin Carriere, an organizing committee and election negotiations committee member of GAGE. “It was

really exciting.”

GAGE’s next step is to secure an election victory, something BC’s union is not pursuing because it secured a victory in its NLRB-sanctioned election in September. BC’s union has paid close attention to the process GAGE went through to secure its agreement, according to Gage Martin, a first-year Ph.D. student in mathematics at BC. “It’s given us a really big lift to know that there is so much support, and it’s just another indication of how much of a growing movement graduate worker unionization is across the country—it’s not just something that’s happening on this campus,” Martin said.

“As we see Georgetown and Fordham doing these things, BC’s becoming increasingly isolated in their stance that they can deny us our rights on religious grounds.”

But in regards to graduate employee unionization, at first, Georgetown and BC were in lockstep.

Both universities are Jesuit-run, which might appear to make them an optimal match for conducting business in similar fashions.

But they do differ in the way they do business. For instance, Georgetown has now broken with BC’s resistance to graduate student unionization.

When it came to graduate union business, initially, both cited their statuses as religious institutions and the student-teacher relationship as the reason behind their resistance to unionization. The biggest difference when it comes to the issue, though, is despite releasing two statements that condemned unionization, according to Carriere, Georgetown’s administration was much more receptive to an independent election agreement than BC’s.

GAGE had been negotiating with Georgetown’s president and provost on the side, trying to gain some ground, when it presented the possibility of negotiating an independent election agreement. Georgetown’s administrators were more than intrigued.

“They wanted to make sure that it is framed that we are, in their minds, students first,” he said. “So they aren’t changing from the language other universities are using, but it’s okay for us in the fact that they’re saying ‘yes you’re students first,’ but, say, if you’re 70 percent student, there is that 30 percent that you are still a worker.

“So they just wanted to make sure that what we bargain over is that 30 percent and not the 70 percent that they consider student and academic. So a lot of our negotiation was around what is what is academic and what is work.” n

POLICE BLOTTER: 4/3/18 – 4/5/18 Tuesday, April 3

Wednesday, April 4

Thursday, April 5

5:08 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a traffic crash.

12:02 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a traffic crash at Campanella Way.

12:30 a.m. - A report was filed regarding harassment at the Mods.

5:17 a.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a medical incident.

6:42 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious circumstance at O’Neill Library.

12:17 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a larceny over $250.

12:41 p.m. - A report was filed regarding assistance provided to another police agency.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

4:14 p.m. - An officer filed a report regarding a suspicious circumstance.

CORRECTIONS If you ran the Boston Marathon, how fast would you be?

“I’d run with ludicrous speed.”

—Will Shortal, MCAS ’21

“I did run it last year. My time was 4:50.”

—Hailey Wright, MCAS ’19

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

“I’m not a runner, so I wouldn’t finish.”

—Zachary Contini, MCAS ’21

“I’ve actually done a half marathon. I think the marathon would probably take me five hours.”

—Emily Stevens, MCAS ’20

THE HEIGHTS

MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2018

A3

Google Fix Lets IT Admins Change Group Privacy Default Settings Google Groups, from A1

sity Spokesman Jack Dunn said in an email.

BCPD policy requires an incident report to be filed for “each significant incident (i.e., those that involve a criminal act or serious breach of University rules), or if it appears advisable for any reason to retain a permanent and readily accessible record.” According to the “FAQ” section on BCPD’s website, these records are not permitted to be publicly released. This differs from the public BCPD blotter, which describes generally—and anonymously—only the nature, time, date, general location, and (if applicable) the disposition of the complaint.

According to the policy that outlines the functions and responsibilities of BCPD, only the blotter is considered a public record.

Among the documents accessible was BCPD’s Executive Summary. This is a daily, confidential list with the previous day’s police activity. These reports contain a detailed summary— including people’s names—regarding these incidents. When The Heights notified the University of the vulnerability, Executive Summary reports from April 2017 through Dec. 18, 2017 were accessible.

One accessible BCPD group that contained confidential, restricted, or otherwise sensitive information had privacy settings mistakenly permitting “anyone from the bc.edu organization” to “view content,” “join,” “post,” and “view the list of members” in the group, rather than being restricted to Basic permissions

The old default settings allowed all individuals in the organization to access groups.

Basic permissions

The new default settings allow only specific individuals to access groups.

those within BCPD. The Heights identified similar access settings across other BCPD internal groups in which confidential, restricted, or otherwise sensitive information existed.

Another document accessible in a BCPD group included the first and last name of a member of the BC community, their Massachusetts State Driver’s License number, and other identif ying information. Another included the first and last name of a different member of the BC community, their social security number, and other information. The combination of one’s first and last name, social security number, Massachusetts state identification or driver’s license number, or various types of financial information constitute “Personal Identifiers” under Massachusetts 201 CMR 17.

According to the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, BC filed a report on Feb. 5, 2018 that an unspecified number of Massachusetts residents experienced a data “breach” (as defined by the Commonwealth) with regard to their social security number. It is unknown whether this unspecified number of individuals has been contacted by the University about the breach.

Also accessible—through nonBCPD groups—were confidential documents related to University Advancement, including names of some individual and corporate donors, and various monetary amounts they had donated to the University. Documents related to a consulting firm used by

View Topics

Select groups of users

BC for fundraising work and internal documents with strategies on donor relations were also accessible.

The Heights made no attempt to access any groups that were not public, nor to access any systems based on information identified within these communications.

“The students involved have assured the University that they did not retain or disclose any confidential information, and the University has concluded that no further breach notifications are required at this time,” Nora Field said in her email.

The University’s Data Security Policy, last revised in 2010, defines three levels of classification for what is colloquially considered “sensitive” information. Officially, these are “Public,” “Internal Use Only,” and “Confidential.”

According to the document, examples of confidential data include: “information protected under privacy laws (including, without limitation, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the Gramm-LeachBliley Act), information concerning the pay and benefits of University employees, personal identification information or medical/health in-

formation pertaining to members of the University community, and data collected in the course of research on human subjects. Institutional Confidential information may include University financial and planning information, legally privileged information, invention disclosures and other information concerning pending patent applications.”

After adopting G Suite in 2015, however, BC indicated that a “fourth category of data … even more sensi-

“BCPD used Google Groups without realizing that access to their message archives was not properly restricted through Google.” -University Spokesman Jack Dunn tive than ‘confidential’” known as “restricted” exists, and that such information, formerly classified as confidential—such as social security numbers, financial account numbers, driver’s license or state ID numbers, health and medical records, including HIPAA-protected records, and other information designated by a sponsor or responsible vice president—could not be stored on off-campus servers, including any of Google’s services, without written permission of the responsible vice president or provost.

Owners of the group, All organization members

These users can view topics in this group.

All members of the organization can view.

Post

All organization members“Organization”

Select groups of users

means anyone with BC G Suite access.

These users can post messages to this group.

Join the Group

Select who can join

View Topics

Select groups of users

Anyone in the organization

Anyone in the organization can see that the group exists, and its contents.

All members of the group

These users can view topics in this group.

All selected members of the group can view.

Post

All members of the group, All organization members

Select groups of users

“Organization” means anyone with BC G Suite access.

These users can post messages to this group.

Join the Group

Select who can join

In recent years, other universities have experienced incidents where various kinds of protected information have been improperly secured.

In February 2017, an email list service maintained by the Harvard Computer Society was discovered to mistakenly have settings such that over 1.4 million emails were publicly accessible. Some of these communications included information about students’ grades, financial aid information, and other confidential material. Harvard Dean of Students Katherine G. O’Dair responded in an emailed statement that “her office was working to ensure student privacy.”

In November 2017, The Stanford Daily reported that approximately 200 students and employees might have had their privacy compromised due to incorrect permission settings on a Universitymanaged server. Some of these documents included information for reporting statistics under the Clery Act, though only one document was reported to include a student’s name. Stanford University released a statement on Dec. 1 regarding the issue.

In 2005, the BC Chronicle reported that because of a security breach of a third-party-owned computer that contained about 100,000 alumni social security numbers, the University “decided to send out a precautionary advisory to those alumni whose names were on the database with Federal Trade Commission guidelines they could follow to help ensure their privacy.” In that incident, there was no indication that any personal information was accessible to members of the BC community. 

Anyone in the organization

Anyone in the organization can see that the group exists, but not its contents.

STEVEN EVERETT / HEIGHTS EDITOR

*Editor’s Note: The Heights respects your privacy. Our reporting on this topic has spanned over three months, and during this time the authors have made every attempt possible to ensure the privacy of any individuals mentioned in the thenpublicly accessible communications.

Names were neither recorded nor shared. None of these communications were retained.

Steven Everett is the Creative Director for The Heights. He can be reached at creativedirector@ bcheights.com Connor Murphy is the Editorin-Chief for The Heights. He can be reached at eic@bcheights.com

Two Students Accused Senior Week Costs Seen as Expensive of Damage to Property Senior Week, from A1

Chalk, from A1

“Sidewalk chalk is not permitted anywhere on campus .” In the posting policy document, it specifies that “no announcement may be written or painted/ chalked upon any building, sidewalk, or other natural feature of the campus.”

The two students said they were taken to BCPD headquarters in separate police cruisers, where they said officers questioned them and took their statements.

The two students spoke at length about their interaction with BCPD, but The Heights was unable to reach BCPD

to confirm the details.

When asked if he knew that chalking was in violation of University policy, Barad said, “I did not. And I am still not convinced it is.”

The posting policy states that violations of the policy would be handled by removing of the postings or banners, revoking of the student organization’s posting privileges in the future, and a $100 fine for organizations specifically for posting on bus stops or emergency call boxes.

The two students who are facing sanctions were not operating on behalf of an organization. 

to paying for the cost of the event with no profit on our end.”

The Montserrat Coalition raffles off tickets for some of the Senior Week events, similar to what it does for other on-campus activities, such as Plexapalooza.

The Senior Week Committee, the planning body for the week, is composed of approximately 15 to 20 students from the junior and senior classes.

Other universities employ a similar model to BC, offering both free events and ones that require students to buy tickets. At Villanova University, for example, students pay $20 for the option of attending a Phillies game, $25 for the Senior Picnic, and $75 for the Senior Ball—for comparison, Fordham University’s Senior Ball costs $145 per

ticket. Villanova also notes on its website that it does not profit from the week, but is forced to charge for the events due to financial constraints.

Harvard University also requires students to purchase tickets to some of its senior week events. Its events, including a Moonlight Cruise, Senior Soirée, and Last Chance Dance, cost $35 each, not including processing fees per ticket. Harvard University and Boston University also used the Royale for similarly-themed events, but tickets were priced at $35 for Harvard and $20 for BU, versus the $50 for the Dance Through the Decades.

Harvard also provides aid to students through the Student Events Fund (SEF), designed to allow students to participate in campus activities that may pose a financial burden to them.

“The (SEF) was created by students for students and demonstrates a commitment to removing financial barriers that might prevent a student’s participation in campus activities,” according to Harvard’s website. “The program is made possible by scholarship dollars and is in addition to the College’s very generous financial aid program.”

Students at BC wish that there were ways to get involved in the events without paying the current prices, such as Kaufman, who suggested the idea of raffling them off.

“The fact that we come from different backgrounds both socially and financially makes this campus unique, so it’s hard to see how this portion of the BC community’s needs are being overlooked at one of the most memorable portions of their undergraduate experience,” Kaufman said. 

THE HEIGHTS

A4

MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2018

FIGURE SKATER STRIDES FOR HER STEPMOM

BY BROOKE KAISERMAN Assoc. Magazine Editor She chose her college with a coin toss and made a spur-of-the-moment decision to sign up for the Boston Marathon—but Lauren Healy, MCAS ’19, isn’t taking a chance on triumph.

Healy grew up in the quaint town of Littleton, Colo., surrounded by a myriad of animals including llamas, alpacas, and horses.

“In Colorado, in general, people are really outdoorsy, and so I grew up experiencing that and being really active and outside,” she said.

Healy’s family upheld this energetic mindset, spending their holidays a little differently than most. Rather than spending the Fourth of July eating ribs while donning red, white, and blue, they ran 5Ks, and Healy remembers this tradition spanning as far back as when she was about six-years-old.

In high school, she continued her passion for exercise by joining the figure skating team.

Despite her love for Littleton, college decision season found Healy craving change. She narrowed it down to University of Michigan and Boston College. When choosing between them, she reverted to the unorthodox, yet tried-and-true, decisionmaking method of flipping a coin.

“People say if you flip a coin and you agree with it, it’s what you should do. The coin said BC, so here I am,” she said.

The selection she made proved to be the correct one, as Healy loves her time she’s spent as an Eagle on the Heights. She’s majoring in political science and plans on attending law school after graduation. In addition to participating in planning for EagleMUNC, BC’s high school model United Nations conference, Healy spends much of her time on the ice as a member of Boston College’s club figure skating team.

Of all her experiences at BC, Healy counts her two Marathon Monday’s as some of the most memorable. She remembers standing near White Mountain and El Pelon, clad in her BC gear, watching the runners go by.

“If you get to [mile] 21 you can get to [mile] 26, so I think BC’s in a really cool area, because you’ve seen people who are fighting for it,” she said. “You just cheer … I think the city really comes together.”

This past fall, Healy found that her desire to increase her physical activity with something in addition to figure skating coincided with a shocking and devastating loss. After being diagnosed with brain cancer and fighting a brutal fight, Healy’s stepmom passed away right before Thanksgiving.

“All of those emotions—not being able to do anything, and having somebody that you really care about just waste away was hard,” she said.

To cope, Healy turned to long-distance running. As her feet pummeled the pavement and the wind whistled through her hair, she felt the heavy weight of her emotions evaporate into the air.

“Running for me is a lot about healing and working things out … When you run, your body hurts, but your mind feels clear,” she said. “That’s my personal reason why I run. Whether it’s school or you’re fighting with your friends, or you’re just tired, or, it can be bigger things.”

As running grew to have a larger presence in Healy’s life, she found inspiration in her friend Charlie Butrico, MCAS ’18, who ran the Boston Marathon in 2017 on behalf of the Wellesley Education Foundation.

He encouraged her to reach out to WEF Board member Cecilia Brooks, who said she’d love to have Healy run on behalf of the organization.

“I think that she’s a great asset and has the best personality to represent WEF because she’s got a lot of energy,” Brooks said.

The foundation relies on fundraising efforts to provides grants for public school educators in Wellesley to fill in the gaps that government funding can’t cover, such as science fairs, spelling bees, and school supplies—Healy has currently amassed almost $3,000.

“Her effort is very meaningful … there’s so many things we can fund with the money we raise,” Brooks said.

Even if Healy’s decision to participate in the race was spontaneous, given her lack of extensive experience—“It just kind of happened,” she said—there’s no denying that running the Boston Marathon is in her blood. A third-generation runner, Healy will follow in the footsteps of her mom, Krista Benner, who has qualified for the race five times, and her grandfather, Buck, who ran it twice.

“I honestly could not be more proud of

her. I mean, there’s nothing that speaks to you more when you have a child that says ‘Mom, this is what I’m gonna do.’ And knowing that you share that with your dad, and running it yourself—to have your daughter do that is incredible,” Benner said.

When Healy told her mom she planned on running those strenuous 26 miles, she was a little surprised at first. “[I was] completely taken aback. Lauren is not a runner, it’s never been her forte or passion. She’s a figure skater … [but] when she decided that this was what she was going to do, I just said, ‘Okay, let’s go. We’ll make it happen,’” Benner said.

For the past several months, Healy has embodied this can-do sentiment, rising every morning to her 5:30 a.m. alarm, pulling on her skates, and attending her two-hour skating practice until 8. After that, she’ll run for an hour and make it back with time to stretch and take a quick shower before going to her classes. To keep her body in peak physical condition, Healy gets lots of sleep, stays hydrated, and relies on a diet of lean proteins and iron such as spinach.

The training regime the marathon entails requires copious amounts of both dedication and discipline, an impressive feat that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Healy’s friends.

“As someone who would really just have to be held against their will to run a marathon, it’s awesome to see someone have the dedication to train … Sometimes I’ll see her leave for like, a 20 mile run, and then she’ll just come back and watch a movie with everyone,” Healy’s roommate, Veronica Agne, CSOM ’19, said.

Healy’s first month of practice took place in Littleton at an altitude of 6,000 feet, an introduction to training that was simultaneously arduous and rewarding.

“You can’t breathe … 3 miles feels like 10,” she said. This eased the transition back to Boston, and allowed Healy to begin increasing her distances upon her return to BC in the new year.

When running in Boston, Healy trains with her running partner Enzo Butrico, MCAS ’19, Charlie’s younger brother. Running for roughly an hour a day and longer on weekends, they run around the Res, exit near Mary Ann’s, then follow the T-lines for about 6 miles until they arrive at the Boston Common. From there, they have infinite possibilities—some days, they’ll run down

SAM ZHAI / HEIGHTS STAFF

Lauren Healy relies on long-distance running to cope with pain and adversity. to the river, and others will find themselves exploring the bustling metropolis. When running through the suburban areas, she and Enzo will play a game of “Would you live in this house?”

“A huge part of really long distance running is distracting yourself, finding cool things—that’s why I like to run through the city,” Healy said.

She’ll find her routes dotted with dogs and filled with families waiting on the sidelines with reinforcements such as water cups and pretzels. Upon sighting runners sporting Boston Marathon jackets, Healy feels a flutter of excitement, thinking, “You did it, that’ll be me!”

The Boston Marathon will be Healy’s first marathon—but she does have a halfmarathon under her belt. Her sophomore year, she ran the Chilly Half Marathon in Newton with her mom. Held in a region of the suburb known as “The Newton Hills,” the race proved difficult as it combined Healy’s first time truly running with a taxing track.

Though unpleasant, this hill training was necessary to help prepare her for miles 16 to 20 of the Boston Marathon, which feature three hills—with one of them being the infamous “Heartbreak Hill.” Many feel that this is the hardest stretch of the Boston Marathon.

In addition to cross-country, Healy took her training abroad on her recent Spring Break trip with friends to Portugal. She could train with the beautiful views of the

tranquil ocean or the buzzing city, even seeing a castle on one of her runs. Since Portugal is set on a hill, Healy could escape a week of school, but much to her chagrin, not a week of hill training.

The weekend of her return from Portugal, however, Healy’s training took a turn for the worse when she strained her hamstring and scarcely ran the following week, missing two crucial long runs. As Benner noted, one of her biggest pieces of advice to her daughter was “You have to make the runs.

You just have to run.”

“It was close enough to the race day and peak time for training … I was nervous I wouldn’t be able to do it,” she said. Pushing through the pain and doubt, Healy worked with BC’s club sports physical therapist, and through rehab and recovery, she soon got back on track.

When running through the city one day, Enzo Butrico asked Healy the question, “Who do you run for?” Two people immediately sprang to mind. Both passed away, and both huge influences in her life, her grandpa and her stepmom will be on her mind throughout the 26 miles. “I wish they could be there,” said Healy, in tears.

One person to cheer Healy on with unconditional love and support both on the day of the race and always is her mom.

“She is everything you would wish for as a daughter, as a person, as a human. She’s just incredible. She’s honest, she’s giving, she works so hard … I don’t think there’s enough I could say about her,” Benner said. 

SERIAL MARATHONER LOOKS FOR ONE MORE

BY ABBY HUNT Copy Editor Marathon runners are used to people being baffled by what they do. This is especially true when you run as fast and as frequently as senior Tyler Thurlow, CSON ’18, who ran his first marathon his freshman year and will be completing his seventh next Monday.

“I have no idea how he does it, and I feel like I tell him this daily,” said Nelsmarie Matos, one of Thurlow’s closest friends and CSON ’18. “[I’ll ask him,] ‘How many miles are you running?’ One day he’s like ‘Oh, 12 … I’ll be back in an hour and a half.’ I was like, ‘Excuse me?’”

The Philadelphia native was never even on his high school track or cross country team. In fact, he only ever competed in organized running once for two and a half months in seventh grade, when his friend challenged him to. Now, he’s running marathons in under three hours.

When Thurlow was a junior in high

school, he decided to give running a try as a way to lose weight. By the time he finished his senior year, he was completing 10-milers and had run the largest one in the country, the Blue Cross Broad Street Run, which takes place in his hometown. Naturally, when he decided to come to Boston College, it became a dream of his to run the Boston Marathon.

“When you do like 10 miles, you’re like, ‘Oh a half marathon’s only a 5K more,’” he said. “So, you kind of start like, ‘Oh, could I do a half marathon twice and call it a day?’ … You kind of just spinball out of control a little bit.”

Thurlow’s dream ended up coming true, as he became one of the lucky few who gets to run the Boston Marathon—a race that needs to be qualified for and that has limited spots open for charity runners—when in February 2015 the BC Campus School got a bid from an anonymous donor late in the marathon process. An email was sent out to the student body asking someone to run on the Campus School’s behalf, and Thurlow

PHOTO COURTESY OF TYLER THURLOW

Tyler Thurlow finds that third time’s the charm as he returns to run the Boston Marathon.

jumped at the chance.

“I ended up raising a significant amount of money for them in a span of a two-month period, which was probably the most stressful two months of my life,” he said. “I ended up running for the Campus School as a freshman, and … I just leapt at the opportunity to keep running marathons. And here I am.”

That Patriots Day morning, however, not only was it frigid in Hopkinton, Mass., but while Thurlow was waiting to start the race, it began pouring rain. Since he was running for charity, he was in the last group of people to leave in the race’s staggered start system.

Thurlow finally took off at 11:15—by mile five, he was soaked.“ Running in wet clothes and wet shoes for the next 20 miles is probably one of the least fun activities I could have ever imagined,” he said. “But honestly I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Thurlow’s first marathon may have had miserable conditions, but that didn’t seem to curb his running fever in the slightest. He would go on to run the Philadelphia Marathon in the fall of 2015, the New York City and Chicago Marathons in the fall of 2016, and Boston and Philadelphia once more in 2017. “I think what sold me on it was the fact that I didn’t stop—you know, nothing got in my way that day,” he said. “And I got to run with 30,000 other superheroes that day, which was really cool, and they all stuck through it.”

“He has such a passion for it,” Matos said. “He always tells himself, I’m going to run this marathon—and he does it. And it’s so amazing that he does it and doesn’t even complain about it.”

According to Matos, Thurlow’s love and passion for running transfers over into his nursing in the way he cares and advocates for his patients. In addition to being a nursing student, Thurlow also has a lot on his plate as a nursing skills lab tutor, nursing assistant at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Walsh RA—so he uses running as time for himself and as a way to manage

the stresses in his life.

“It’s pretty incredible when you’re able to just run and forget about what’s happening—whatever you have to do that day or whatever you still have to get done,” he said. “You can just be you, and just be one with yourself.”

Since Thurlow ran for charity his first time around, after that race he set his sights on what he calls the “gold standard” for runners: running a Boston-qualifying marathon. After achieving that goal to run last year’s Boston Marathon, he now returns as a second-time qualifier.

While Thurlow says Boston has always been his favorite marathon to run, he points to New York as the one he wishes he had appreciated more—and also where he experienced an important marathon-runner rite of passage. In the New York City Marathon, runners start on the VerrazanoNarrows Bridge that connects Staten Island to Brooklyn, where they have a remarkable view of what’s to come.

“You have the entire course laid out in front of you: You can see downtown Manhattan, you can see Central Park, you can see Harlem, and you can see Queens and Brooklyn,” he said. “New York City’s obviously massive, right, and the entire course is in front of you, but it’s going to take you three hours to get to Central Park.”

But, as some runners end up on the top level of the bridge and others on the lower level, there’s an important catch.

“People had always warned me to make sure I stayed in the corral that’s in on the top of the bridge, and I never really understood why,” he said. “Sure enough, as I am running … everyone who wasn’t able to get to the porta-potties at the start of the race is now peeing off the side of the bridge … and I was like ‘What is happening right now, this can’t be real,’ but it was actually happening … and I was like, ‘Yeah this is really gross—I’m really glad that I’m here and not beneath.’”

“Now I always make sure I’m on the top tier of any bridge I run on,” he said.

While the experience of running a marathon in New York City stands out in Thurlow’s mind, he says there’s nothing better than a marathon route that passes by the school he attends. Marathon running, he pointed out, is generally solitary: You run by yourself, and the people—usually your family—who’ve come to watch you only see you at one point. But when Thurlow runs the Boston Marathon, not only does everyone along the route recognize the school he dons on his BC shirt—which Thurlow always makes sure to wear—but BC students line the course, and all of his friends are concentrated in one place where they can cheer him on. “Nothing can compare,” he said. “It’s incredible.”

Thurlow emphasized that the process of running the Boston Marathon is a long time in the making: Runners usually run their qualifying race around 12 months in advance. As Thurlow is in the male 18 to 39 age group, qualifying for Boston means running the 26.2 miles in under three hours and five minutes, which, as he pointed out, is “no easy feat.” Nevertheless, Thurlow pulled it off, with 10 minutes to spare, in Chicago in the fall of 2016, when he ran his personal best of two hours and 55 minutes.

In that vein, he urges BC students to keep in mind what the day is all about this upcoming Marathon Monday.

“There are 30,000 people who are waking up at 5:30 in the morning, 5:00 in the morning, to run 26.2 miles—and for a lot of them, it’s a dream,” he said. “Those 45-year-olds who have been trying to do this for 25 years—this is their shot at the premier marathon in the world. I think that’s my … one little soapbox moment when it comes to Marathon Monday …

Appreciate all the runners that run by, and share your support.”

“I think that BC does end up losing a little bit of that aspect of what Marathon Monday is about,” he said. “It is literally a marathon, not a sprint.” 

The Heights

Monday, April 9, 2018

TOP

3

things to do in Boston this week

1

Beginning at 11:30 a.m. on April 14, Faneuil Hall Marketplace will hold its Spring Fling event. There will be an outdoor concert on the West End, and street performers are scheduled all day in the South Market. Seven outdoor patios and bars will open for the season.

A5

2

The 2018 March For Science will be held on April 14 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at Christopher Columbus Park in Boston. There will be a number of featured speakers and performances organized for attendees, and the march will seek to build upon last year’s march that advocated for science in the U.S.

3

On April 14, the Collecting Stories: Native American Art exhibit will open at the Museum of Fine Arts. This is the first in a series of three exhibitons that focus on the evolution of American art and identity. It features objects collected after 1876, such as moccasins and wearing blankets

Beat of the Drum: Harvard Lab Decodes Universality of Music

By Alessandro Zenati Metro Editor

As a species, we’ve evolved particularly well when it comes to our aural comprehension. When we listen to music or perceive minute variations in sound, there are very clear emotional and behavioral by-products.

This is why we are able to discern whether a particular song is meant for dancing, for romance, or a lullaby with impressive accuracy.

We are motivated to engage with music on a regular basis, irrespective of our cultural background, socioeconomic status, or experience with music composition.

No matter what part of the world we or the music originates from, this characteristic is something that everyone is endowed with to a varying degree.

With this observation close at hand, we might begin to ask ourselves if music truly is a universal language that transcends linguistic, cultural, and expressional barriers.

The Harvard Music Lab, hosted

by Harvard University’s department of psychology and only a stone’s throw away from Sanders Theatre—a world-renowned venue for sound of all types—is conducting clinical studies to answer this question.

While the lab typically involves developing people of all ages and populations with genetic conditions, a central focus of its inquiry is centered around infant cognition and how music shapes and influences behavior during the brain’s critical periods of development.

The scope of its work extends to an international level and leverages an interdisciplinary approach to com-

pile data that is useful for continuing research.

Investigators come from a wide range of disciplines including cognitive science, music composition, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and computer science. In fact, the principal investigator at the Harvard Music Lab, Samuel Mehr, never imagined he would find himself involved in this sort of work, let alone in the world of academia.

“I didn’t do very much psychology or science in undergrad. I was on track to be a full-time musician or music teacher,” Mehr said. “Then I took a right turn into science...there was some funkiness about learning what it is to work in academia.”

In the early days of Mehr’s research, he would apportion his time almost equally to lab work and music gigs on the side. Yet, music was still a first love for him.

He recalls a family story of him matching notes played on the piano to the sounds of recycling trucks as they drove in reverse up the street. After carrying this passion through middle school and high school as both a pianist and a wind instrument player, he received a degree in music education from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester.

His pivot into research was in response to his desire to understand how people used music in daily life, the acoustics of music production in informal settings, and the long-term effects of the use of music in the home on parent and infant health.

“The big question is ‘What is music all about?’” Mehr said, waiting for a kettle to boil water for his tea. “We have a bunch of lines of work that we’re excited about, but they all sort

Photo courtesy of harvard music lab

Harvard Music Lab has begun recruiting infants from 2 to 12 months old for participation in science research centered around music.

of start at this basic question.”

Mehr’s ascension to the role of director at The Music Lab, however, was a quite recent development.

Currently, the lab is only a few months into its life as a physical space within Harvard’s department of psychology and was made possible as a result of funding provided through the High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program at the National Institutes of Health as well as Harvard’s Data Science Initiative.

Mehr and his research partners have emphasized a multivariate and data-intensive approach, collecting as much infant psychophysiological points as possible in high definition.

One of the lab’s collaborative research projects is the Natural History of Song, bringing together researchers from universities in Germany, Tel Aviv, and across the United States.

“[The Natural History of Song] is a cross-cultural study. It’s an effort to characterize music from many different places and characterize musical behavior from many different places,” Mehr said.

“A big reason that we don’t know that much about what’s the same about music in different places in the world is that there isn’t any one database.

We basically built systematically constructed databases to do that.”

While this study continues to experiment both in the field as well as online, Mehr and his team at The Music Lab have begun recruiting babies from two to 12 months old via The Music Lab Facebook page for music cognition tests.

The tests follow the lab’s aforementioned data-rich modus operandi, collecting electrodermal data—the amount of sweat secretion on skin

surface—as well as gaze-tracking data and pupil dilation using stable 4K cameras.

For this reason, the team has drawn from the expertise of data scientists and computational scientists to sort through the data and connect it to formal theories of music that underlie the lab’s working assumption about the universality of music.

Ultimately, Mehr believes that the purpose of his work is to explore research questions in ways that few have dared to explore previously. This serves as a promising area of inquiry.

“There are similar attempts that have been made, but they have different goals or have different issues associated with them,” Mehr said.

“So there’s a lot of work that’s waiting to be done and ready for us to dive into, which makes it an exciting area.” n

Boston Residents Celebrate National Poetry Month at Festival

By Isabel Fenoglio Asst. Metro Editor

On Saturday morning, Boston residents and poets gathered in the Commonwealth Salon at Boston Public Library to celebrate National Poetry Month. The event was hosted by the Boston National Poetry Month Festival, and was part of a week-long series of events open to the public.

Viewers heard from leading poets

and musicians in the Boston area, including Sam Cornish, Boston’s former Poet Laureate. Everyone was invited to sign up for the open mic performance.

“Welcome, welcome,” said Harris Gardner, Festival co-founder, as he stood greeting participants in front of the threshold of the salon, behind a table stacked high with books of poems for sale. In his right hand, he held a cup of coffee, and in his left, the sign-

Isabel Fenoglio / Heights Editor

Boston residents gathered to listen and share stories to celebrate National Poetry Month.

up sheet for open mic performances.

A few drops of brown scattered the surface of the sheet.

“I apologize for the coffee stains,” he told a woman as she considered whether or not to sign up. “But don’t be shy, participate! It will be fun, take my word for it.”

A little after 10 a.m., Gardner adjusted his beret, and took to the stage to introduce the first series of poets.

The first to perform was Cheryl Buchanan, founder of Writers Without Margins, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to promoting access to the literary arts throughout the Boston area.

After spending more than a decade in the legal profession working on child sexual assault cases with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Buchanan left law to pursue her passion: poetry.

“The way I summarize what I used to do and what I do now is if you saw the movie Spotlight,” Buchanan said.

“For a Boston crowd or at a Boston cocktail party thats my way of being able to condense the work I did for nearly a decade.”

She took out a folded up piece of paper, and paused. “A lot of my writing

is actually an effort to pay tribute to the clients and witnesses that I worked for and with,” she said. Buchanan went on to read a poem titled, “25 Rules for Interviewing,” which detailed what she learned from the clients she served in L.A. The next poets to take the stage were Zachary Alonzo and Marcel Harrison, two assistant facilitators from Writers Without Margins. Alonzo is a recovering heroin addict and convicted felon, recently released from state prison. Alonzo said poetry helped him overcome addiction, and that he plans to continue writing for the rest of his life.

Harrison is a recovering cocaine addict, who served 27 years in prison for robbery before being released on parole. He read a poem called “Don’t Just Survive,” which he wrote to cope with his past.

While most of the poets who took the stage were Boston natives, Sara Pirkle Hughes, an English professor at the University of Alabama, came to Boston just for the festival.

The first poem she read was called, “Why We Couldn’t Stay,” which out-

lined the traumatizing memory of when she and her husband visited a chicken farm shortly after they got married.

They went to the farm because the owner said they could live there for free if her husband cut the grass and she took care of the chickens, explained Pirkle Hughes with a laugh. “What happened next was horrifying,” she warned. “We didn’t know any better, we were young, poor, and innocent.”

The open mic event began a little after 11 a.m., and was hosted by Toni Bee, former Poet Populist of Cambridge. Ten poets performed, and topics ranged from melted ice cream to dirty socks. Martha Boss delivered a powerful performance about aging, and the beauty of fingernails, which she claimed never age, no matter how many wrinkles you get. “Take care of the ends of yourself,” she told the audience.

“That’s what I tell my grandkids.”

The event lasted all day, until the library closed its doors for the night at 5 p.m. “Don’t worry,” Gardner told the remaining participants at the end of the event. “We’ll be back tomorrow and do it all over again." n

Giving in to Childhood Nostalgia at Seaport Common ‘Impulse’ Seesaws Chloe McAllaster In second grade, the seesaw became the setting for the ultimate test of friendship. The first few minutes of recess spent on the tottering play structure would pass smoothly, as trust between my companion and I mounted with each reversal of the metallic arm.

It wouldn’t take long, however, for the other participant to grow weary of the admittedly monotonous activity.

It was always in this precise moment

of decision to end the game that a mischievous smirk would creep across the traitor’s face, foreshadowing the imminent betrayal.

On the receiving end of the smug grin, I felt my stomach drop as I futilely attempted to propel myself to a lower altitude before my so-called friend could abandon her perch on the grounded seat, effectively sending my helpless body crashing to the wood chips below me.

She would cackle with glee while watching me scream the entire eight feet down. After taking a moment to check for potentially life-threatening injuries, I would vow to be the first to desert the seesaw next time.

No matter how many times I was betrayed in such a manner, the seesaw

remained one of my favorite games and the traitors some of my closest friends.

But as the years wore on, I began to frequent the seesaw less and less in favor of what I deemed more mature recess activities, like foursquare and hot lava monster.

As a result, when my roommate and I stumbled upon a series of seesaws in the middle of Seaport Common the other day, a sudden pang of nostalgia drew me to them.

These seesaws were far more sophisticated than the rusty variety on the playground of my elementary school.

The rocking planks of all different sizes were illuminated and played melodies of sound as we bounced up and down.

At first I felt strange sitting on a

seesaw in the middle of Boston on a random Thursday afternoon, but as the initial timidness wore off, I found myself laughing and playing with my roommate in much the same way as I did 10 years ago. Once again, friendships were put to the test as we attempted to send each other flying out of our seats every time we hit the ground.

The Seaport seesaws, called Impulse, are part of a traveling public art installation that has been featured in cities across the globe. According to the Seaport website, the urban playground of sound and LED light is designed to boost mood and increase health during the winter months.

Looking at the people on the seesaws around me, I was surprised to see many

adults among the crowd Impulse had drawn. Even more unexpected was the fact that they seemed to be having just as much fun on the seesaws as the children.

While I won’t pretend to be an expert on the psychological effects of LED lights and sound sequences, I will affirm that what I noticed in myself and those around me was a lighthearted playfulness unusual among stressed adults.

I only stayed at Impulse for about 15 minutes, but left with heightened spirits and a reminder that despite rapidly approaching adulthood, there will always be a place for seesaws in my life.

Chloe McAllaster is the associate metro editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro2@bcheights.com.

The Heights

A6

EDITORIAL

Monday, April 9, 2018

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Senior Week Too Expensive For Students

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”

- Henri Matisse

Boston College’s Senior Week tions, renting the spaces, any organizations’ playbooks. The Committee and Office of Stu- provided transportation, and Committee could arrange with dent Involvement (OSI) present security for the events—the BC Dining, like organizations seniors with a handful of events Committee does not make any such as Arrupe and an annual to celebrate the completion of profit from the costs. class trip to Israel and Palestine their undergraduate studies at Senior Week ought to have a do, to collect donations from BC with friends and classmates less exorbitant cost for students students. By the end of the year, in anticipation of Commence- who want to participate. The many students have hundreds of ment. Senior Week will officially Commencement Ball, for ex- dollars remaining on their meal take place between May plans that will disappear 15 and May 21, although once the spring semester a fe w e vents— the 100 “Senior Week ought to have ends. Rather than allow Days Dance and the Sethis extra money to go nior Red Sox Game—pre- a less exorbitant cost for students to wa ste, S enior We ek cede that designated time.

Committee members can who want to participate.”

Of the nine events, four collect money to distribare free, while the rest of ute funds among students the activities, of the ones who demonstrate need for whose definite prices have been ample, costs $107 but does not financial aid, or simply subsidize announced, will cost students include the price of transporta- the entire event. By lowering the upward of $40 each. BC does tion or, perhaps, clothes for the cost for students who struggle not provide the Committe e occasion—with extra costs, the financially, students can be guarwith any funding to coordinate total price could end up at over anteed a chance to participate them. Only the students’ money $150. One possible solution in these expensive activities and pays for the arrangement of the that could help the prices is to celebrate their time at BC before events, such as food, decora- take a page out of other student they go.

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The Heights

Monday, April 9, 2018

A7

Will I Finish My Thesis?

69

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Austin Bodetti feeling rested - How often do you wake up and want to get out of bed?

Probably never. Maybe once every seven years. Procrastination is the greatest enemy of sleep—it is an artful evil that you think you have under control until you’re bombarded with overwhelming quantities of work. At this point, you’re so sleep deprived that, even when your schedule becomes semi-reasonable again you’ll never be able to return to those normal sleeping patterns that you only experience in your dreams. But then, somehow, one time, as sheer luck would have it, you wake up, and you don’t want to die. You might’ve even gotten only six hours of sleep, but some divine being has seen you suffering, and graced you with this one sweet relief. getting ready to register for classes - You’ll never have as much control over your academics as when you’re starting to pick classes.

There are so many possibilities for you to finally get your act together and stay on top of your work (lol).

Who knows, maybe you can even keep your grades up to your standards in those classes (lmao). Although it is exciting to consider the interesting topics that the classes are about and whatever, it’s almost more exciting to think about how great you could be (but probably never will be)! Super fun! So many possibilities! Yeah!!

69

Everyone has to confront a seemingly insurmountable challenge at one point or another. For some, it’s paying the amount of money that it costs to attend Boston College. For others, it’s crippling debt—often a result of paying the amount of money that it costs to attend BC and also a popular card in Cards against Humanity, a card game. For me, though, that challenge is finishing my thesis.

Over the past few months, many of you have asked me, “Austin, why have your investigations for The Heights noticeably declined in quality since the legendary two-part Mattress Firm investigation of early 2018?”

Good question. I’ve been busy working on my thesis about the War in Afghanistan, which is going about as well as the War in Afghanistan. It all started back in spring 2017, when I had to pick a topic for my thesis. My junior-year youthful ambition prevented me from foreseeing the disaster that this thesis would become. “I’ll pick a topic that’s current but won’t quickly change on me while I’m writing my argument,” I announced to my imaginary friend, a fuschia cat named Walter, “assessing the potential for peace talks with the Taliban.”

Walter looked deeply unimpressed.

“Why do I exist?” he asked.

“To add flavor to my column.”

“Your what?”

“It will make sense to my readers.”

I decided to argue that the Taliban would never participate in peace talks with the United States. Why? It’s the Taliban. The argument would practically make itself.

The first few months of my senior year went well thesis-wise. My department, the Islamic Civilization and Societies Program, required me to attend a seminar with deadlines every two weeks for sections of my thesis.

By Winter Break, I had four chapters of what I expected to become a nine-chapter composition, but this prediction assumed that I’d actually keep working on it when the seminar ended.

Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked—I mean, when I became responsible for enforcing my own deadlines. Like most other college students, I lack any sense of selfdiscipline or urgency. I brought home four dozen books about the Taliban with the goal of more or less finishing my thesis over Winter Break, but, being Austin, I didn’t end up opening a single one.

“At least I still have four months to work on this,” I told Walter when we returned to BC, my roommates wondering why I was talking to my own reflection.

“More time for you to sow your own destruction,” said Walter, who, being my imaginary friend, was an evil fuschia cat. I would discover, however, that the imaginary feline was right.

On Feb. 18, the Taliban penned a letter to “the American people” expressing a willingness to participate in peace talks with the United States, not a great sign for my thesis.

“This is good for Afghanistan but bad for my thesis,” I concluded. “Also, who writes letters anymore?”

The Taliban. That’s who.

Finishing my thesis had just become that much more urgent. By then, Walter had left me in the middle of the night to embark on a quest to become a real cat. Stuck on my own, I reasoned that I would have to be creatively lazy.

The first step of my plan involved me cannibalizing two 15-page papers I had written in junior year, which were far better than anything a second-semester senior could compose.

Next, I looked at my shelves full of over 100 Taliban books, which had likely made RAs extremely uncomfortable during room checks. “What do I do?” I shouted at my new imaginary friend, an onyx parakeet who then flew out the window that I had

mistakenly left open.

Abandoned once again, I decided to open every book to a random page, get one Taliban fact, and return it to O’Neill, which had started sending me threatening emails about all the Arabic and Persian books that were two months overdue.

To the untrained eye, it now looks as though my thesis relies on a broad range of scholarly sources in several languages. To a reader of this column, though, it just looks like I’m extremely lazy.

My ingenious plan ran into a few hiccups, of course. In March, I got an undiagnosable throat infection that temporarily kept me from working on the thesis I probably wasn’t going to work on anyway. I was also a little skeptical of my Arabic and Persian sources, given that many used literal cardboard for covers and described the Taliban as “holy warriors.”

Still, I had to persist. To save time, I opted to skip one chapter altogether and combine another with my conclusion, which no one was going to read anyway because who reads a 100-page thesis?

All the while, I checked the news.

The Taliban and the United States were making signs that they would approach the negotiating table. I changed my argument to an assessment of obstacles to peace talks with the Taliban, making my thesis less a position paper than a summary of the reasons that the Taliban sucks. Then again, I just needed my thesis to exist.

After I submit my thesis on April 17—in the process solving the mystery of whether I finish it because I’m the god of multitasking—you can expect columns detailing the origins of Rubinoff vodka and how much of your tuition BC spends on grass, assuming that Jack Dunn eventually answers my grass-themed emails. Until then, please proofread my thesis.

Please.

Also, help me find Walter.

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

Assessing Intellectual Conversation registering for classes - Unless you have the first registration time ever, you’re not going to get the classes you want. It’s unlikely to ever happen, and you really should realize that before you start making a schedule with all of the perfect classes at ideal times taught by the best professors. Odds are you’re actually going to have a random three-hour break thrice a week in between your 9 a.m. class and your 1 p.m. class, during which you’ll try to get work done but really will spend most of your time waiting in line at the Chocolate Bar because you need to get a caffeinated beverage every 20 minutes to be a normal conscious human being.

And remember, this will be months after you spent the most stressful 15 minutes of your life navigating UIS just to register for these crappy classes. hardcover books - Hardcover books are merely aesthetic materials that look intellectual and pretty on a bookshelf. Softcover books (except for mass paperback books—they are truly the worst), on the other hand, are much more practical for readers. When I start a book, it’s hard enough to concentrate on the boring introduction, and, being extremely lazy, I find it incredibly frustrating to hold a hardcover book open with one hand when the ratio of pages on either side is ridiculously uneven. Keep them on your bookshelf please.

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Matthew Kelly “Dude, we need to get drunk this weekend,” I overheard one individual, undoubtedly known as Chad, remark to his acquaintance, whom I suspected to be Brad. Immediately the brilliance of the two parties dawned upon me, as this aphorism was obviously nothing other than a microcosm for the individual’s desire for respite from the constant cogitation that results from the atmosphere of intellectual and thought-provoking conversation, not any desire for fleeting gratification from pointless inebriation.

And last week when my peer was cold-called in lecture and aptly responded, “What the hell, why me?” it was not from lack of preparation, ambition, or a general inability to contribute relevant content, but rather from sheer reverence for the other illustrious minds within the room.

And it is this sort of prevalent doublespeak that consistently masks the intellectual conversation transversing campus. Realizing that my column has constantly had a critical spirit, I’ve decided to revoke my previous tone and praise this thriving and wonderful aspect of our community at large here.

Certainly words fail to express my degree of awe and amazement regarding the archetypal academics surrounding me, just as words must fail to express their true learnedness as they often opt for silence and simplicity. While, surely, there are a few individuals squandering their time in weighty subjects and academia, clearly the majority of us here have already answered all of life’s profound questions, and surmounted its elementary

challenges. Perhaps excess eccentricity resides within me, but the anecdotes of my experience here portray only the reality above.

One of these most awe-inspiring facets of life here is the depth of knowledge within all individuals, and how almost none of it is surface level conjecture. My peers continually amaze me with just how much information and knowledge they amassed from skimming over one Daily Mail video they watched for 30 seconds on Twitter—their newfound ability to opine on everything and anything based on those concrete findings is astounding. Rationally, you would think that to hold views one would need sufficient research and rumination, but here, people are able to derive substantial findings and opinions just from the title of clickbait articles on Facebook.

And why should we even read Hayek’s Road to Serfdom when MarxLover1996’s YouTube clips already explained to you that Hayek was delusional and frankly wrong about everything? Certainly if there ever was a lack of discourse here on campus, it’s due to fact that most students realize everything imparted on them by their previous influences is absolute truth, and not to ever be questioned—especially the political views that seem to be almost identical to those of their parents.

Further, blessed are the accounting and finance majors, among others, who realized there is truly nothing more to life than crunching numbers and garnering as much wealth as possible, as money is the root of the deepest and most fulfilling facets of life. I can’t begin to even discern why anyone would pursue anything else, and I truly relish the opportunity to expend my youth working 18-hour days to earn a comfortable salary that I will never be able to spend. And I find that these types are, again, certainly

silent in the midst of scholastic confabulation, not because they are simply going through the motions of life and at their core have no real underlying motives for their choices, but rather because no need exists within them to harp on things that they understand so fully already.

Alas, what perhaps amazes me most is how uniformly students are more informed than and intellectually superior to not only their professors, but also the thinkers who, in antiquity, deliberated the knowledge each student is presented with. For thousands of years, the most profound individuals have wrestled with what is right and what is wrong, what is benign and what is malign, yet almost every student here is so sure in their actions that any advice they receive is rather rudimentary and frankly useless. Specifically in the political spectrum, I often find myself dumbfounded with how every student deliberates with absolute certainty unwilling to entertain the contrarian among them. I guess it must be I who is wrong in reasoning that every single student cannot be right.

Purposefully, I hope to relay my message, as always, with incredibly inclusive diction and modestly propose that you are reluctant to dismiss the most literal of interpretations of this article. As a brief concession, perhaps, through esoteric understanding, the greatest receiver of this article’s criticism is its own originator, but again, perhaps not. It is with criticism, not flattery, that growth is found, and it is in that spirit that I offer this column.

Only time will tell what this writing inspires, but I am hopeful it will be the former, and if it is not, then the problem at hand is much greater than any of us could ever hope to cure.

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

The opinions and commentaries of the op-ed columnists and cartoonists appearing on this page represent the views of the author or artist of that particular piece, and not necessarily the views of The Heights. Any of the columnists and artists for the Opinions section of The Heights can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

Discussing Real Issues Robert Walmsley It’s no secret the majority of Netflix subscribers purchase the streaming service because of the original television content along with other staples like The Office and Breaking Bad. I do, however, as a lover of movies and a broke college student, attempt to find a hidden treasure buried beneath the seemingly farcical layers of categories. One I stumbled upon this Easter Break, due to a previous recommendation from a friend, was the documentary Best of Enemies (2015).

The film takes an in-depth look at the series of 10 debates between William F. Buckley Jr., a conservative, and Gore Vidal, a liberal, during the 1968 Republican National Convention to help save the fledgling ABC News. The political unrest of the time is shown alongside the two fierce intellectuals’ fight through the burgeoning phenomenon of identity politics.

The message is a poignant warning for the present, even more so than when the film debuted, but I took something else from it: the correct way to work through political issues with a peer.

The most prominent realization from the dense documentary on these two equals was how personal the proposed debates seemed to become. Buckley and Vidal were masters of articulating and deconstructing arguments, yet they devovled into ad hominem attacks. As the ABC publicist for the production George Merlis put it, “Their real argument, in front of the public, was who was the better person.”

When you get beneath the theatrics of the debate, and the various solutions to the war in Vietnam and race riots, this was the central point in the argument at hand: They were each placed in a chair to represent parties of millions, but it came down to themselves.

When even political experts on a stage of millions can be reduced to this, what happens in casual conversation or over the dozens of social media outlets? Many, if not the majority, of opinions aren’t heard or cared for, but a recent politically charged post by a now-resigned Undergraduate Government of Boston College senator on Facebook certainly was. It related to Black Lives Matter and sparked conversations on the appropriate handling of the proposed impeachment, as well as other issues relating back to the march on campus in October. After watching this documentary, I recollected a conversation I had about this post through a new lens and realized I fell into the same trap.

It took place with my right-leaning coworker, and it was quite cordial. She stated her opinion on the matter, and I mine—it was a harmless conversation, albeit one on tough issues. But, I now realized, it was not productive. She thought the statement was slightly offensive, but wasn’t pleased with the handling of it by UGBC. I made bland points about why I thought the post was wrong and questioned why someone would say it. I wasn’t furthering the conversation. I was implicitly confirming to myself that I would never utter a statement of that nature. I voiced enough concern to take comfort in my ideals, but avoided bringing up uncomfortable ideas that could lead to agreement, which is the constructive end to any conversation.

Members of both parties seem to either take comfort, as I did, or attack the person in front of them, as Buckley and Vidal did, to lift themselves on top of the relative moral high ground they constructed themselves. Real, constructive debate focuses on the issues at hand where the people involved are removed while their voices stay. The current trend of the personalization and self-gratification in political discourse in America and on college campuses serves as a harbinger of a politically unproductive future.

Each individual’s impact may not come close to that of these two great debaters, but we can all learn from their mistakes. The cumulative conversation of the parts of a whole issue matters in shaping change, especially at a university like Boston College. Not every conversation should be aimed at fundamentally changing the world, but we should focus on deliberating the issues at hand to form a more unified student body composed of ideologically diverse students.

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

THE HEIGHTS

A8

MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2018

GIVEN TURNS B0ST0N MARATH0N INT0 FAMILY 0CCASI0N

Carlson Given, running for her twin sister, is part of a marathon team to help victims of traumatic injuries.

BY JOAN KENNEDY Magazine Editor Carlson Given, MCAS ’20, and her sister, Tate Given, look exactly the same on the surface. Their blonde hair parts near the middle and gives way to their clear blue eyes. They share a birthday, clothes, and perhaps some twin-lepathy.

“She’s my best friend. It’s very special—we’ve always been close,” Carlson said.

There are a lot of things that are similar about them, but there’s one distinct difference—Carlson can laugh without the residual pain of a brutal concussion radiating through her neurons.

During a ski trip their freshman year of high school, Tate endured a brutal head injury. She had to miss 18 months of school, and thus has only recently begun her freshman year of college at Trinity University in Connecticut.

“She wasn’t in school so she felt really cut off from people,” Carlson said.

The injury affected her whole life, and everyone in the Carlson family.

Tate is back in school and doing better now, but she’s never alone. Every “hello” and “goodbye,” every meal, every new dress, every birthday, every Christmas, every eight hours of sleep, every waking moment—there’s a reluctant companion Tate just can’t seem to

shake. Her name is headache.

“It was hard, I think, because she physically looked fine, but mentally she wasn’t all there,” Carlson said.

With her sister constantly in her mind, Carlson, who was on the rowing team freshman year, entered her Walsh eight-man. She walked into the dingy room and found two girls who were dead set on running the Boston Marathon—Bridget Hoff man, MCAS ’20, and Julianne Bourque, CSOM ’20.

“Last year we made a pact with each other that we were going to run for a charity,” Bourque said.

Carlson didn’t know Hoffman and Bourque well—they had ended up in the same room because of mutual friends—but Carlson thought their plan was very cool and worth learning more about. She found that they weren’t just running the marathon, but doing it for others, as they are both raising money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a cancer research and treatment center.

“We’re not in it for ourselves,” Bourque said.

Dana-Farber is a cause which Hoffman and Bourque are extremely passionate about. On long runs, when the mind declares war on the body, Hoffman thinks not of quitting but of her father, who recently lost his battle to cancer. He gives her a reason for never raising a white flag while her muscles

are screaming and her brain wants to be somewhere else.

Inspired by this, Carlson, who had only been roommates with Hoffman and Bourque for three or four weeks, decided to join them on their quest as soon as she found the right charity to run for. Though Hoffman and Bourque encouraged her to run for Dana Farber too, Carlson says she didn’t have enough of a connection with the organization.

She wanted to do something for her sister and soon found the Gillian Reny Steppings Center for Trauma and Innovation, which was founded in 2014 by the Reny family to provide support for victims of trauma, specifically through promoting research and education on trauma and trauma care.

It’s a cause founded on sisterly love, just like Carlson’s marathon endeavor is. The young Gillian Reny was excitedly waiting at the finish line of the Boston Marathon for her sister, Danielle, was running on April 15, 2013, the day two homemade bombs were detonated– right next to Gilian.

She was rushed into the Brigham and Women’s Hospital trauma unit.

For days, doctors doubted that they would be able to save her injured leg, but thanks to the their decisiveness and a few strokes of good luck, she did not have to amputate it. Carlson saw Gillian’s and her sister’s resilience in the face of tragedy as one and the same.

SAM ZHAI / HEIGHTS STAFF

Carlson has raised $4,455 for charity, and says that she has enjoyed meeting so many different kinds of people along the way.

“I thought ‘oh, this is perfect,’” Carlson said.

After seeing the trouble her sister had after her injury, and all the lifestyle changes she was forced to make, Carlson is hyper-aware of the many burdens trauma victims carry, even years after their anguish. Tate’s concussion was horrifying for her, and all who love her.

“To see her go through that was like, nobody should have to go through that,” Carlson said. “She’s so strong.”

Running a marathon is comparatively harder than doing other things, and a thing most people will never have the courage or discipline to attempt in their lives—it’s 26.2 miles of moving quickly when being still is a perfectly viable alternative. Carlson claims that she was by no means a runner before she started training.

“When I started back in September I was running maybe a lap or two around the Reservoir and dying,” Carlson said.

She keeps in mind that on the scale of hard things that one could potentially go through, having a healthy body and running down the street for a long amount of time is not the worst thing.

“So many other people have such big obstacles in their lives, it’s not a big deal for me to do this,” Carlson said.

She has currently raised $4,455 for charity, and Carlson has also gotten many positive things out of her training experience. Though both training and fundraising are a huge time commitment, she says that she has actually had a lot of fun, meeting all kinds of people and making new friends of all ages and occupations. She’s heard stories from them she’ll carry forever.

She’s also sprinted through places she never would’ve ventured out to see on her own—like Wellesley.

“Without training for this marathon I wouldn’t have seen so much of Boston,” Carlson said. “I had no idea how much that was there.”

Carlson has gained two new best friends in her roommates, and probably a lot of social media clout Carlson that they centered alot of their training around aesthetically pleasing, all-important food.

“We always designed our runs around a brunch place,” Bourque said.

Carlson’s friends helped make training fun. She enjoys running and all the adventures it brings her. She mostly loves doing it with other people, and found Christmas break difficult as the

was running solo in the cold. Carlson values the support of the new community she has entered.

“I never really wanted to give up,” she said. “I guess I’ve been really determined.”

Because they have different start times, however, the three brunching, running musketeers may not get to do the actual race together, but they plan on trying to meet up somehow.

“We’re hoping we can find a way to find each other,” Hoffman said.

Carlson’s roommates both describe her as a hard worker, and as having an amazing attitude. They often see each other on the training routes even though they run for different teams and practice separately sometimes. Hoffman says that every time they pass each other, whether it be two or 10 miles into the run, Carlson’s face lights up, and her excitement to see her friends gives them the push they need to get going.

She often shouts encouragement to them as she continues on her way.

“She’s always just got such a positive attitude about everything,” Bourque said. “ We’re proud of ever ything she’s done … she’s putting in so much work.”

Bourque says that when they had to do their big 20-mile run, Carlson was the one who kept her going. Carlson presented the run in terms of the food they were going to eat after, reminding her friends of the calories that were to come at the finish line. Carlson has a joy about her when she talks about running and all of the pain that accompanies it.

“I already lost one toenail, and I’m going to lose more,” she said.

Though her consistently positive attitude may not be reflective of it, Carlson still approaches the marathon with the timidity and humility it deserves.

“I’m still really nervous about it,” Carlson said. “It’s a lot, it’s really far.”

The enormity of the run looming before her is intimidating, but Carlson gets the support and encouragement she needs to push on from her roommates, her compatriots at the Stepping Strong Marathon Team, and of course, her twin sister who texts her with support and “good luck”s before every run.

Carlson, her sister, and those around her who knew her as a skier and rower may be surprised that she decided to run the marathon, but Carlson feeds off that shock and can’t wait for Monday.

“I’m really excited about crossing the finish line.” 

The Mexcian Restaurant With a Mission: 1 Billion Meals by 2025 Sam Prince brought his Mexican restaurant chain, along with its philanthropic efforts, to Harvard Square last month.

BY SHAN RIZWAN For The Heights “1 Billion Meals by 2025” is written on one wall. A big green neon sign in the center of the venue flashes, “Let’s Beat World Hunger.”

Z ambrero, a s elf - pro cl aime d “Mexican restaurant with a mission,” aims to serve 1 billion meals to those in need in the developing world by 2025.

Most Americans have probably never heard of the fast casual chain, as it has only recently expanded to the United States. this past March, with locations in Warwick, R.I. and, more locally, Harvard Square. However, Zambrero already has 189 restaurants worldwide, in countries including Thailand, Ireland, and Australia.

Zambrero’s history stretches back to 2005, when Sam Prince had the idea to start a restaurant that could also provide philanthropic relief. He believed that successful businesses can also help those in need. This humanitarian spirit stems from his parents, who came from humble beginnings in rural Sri Lanka. They lived in a cycle of poverty, but were able to break out of it through the gift of free education. This generosity allowed them to immigrate to Scotland and later Australia to raise their family.

As a 21-year-old medical student, Prince found that there was no Mexican cuisine available in his town of Canberra, Australia. Realizing an opportunity, he set out to create Zambrero, a fast casual Mexican restaurant that aims to both serve delicious

SHAN RIZWAN / HEIGHTS STAFF

Ambrero hopes to accomplish its mission through their Plate 4 Plate initiative.

Mexican cuisine and provide meals to those in need.

Zambrero accomplishes this feat under its Plate 4 Plate initiative, through which the restaurant works with charities, such as Rise Against Hunger and Foodbank, that specialize in distributing meals to impoverished communities across the world. For every meal sold, Zambrero donates one meal to someone in need, with 21 million donated so far. It tries to target developing countries and low-income areas in Australia. In addition, Zambrero makes sure to coordinate with the charities so that resources are not wasted or sold for profit.

Zambrero quickly expanded from its Canberra location to all across Australia , becoming a authentic source for Mexican eats. Then, locations were established in Asia and New Zealand. Zambrero was recognized as one of Australia’s fastest growing franchises from 2011 to 2014, according to the Business Franchise Australia.

Zambrero’s U.S. operations manager Steve Anderson succinctly summarized its success.

“We have found a way to make great quality food in a quick service space.”

They try to locally source most of their ingredients from Massachusetts farms, which results in a fresh, homemade taste. One can often see multiple crates of freshly picked fruits and vegetables positioned behind the counter.

Zambrero’s menu hosts the quint-

SHAN RIZWAN / HEIGHTS STAFF

Prince has spread Zambrero and its philanthropy to 189 restaurants worldwide essential Mexican dishes: burritos, bowls, tacos, and nachos. The restaurants also have gluten-free and vegan options, along with a kids menu.

There are even chikitos, which are smaller versions of burritos, for those times when customers don’t have the appetite for a hefty burrito.

All of the food is made to order, and customers have the ability to choose what they want in their meals.

With original recipes for guacamole and salsa, one may be tempted to get everything. Moreover, there is a line of six original sauces ranging from the titillatingly spicy Red Chilli to the sweet and tangy Secret Barbeque.

The chicken, beef, and pork are

cooked sous vide for 18 hours to produce a richer and more defined flavor. This process is done off-site using a special patented machine called “Esmeralda.”

In addition, Zambrero uses a black rice rather than the typical white or jasmine rice for additional health benefits.

“The black rice has spirulina and amaranth seed, resulting in a superfood that’s very good for both the mind and the body,” said Anderson.

Zambrero also cooks its rice aldente to give it a different, denser texture. This gives the burritos an added crunch that provides variance and excitement in every bite. 

SPORTS

MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2018

B1

@HEIGHTSSPORTS

Tandem for the Ages

That’s a Rapp.

BASEBALL

6.1

ANDY BACKSTROM It took three seasons, but Jessica Dreswick and Allyson Frei are finally in sync—the Boston College softball pitchers are single-handedly carrying the Eagles inside the circle, week in and week out, posting the second-best earned run average in the ACC. The results are years in the making.

Back in 2015, Frei arrived on campus as one of the program’s most heralded recruits in recent history. A four-time All-NJAC selection and 2013 New Jersey Gatorade Player of the Year, the High Point native received offers from just about every top-tier team in the nation.

After committing to BC, Frei instantly became a starter. Not only that, but it was only a matter of time before she was a program record holder. Adjusting quickly to the college ranks, Frei won nine of her first 11 decisions, logging seven complete games in the process—just a sign of what was to come. When all was said and done, she tallied 19 wins, the most in Eagles single-season history, leading the team in ERA and the ACC in strikeouts.

Dreswick—Frei’s classmate and friend—didn’t have quite the same success. Although she appeared in 23 games, the Montverde Academy alumnus only posted five wins, in large part due to the fact that opposing batters were hitting .266 off her. Without a doubt, Frei was the face of the program.

The distinction wasn’t as clear in year two, though. Frei by no means underwent a sophomore slump, but her numbers slightly dipped. Earning her way onto the NFCA Mid-Atlantic All-Region Second Team, she saw an increase in ERA, and, perhaps most notably, a decrease in innings pitched—not because she was getting worse, but because Dreswick was on the rise. Soon enough, the 6-foot hurler was Frei’s partner-in-crime.

Shaving 0.48 points off her earned run average, Dreswick practically doubled her total number of appearances and nearly tripled her win total from her freshman campaign. She really turned heads on April 23, 2016 when she tossed a no-hitter—the first against an ACC opponent

No-Hit Innings

0

Runs Allowed

8

Strikeouts BRADLEY SMART / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Brian Rapp pitched six and two-thirds innings on Sunday afternoon, shutting down Pittsburgh to salvage the series finale and snap BC’s eight-game losing streak.

BY BRADLEY SMART Assoc. Sports Editor Wins haven’t come easily for Boston College baseball this season. Before Sunday, the Eagles were staring at a single-digit win total, an eight-game losing streak, and a Pittsburgh 0 handful Boston College 8 of agonizingly close losses. After losing a pair of games on Saturday against Pittsburgh, one could’ve looked at the painful stretch BC found itself in and assumed that it’d continue to struggle on a brisk

April afternoon.

It didn’t. Behind an excellent start from Brian Rapp and a reinvigorated offense, the Eagles coasted to an 8-0 shutout of the Panthers, avoiding a secondstraight series sweep. After failing to crack the four-run mark in any of its eight previous games, BC (10-19, 5-10 Atlantic Coast) surpassed that total by the fourth inning and the outcome against Pittsburgh (17-11, 6-9) was never truly in doubt.

Rapp impressed on the mound, spinning six and two-thirds shutout innings and taking a no-hitter

into the seventh. With two outs, he gave up a single to right-center that ended the bid and placed runners on the corners, prompting Mike Gambino to emerge from the dugout and make his way to the mound. After convincing his coach to let him stay for another batter, Rapp issued a walk, and that was it. Gambino turned to Thomas Lane, who finished off the inning by inducing a flyout to left.

“He was great today,” Gambino said, then pointed at catcher Gian Martellini as playing a big role in the performance. “Gian

kept him locked in and going, so the combination was fun to watch today.”

A patient Pittsburgh lineup drew six walks against Rapp, but he had overpowering stuff at times, striking out eight—two punchouts shy of his season high.

After giving up four earned runs in each of his last two outings against Clemson and Virginia Tech, the scoreless performance was nothing shy of impressive.

The Panthers managed nothing more than weak contact against

See Baseball vs. Pitt, B3

See Tandem for the Ages, B2

SOFTBALL

Eagles Extend Program’s Longest Win Streak Since 1995

BY BRADLEY SMART Assoc. Sports Editor After winning its last four games by a combined 36 runs, Boston College softball found itself in a close game in the series Boston College 5 finale against N.C. State 3 North Carolina State. Aiming for its 10th-straight victory—which would match the program’s longest win streak in 1995—the Eagles were deadlocked with the host

Wolfpack through seven innings.

After three run-rule games in its last four outings, BC quickly proved that it could win the close ones, too.

The Eagles took a lead in the top of the seventh and couldn’t close it out, but fared better the second time around.

Two innings into extras, Jordan Chimento led off the ninth with a single, advanced to second, and raced home on Chloe Sharabba’s clutch two-out double to right-center. Annie Murphy followed with a RBI single after a 10-

pitch at-bat and Allyson Frei capped off two-plus innings of scoreless relief to earn the victory, securing the series sweep with a 5-3 win in the finale.

The Eagles (19-15, 8-3 Atlantic Coast) continued to roll through conference opponents, winning their seventh-consecutive ACC contest.

N.C. State (20-19, 4-10), meanwhile, saw its own slide stretch to five, clearly overmatched by its conference foes.

BC’s stretch has been characterized by dominance in all facets of the game,

and while the offense cooled off slightly in two of the three weekend games, the streak still soldiered on.

In Sunday’s finale, the Eagles had to fight late to escape Raleigh with the win. Trailing by a run entering the final frame, BC rallied, benefiting from Wolfpack reliever Kama Woodall’s poor control. The right-hander gave up a leadoff single to Emme Martinez, who was pinch run for by Delaney Belinskas. Chimento was hit by a pitch, then a pair of passed balls put both in

scoring position. The Eagles tied it up after an error by the second baseman, then took the lead after Sharabba singled.

They couldn’t keep the lead, though.

Dreswick had given up just two runs through the six previous innings, but would exit soon after. Tasked with finishing off the complete game effort, she ended up facing just two batters and departed—Madeline Curtis’ single and

See Softball vs. N.C. State, B3

LACROSSE

BC Wins Program-Record-Tying Fifth Conference Game

BY NICOLE PLA Heights Staff

BRADLEY SMART / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Sam Apuzzo (left) and Kaileen Hart (right) combined for six goals and 10 points in the win.

INSIDE SPORTS

With a chance to continue its perfect season, Boston College lacrosse headed to Durham, N.C. on Saturday afternoon in search of its Boston College 18 second-ever Duke 8 road victory over Duke. Despite the high winds and pouring rain, the Eagles kept the ball rolling, routing the Blue Devils, 18-8.

Both teams are used to messy weather—No. 16 Duke (7-5, 2-3 Atlantic Coast) played through an unusually wet North Carolina spring, and No. 2 BC (14-0, 5-0) has withstood precipitation, including twice this

past week, all year. The conditions were so bad that BC’s softball team, which was down south facing off against North Carolina State, made the trek to cheer on head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein’s crew, following its series finale’s postponement Because of the weather, ball control was critical. In the first 15 minutes of the opening half, BC won seven of the game’s 10 draws, jumping out to a 7-3 lead. While it took a few minutes for either team to get on the scoreboard, it was the Eagles who drew first blood. After drawing out the shot clock, Cara Urbank capitalized on a narrow window of opportunity. She took her chance and flung a shot that slipped between Gabbe Cadoux’s stick and the pipe, watching it sink

WTEN: BC Drops Second-Straight Match BASEBALL: Eagles Falter in Doubleheader After being blown out by Miami, the Eagles closed out their four-game road trip with another loss at FSU.....B2

into the back of the cage as she fell to the ground. The Blue Devils responded with a goal of their own, but it was the only time they tied the game and the closest they came to BC’s lead.

After Urbank’s initial goal, the Eagles couldn’t be stopped. BC soon posted threestraight goals in the ensuing 10 minutes, in large part thanks to the dangerous duo of Sam Apuzzo and Dempsey Arsenault.

Duke cut the lead to one after logging two goals of its own, turning what looked to be a blowout into a one-goal game. The Eagles weren’t fazed, though. It was only a matter of time before Apuzzo gained possession

See Lax vs. Duke, B3

SPORTS IN SHORT................................... B2

Command troubles and defensive miscues set BC up for a SOFTBALL............................................ B3 long day at home against Pittsburgh................................B4 SPRING FOOTBALL................................ B4

The Heights

B2

Monday, April 9, 2018

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Shut Down by Seminoles, BC Loses Again in Final Game of Road Trip

By Jimmy Mitchell For the Heights

Coming off Friday’s blowout loss at Miami, Boston College women’s tennis looked to get back on track against another FlorBoston College 2 id a conferFlorida State 5 ence foe. The Eagles traveled across the state to Tallahassee to counter No. 19 Florida State. Before the defeat on Friday afternoon, BC had won five of its previous six matches, but a 5-2 loss to the Seminoles on Sunday afternoon put the team on a two-game losing streak with the ACC Tournament quickly approaching.

The Eagles (11-9, 3-8 Atlantic Coast) got off to a slow start in singles competition, as senior Asiya Dair dropped her match in straight sets, 6-2, 6-1, in a rout to Petra Hule. BC bounced back in the second match, though, thanks to a dominant performance by sophomore Kylie Wilcox, who recorded her fifth-straight singles win. She handled Gabriella Castaneda with ease, 6-2, 6-4, as the Eagles tied up the Seminoles (14-7, 6-5).

The Seminoles responded, however, in the ver y next match. In straight sets, Florida State’s Nandini Das topped freshman Natasha Irani, 6-3, 6-1 to put the Seminoles ahead once again, 2-1.

But the Eagles continued to fight, as junior Jackie Urbinati, who picked up the Eagles’ only point against Miami, continued her outstanding play.

Urbinati dominated her opponent, Julia Mikulski, 6-3, 6-2.

After Urbinati’s singles win, BC struggled to keep up with the Seminoles for the rest of the afternoon.

The last two singles matches featured freshman Maria Ross and sophomore Elene Tsokilauri. B oth Ross and Tsokilauri scuffled heavily in their first sets, collecting only one game each against their respective opponents, Ariana Rahmanparast and Andrea Garcia. Ross and Tsokilauri rebounded in the second set and went

toe-to-toe with their conference foes.

Both, however, fell two games short of extending their respective matches.

Rahmanparast and Garcia defeated Ross and Tsokilauri, 6-1, 6-4, adding two more points for Florida State and giving the Seminoles a match-clinching 4-2 advantage at the conclusion of the singles matches.

On the doubles side, the Eagles sent Dasha Possokhova with Wilcox in the first doubles match against Carla Touly and Rahmanparast. Touly and Rahmanparast overwhelmed the Eagles and dominated the match on their way to a 6-1 victory.

Additionally, Tsokilauri and Urbinati competed as a tandem for the

Eagles against Garcia and Mikulski.

While Urbinati got the best of Mikulski in their singles match, Mikulski and FSU got the last laugh, as the Eagles dropped a much closer doubles bout, 6-4. The victory gave the Seminoles their fifth and final point of the day.

It was certainly a tough weekend road trip for BC. With the exception of Urbinati and Wilcox on Sunday, many of the Eagles struggled against elite ACC competition. BC returns home for the final three matches of the season, and will look to straighten things out before the ACC Tournament later this month, needing just one more win to record its most single-season victories in three years. n

Hurricanes Blow Out Eagles, as Urbanti Records Lone Victory

By Andy Backstrom Sports Editor

With five matches remaining in the regular season, Boston College women’s tennis already matched its highest win Boston College 1 total in three Miami 6 years, in large part thanks to a surge in the back half of March. The Eagles won five of six, defeating three ACC opponents in the process—their only loss, a 43 decision at Virginia Tech. But on Friday afternoon, the team slid off the tracks.

For the first time in three weeks, head coach Nigel Bentley’s team lost a match by more than one point. In fact,

the Eagles didn’t even put up a fight in Coral Gables, Fla. Miami recorded the first four points of the day and then tacked on two more just for good measure in the final stages of the contest to cap a dominant 6-1 win.

Right from the get-go, the No. 18 Hurricanes (11-6, 7-3 Atlantic Coast) assumed control of the match. Across the three doubles courts, Miami won the first eight games, jumping out to a commanding 4-1 lead in each of the ongoing sets. The rest was history.

First, No. 88 Dominika Paterova and Ulyana Shirokova polished off a 6-2 victory over Elene Tsokilauri and Jackie Urbinati. Moments later, another ranked duo—No. 82 Sinead Lohan and Ana Madcur—took down

BC’s (11-8, 3-7) top pairing, All-ACC Third Teamer Asiya Dair and freshman Natasha Irani, 6-1. The third and final doubles set was cut short with No. 66 Estela Perez-Somarriba and Daniella Roldan ahead, 5-3, effectively dishing the Eagles’ Dasha Possokhova and Kylie Wilcox their second-straight loss.

BC didn’t fare any better in singles competition. The first match to conclude was also the best advertised. In the only ranked matchup of the day, sixth-ranked Perz-Somarriba routed No. 89 Dair, tallying her ninth victory over top-90 players this season and improving to 18-1 on the spring. To make matters worse for the Eagles, No. 75 Lohan defeated Wilcox in

similar fashion, winning the first two sets, 6-1, 6-2. Once again failing to win more than two games in a set, BC’s Ross limped to a 6-2, 6-2 loss at the hands of Shirokova—the reigning ACC Freshman of the Week.

As soon as the Hurricanes put the match out of reach, BC finally mustered its first and only point of the afternoon. Jackie Urbanti manhandled Ana Madcur, 6-0, 6-3, in what was the junior’s third singles victory in the past four contests.

But Miami’s Paterova reclaimed the Hurricanes’ five-point lead with her second-consecutive 6-3, 6-3 win, beating Tsokilauri. Close to an hour later, Roldan found herself in a backand-forth affair with Irani. Luckily

for the junior, she was able to sweat a three-set, tiebreaker victory to secure the team’s elusive sixth point—just the second time all season that Miami has reached that mark.

The loss bumps BC to 1-25 against its Coastal Division foe, including 018 in Coral Gables. While the all-time series might be lopsided, it’s safe to say that Bentley can’t be happy with his team’s performance, considering that the Eagles blew out the Hurricanes at home just a year ago. That said, BC will get another crack at a top-25 team on Sunday when it travels to Florida State to wrap up its four-game road trip—a stretch that, at this point, appears to have slightly derailed the Eagles’ promising campaign. n

Dreswick, Frei are Best Pitching Duo in BC Softball History Tandem for the Ages, from B1

in program history—versus North Carolina State. Having started 24 games, it was apparent that Dreswick had proved her worth. Entering the 2017 season, the Eagles potentially had one of the best pitching duos not only in the ACC, but the country.

But before BC even kicked off the regular season, Frei went down with an undisclosed season-ending injury.

All of a sudden, the dynamic pairing was no more, and Dreswick had to the put the team on her back. She more than shouldered the weight, leading the Eagles to their second-consecutive 30-win season and highest win percentage since 2003. Starting a program-best 39 games, Dreswick threw 235 innings and 18 complete games, more than her first two years on the Heights combined, all while nursing a stress fracture. Of the team’s 31 victories, she was responsible for 22—shattering Frei’s program record— at one point dropping a 0.41 ERA and 15 strikeouts over a 14-inning span in early April, earning ACC Pitcher of the Week honors. By the end of the year, Frei was almost an afterthought.

Because of the injury, head coach Ashley Obrest gave Frei the opportunity to redshirt her junior year.

The fourth-year pitcher accepted the offer, and went back to work. With the one-two punch finally back to normal, the Eagles were primed for immediate success—well, at least that was the expectation.

BC scored just 15 runs over the course of the first seven games of the season, leaving Dreswick and Frei stranded in the circle. Luckily for

Obrest and Co., her pitchers have been wheeling and dealing since the start of February. And now that the Eagles are finally hitting, Dreswick and Frei are cementing themselves as the best pitching tandem in program history.

As far as BC records are concerned, the two upperclassmen rank inside the top 10 in ERA, opposing batting average, strikeouts, wins, completes games, innings pitched, and an assortment of other statistical categories.

After this year, there’s a good chance Dreswick and Frei will either be at the top or very close to the leaders in just about every single one of those charts.

In fact, as of now, Dreswick has 16 more starts than any other Eagle to take the circle. Frei isn’t too far behind either—her 70 nods are just 11 shy of the second spot on the star-studded list. Not to mention, at this rate, Dreswick will end up passing Allison Gage for the most innings pitched in school history, and Frei will have cracked the top five with a full year remaining in her collegiate career. Above all else, Dreswick is within two victories of being crowned the program’s all-time wins leader. In the coming months, Frei will likely move into the fourth spot, putting herself in great position to break Dreswick’s potential record in 2019.

On paper, a healthy Dreswick-Frei combination was bound to pan out.

But it wasn’t until the calendar turned to February that suspicions were confirmed.

Dreswick has picked up right where she left off a year ago, serving as the team’s primary workhorse. She’s already gobbled up 135 innings in the circle, starting 22 games. Her efficien-

cy has been even more impressive. For the third-straight year, Dreswick has cut down her ERA, posting a careerlow 2.44 mark. Time and time again, she’s made quick work of the side, logging 126 strikeouts in 28 appearances. Fanning batters has never been a problem for Dreswick—preventing runners from reaching base has. But this year, lineups are hitting just .213 against her. To put that in perspective, her opposing batting average has never been lower than .231. The Flemington, N.J. native has improved in nearly every facet of the game, even throwing the program’s first-ever perfect game on March 23 at Virginia.

As good as Dreswick has been, Frei, in many ways, has actually outpitched her former classmate. Judging by her win-loss record, many would assume differently. But, in reality, her 6-7 mark is deceiving, considering that BC’s offense was practically non-existent throughout the first month of the season. While she hasn’t accumulated the volume of innings that Dreswick has, Frei’s ERA is through the roof.

Currently boasting a 1.87 earned run average—0.87 points lower than her previous career low—the redshirt junior finds herself amongst the top pitchers in the ACC. Frei, who is renowned for her punchouts, has compiled 93 Ks in 97.1 innings this season.

Undoubtedly, she’s regaining her mojo by the game.

Individually, the two are some of the best BC has ever had. But, collectively, they are unrivaled. Dreswick and Frei have accounted for 232.1 of the Eagles’ total 233.1 innings pitched this season. Put otherwise, when a BC player takes the circle, there’s a

99.6-percent chance it’s Dreswick and Frei—they are quite literally the Eagles’ pitching staff. No other team in the conference comes closing to matching that percentage: every single one of them has least one pitcher with 18 or more innings in the book this season.

Dreswick and Frei have held up to their end of the bargain all year, but they’re just starting to reap the benefits. Despite giving up just six earned runs in her opening four games, Dreswick didn’t record her first win until she made her fifth appearance of the 2018 campaign. Frei, on the other hand, had it even worse. Bad luck, defensive miscues, and lack of run support was the perfect recipe for a 27 start. No two-game set better exemplified the storm Frei had to weather than BC’s early-season tournament matchup with FIU. In back-to-back starts against the Panthers, she spun a total of 24.1 frames, striking out 18 batters, but her three earned runs turned out to be two too many for the once-putrid Eagles offense, and Frei dropped both games in extras.

Ever since the last week of March, though, BC has finally started to put two and two together. The same team that recorded a combined 10 runs through the first four games of the season, has eclipsed double digits four times in the past three weeks, averaging 7.7 runs per contest—4.41 more than it recorded over the course of the first 24 games of play. The scoring spurt has given Dreswick and Frei multi-run cushions in consecutive starts—a luxury that they haven’t had all year. As a result, BC has been unstoppable, stringing together 10-

straight wins—the program’s most since 1995.

The stretch just goes to show how good Dreswick and Frei really are.

With a productive offense, the wins are coming by the day. Who knows, if the Eagles had been hitting like this from the start, the duo could very well be in line for All-American honors.

If they keep the ball rolling into the postseason, there’s no telling why they wouldn’t be anyway. Regardless of the physical accolades Dreswick and Frei receive, it’s becoming increasingly clear that they longevity and consistency is rebranding the program.

Dreswick and Frei are on pace to finish with a combined 2.20 ERA, the lowest an Eagles pitching staff has recorded since 2001, and that’s when the team was still in the Big East, a traditionally weaker conference. With the upperclassmen in the circle, BC has the chance to beat any team in the country. It’s just comes down to whether or not the offense shows up to play.

For better or worse, neither Dreswick nor Frei’s collegiate career has been conventional. Regardless, the two friends are right where they want to be, throwing at a higher level than ever before and jousting for positioning in team and ACC rankings—perhaps a reminder that everything happens for a reason. No matter how far the Eagles go in the ACC Tournament, Dreswick and Frei should be remembered as the best pitching duo to ever suit up in a BC uniform.

Andy Backstorm is the sports editor for The Heights. He can be reached on Twitter @Andy_Heights.

SPORTS in SHORT ACC women’s lacrosse Conference

Numbers to know

5-0

overall 14-0

North Carolina

4-1

9-3

Virginia Tech

4-1

11-4

Virginia

3-2

8-5

Notre Dame

2-4

7-6

Duke

1-3

6-5

Syracuse

0-4

8-6

Louisville

0-5

6-8

Boston College

237

Goals for lacrosse this season, over 110 more than its opponents.

11

Total home runs this season for baseball, tied for the lowest mark in the ACC.

10

Consecutive wins for softball, the first time the team has had a streak this long since 1995.

QUote of the week

“I really believe you’re going to start to see a change in this club.”

— Mike Gambino,

after baseball snapped an eight-game losing streak Sunday afternoon

The Heights

Monday, April 9, 2018

B3

BASEBALL

Eagles Explode for Eight Runs in Series Finale Against Pitt Baseball vs. Pitt, from B1 him until Ron Washington Jr. laced the decisive single.

He was backed up by more than enough run support, as the Eagles piled up six runs over the course of the third and fourth innings, chasing starter Blair Calvo and roughing up reliever Dan Hammer. Calvo worked quickly through the first two innings—he hit a batter in the first and needed a double play to escape the second, but was finding his spots—he registered a pair of strikeouts.

Then, the bottom of the lineup got things started. Joe Suozzi, who had just six cumulative at-bats on the season, doubled off the wall in left. After a groundout moved him up 90 feet, he raced home and scored on a Dante Baldelli fielder’s choice, beating the throw to the plate with ease. Baldelli worked his way around the bases and

scored the game’s second run via a trifecta of moves. He stole second, moved to third on a passed ball, and slid safely into home after a wild pitch

by Calvo. Hammer got Brian Dempsey to hit an inning-ending groundout a few batters later, but would quickly run into problems.

After Rapp worked around a hit batsmen to strike out the side in the fourth, he watched the lead grow in the bottom of the inning. BC methodically loaded the bases with two outs as Jake Alu singled, while Jake Palomaki and Jack Cunningham both booked free passes to first base. Martellini then laced a twoout, bases-clearing double off the wall in right field. Scott Braren followed with a single to left that brought him in, stretching the lead to a comfortable six.

The Eagles added another insurance run in the seventh after chasing reliever T.J. Pagan. The junior had turned in two-plus innings of scoreless relief, a

much-needed respite for the Panthers pitching staff, but he, too, hit a bump in his outing. He issued walks to Braren and Dempsey, as well as a hard-hit single up the middle from Christopher Galland, resulting in the end of his appearance.

Reliever Peyton Reesman was greeted rudely—Alu lined the first pitch he saw into right field for a sacrifice fly—but settled down to strike out Suozzi and end the frame.

He didn’t fare as well in the next inning, though, as Palomaki teed off for a leadoff home run to left field—he threw a 1-0 pitch right over the heart of the plate and the senior shortstop deposited it over the left field fence. That’d prove to wrap up the scoring, as the Eagles polished off their largest win since March 10 against North Carolina State.

Lane’s relief appearance was significant for more than one reason. Not only did he strand all three runners upon entering, running his streak to 19 in-

herited runners that haven’t scored, but it was also a bounce-back performance from the right-hander. He was handed the loss in Saturday’s painful 13-inning affair against the Panthers, giving up two runs after getting a pair of quick strikeouts. On Sunday, he needed just three pitches to escape the jam, then worked quickly through the Pittsburgh lineup to close it out. He was backed up by a stout defense, the most prominent play a backhand stop from Alu at third followed by a nice pick out of the dirt by Cunningham at first for the second out of the ninth inning.

“With the slide we were on we started to play not to fail or make mistakes,” Gambino said. “Then you’re pretty much guaranteed to make them. Today, they just played baseball.”

Staving off a conference sweep at home with a convincing win in the finale was huge for the Eagles, as they entered Sunday’s game on an eight-game

skid. BC found a variety of ways to lose during the streak that ran back to the Virginia Tech series over two weeks ago—blanked by Connecticut, routed

by Clemson in a painful three-game set, and lost a pair of games in extras that spanned 24 combined innings.

Everything clicked against the Panthers, however—the pitching was superb, the defense made every play, and the lineup got to every pitcher that Pittsburgh head coach Joe Jordano threw at it.

The Panthers had won five straight and were pushing the Eagles even deeper into the Atlantic Division cellar, but BC finally sorted it out and won its third game in nine tries at the new Brighton Field.

“Today was a fun team to watch,” Gambino added, striking an optimistic tone. “That’s more what we’re capable of and I really believe you’re going to see change in this team. After that loss last night, I started to feel it.” n

Bradley Smart / Heights Editor

Joe Suozzi (left) drove in the game-opening run, and Gian Martellini (right) recorded two hits and a trio of RBIs, revitalizing BC’s offense, a unit that was floundering prior to Sunday afternoon’s game.

SOFTBALL

Sharabba’s Go-Ahead Double in Extras Secures Series Sweep Softball vs. N.C. State from B1 advancement to second on a throwing error was enough for head coach Ashley Obrest to bring in Frei.

Frei’s outing got off to a poor start.

She struck out the first batter she faced, but instead of getting the game’s final out, instead conceded a game-tying double to Jade Caraway. She would settle down and hold the Wolfpack scoreless down the stretch, but it was a rare breakdown by the team’s duo of aces in an important moment. It ultimately didn’t matter, as the Eagles found two more runs to push across in the ninth—handing Woodall the loss.

On Friday, the two met for a doubleheader, the product of a poor weather forecast for Saturday.

In the day’s opener, the Wolfpack jumped out to an early 2-0 lead but wouldn’t score again, falling 6-2. The Eagles did their damage in a trio of consecutive innings, taking the lead in the fourth with a three-run frame.

Chimento reached via a fielder’s choice with two outs in the fourth, and an infield single from Olivia Markopoulos and a walk of Sharabba loaded the

bases. A costly throwing error from N.C. State third baseman Timberlyn Shurbutt brought in two runs, and the Wolfpack watched the only lead they’d have on the day slip away.

Another throwing error from Shurbutt scored two more runs in the fifth, and a wild pitch brought home one more. Paired with Carly Severini’s RBI groundout in the second, and the Eagles came away with the easy win. It was a disappointing game for N.C. State’s duo of Devin Wallace and Woodall, as they combined to allow a lone earned run but were still handed the loss.

The second game of the day didn’t require a comeback. The Eagles scored two runs in the first and would ultimately only need to play five innings, run-ruling the Wolfpack, 12-2, on the strength of a seven-run fourth inning. BC piled up 12 hits and took advantage of four N.C. State errors, while Frei struck out five, logging her sixth complete game of the season.

Leading 3-2 entering the back end of the game, the Eagles erupted. An errant throw from Wallace on a ground ball ended up rolling all the way to the fence in center to bring in a run, and it

snowballed for the Wolfpack from there.

Murphy, Cami Sellers, and C.C. Cook all stroked RBI singles, Emme Martinez brought in a run with a sacrifice fly, and Chimento capped it off with a two-run single.

Frei didn’t run into much trouble throughout, allowing just five hits and issuing a lone walk.

The redshirt junior had thrown three scoreless frames in the series opener, so she simply picked up where she left off to finish the day with eight solid innings—coming away with the win in both games.

The series featured both close and big wins for the Eagles, but the simple fact remains: They haven’t been bested in 10 games—a remarkable streak that has put the slow start to the season very far in the rearview mirror. BC has put everything on display during the streak, even winning games when its typical strengths go dormant.

A midweek matchup with Massachusetts looms, as does a home weekend series against Florida State—the No. 13 team in the country—which will be a chance for the Eagles to see how they measure up against the ACC’s elite. n

8 consecutive ACC victories

.555 series batting average for Chloe Sharabba

26 hits during the three-game set

LACROSSE

Despite Adverse Conditions, BC Routs Duke in Durham Lax vs. Duke from B1

Bradley Smart / Heights Editor

The Eagles scored 10 or more goals for the sixth time this season on Saturday.

and charged down the field toward Cadoux. The sophomore didn’t stand a chance against the nation’s top scorer, who bounced the ball past Cadoux to give the Eagles a bit of breathing room.

The goal forced the Blue Devils to switch goalies—out went Cadoux, and in came Jamie Lockwood.

Arsenault welcomed her to the field of play by immediately ripping twine, courtesy of an Apuzzo draw control victory and assist.

As the half progressed, Duke struggled to stop the bleeding. The Blue Devils were helpless on the offensive end of the field, failing to build any sort of momentum throughout the period.

Taking advantage of the wet surface, BC began to shoot low. As the ground in front of Lockwood became increasingly muddy, the Eagles’ attackers realized that if they aimed near the goal line, the ball would die

on the ground and roll into the cage instead of bouncing back up.

That said, the slippery conditions had their drawbacks: Ball security was hard to come by, and, as a result, turnovers were plentiful.

BC notched 12 goals in the first half and Duke tallied five, but both teams were slowed down to just six and three, respectively, in the latter portion of play.

Although Duke entered the second period with more aggression than the first—the Blue Devils rifled a shot past goalie Lauren Daly just 19 seconds into the frame—they had a hard time maintaining possession.

The Blue Devils—who lead the nation with an average of 17.91 draw control victories per game—were held to just 14 on Saturday.

After attempting to come back from a seven-goal deficit to open the half, it remained clear that BC was simply too much for Duke to overcome.

The Eagles didn’t just rely on their

top players like Apuzzo and Arsenault to lock down the win—multiple players got a chance to make a name for themselves throughout the game.

Taylor Walker tied a career high with three goals, while Urbank tacked four points, more than she’s ever recorded in a single game during her two years on the Heights.

Arsenault posted her own single-game high with five goals and six points, and joined teammates, Apuzzo, Walker, and Kaileen Hart who all logged hat tricks throughout the game.

The Eagles, one of the two teams in the country with a perfect record, have the most wins of any top-25 team this season.

With just three games left in the regular season, it’s very possible that BC could enter the championship season much like the women’s hockey team two years ago—without a loss.

The question is, will the Eagles return to the NCAA Championship, and possibly bring home a title? n

The Heights

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BASEBALL

MacLaren’s 13th-Inning Double Sinks BC, Hands Pitt Series

By Charlie Sommers For The Heights Cole MacLaren got the pitch that Pittsburgh was looking for all day: one that would clinch its second-straight ACC series vicPittsburgh 5 tory over BosBoston College 4 ton College baseball. He cracked a Thomas Lane offering to left field, thinking double all the way and arriving there safely as his teammate, Caleb Parry, crossed home.

It gave the Panthers (17-10, 6-8 Atlantic Coast) a 5-4 lead, one that they would not relinquish in a 6-4 victory that wrapped up Saturday’s doubleheader.

For the Eagles, the offense began with Jake Palomaki, who entered the day with the second-highest batting average in the ACC (.373). The junior worked a leadoff walk to start the game, and Dante Baldelli followed by hitting a grounder to third.

Palomaki, utilizing a good jump, beat the throw to second base. The senior’s speed forced Panthers starter Chris Gomez to pay attention to him, and he consequently balked. Palomaki was able to sprint home after Jack Cunningham grounded out to

shortstop, giving BC (9-19, 4-10) the lead for the first time since the early innings of Game One. Dan Metzdorf, seeking his first win of the season, responded to the early BC surge by letting up one hit while striking out five in the first three innings. The first time through the order, the southpaw relied on deception and strike throwing to mow down the Panthers.

The stalemate didn’t last long, though.

In the fourth, Frank Maldonado made the most of a hitter’s count by roping a double down the left field line, and was brought home shortly after by a single over the head of Jake Alu. From the fifth through seventh innings, neither team mustered a hit. In the top of the eighth, Pittsburgh had runners on first and second with two outs, after recording a single and a walk. A warning track fly out by Maldonado ended the threat. Metzdorf ended his day with an impressive line of eight innings of onerun ball, fanning eight in the process while only allowing four hits.

In the bottom of the eighth, Gian Martellini pulled a single through the left side, and advanced to scoring position

on Braren’s sacrifice bunt. After Chris Galland walked, Pittsburgh head coach Joe Jordano turned the ball over to Yaya Chentouf. He struck out Dempsey in three pitches. The next batter, Alu, drove Chentouf ’s offering down the left field line, and it bounced all the way to the wall, scoring runners from first and second to put the Eagles ahead, 3-1.

Joey Walsh came into a save situation in the ninth. With one out, Washington hit a line drive at Suozzi, and he misplayed it into a triple. The next pitch, Popa hit a ground ball towards Alu, who allowed him to reach, thanks to an erratic one-hop throw. After a failed squeeze attempt, Pittsburgh eventually tied the game on RBI singles by Caleb Parry and Alex Amos.

“We’ve gotten into a little bit of a skid because, as a team, we’ve gotten to a spot where we’re trying not to make a mistake, on the mound and on the field, and when you do that you pretty much guarantee you are going to make a mistake,” Gambino said about his team’s late-game defensive miscues.

BC’s next chance to win the game didn’t arrive until the bottom of the

11th. Alu, on second base with one out, was sent home after a Palomaki single to Maldonado. Gambino underestimated Maldonado—a redshirt senior that has committed three errors in his entire college career—who fired a strike, knocking Alu down at the plate. Alu laid on the plate and stared at the umpire in disbelief, knowing that his team came up just short once again.

With two outs in the top of the 12th, David Yanni unloaded on the first pitch he saw against Joey Walsh—a deep opposite field fly that soared through the night sky and banged off the scoreboard in right field. He ran around the bases beating his chest in celebration, and after he crossed home plate and returned to the dugout, his teammates adorned him with a gold “home run helmet,” a new Pittsburgh tradition, as they mobbed him outside of the dugout.

Chentrouf, in his fourth inning of work, now had a new goal in sight: to collect a save. With no outs and an 0-1 count, Martellini crushed a fastball into the right-center gap for a triple, and Galland proceeded to send him home on a fielder’s choice, tying the game at four.

The freshman then stole second to get into scoring position with one out. BC blew another opportunity when, on a wild pitch, Galland tried to score from second.

He found himself in a rundown, and was tagged out by Sabino. If he were to have stayed at third base with one out, there would have been plenty of ways for him to score, but Galland getting caught on the basepaths virtually ended BC’s threat.

Lane entered the game in the 13th with a bang, striking out the first two people that he faced. With two outs though, trouble ensued for the Eagles.

Lane walked Perry on a 3-2 count, who would come around to score when MacLaren doubled to left. Unfortunately for Lane, that wasn’t the worst of it. Amos proceeded to hit a base knock to centerfield, scoring MacLaren and extending Pitt’s lead to 6-4.

The Eagles went down in order in the bottom of the 13th, extending their losing streak to eight games. It has been a dreadful stretch for BC—a team that couldn’t capitalize when it mattered most on Saturday. Now 10 games below .500, the Eagles are watching their season slip away by the inning. n

BRADLEY SMART / HEIGHTS EDITOR

The series got off to a bumpy start for the Eagles as they were swept in a Saturday double-header, the product of a bullpen that faltered in deadlocked games­, giving up five runs in the fifth in the opener.

Pittsburgh Rides Five-Run Fifth to Series-Opening Win

By Charlie Sommers For The Heights Jacob Stevens was dealing early on for Boston College baseball. In the top of the first inning, the junior got all three Pittsburgh batters Pittsburgh 7 swinging. In the Boston College 2 second, he shut down the Panthers again on three consecutive flyouts. From there, though, just as they have for the Eagles throughout their current losing streak, things fell apart, as BC couldn’t hold an early lead and eventually fell in the series opener, 7-2.

The BC (9-18, 4-9) bats came out of the dugout in the bottom of the second ready to score some runs for their starter. After working a 2-1 count, Scott Braren slapped a leadoff single up the middle. The following batter, second baseman Brian Dempsey, snuck a grounder over second base for another single. The Eagles had runners on first and second with no outs. These runners would remain at their respective bases

with two down, unable to advance because of a Jake Alu foul out and a Jake Goodreau strikeout. Joe Suozzi followed with another single up the middle, giving the Eagles a quick 1-0 advantage.

Stevens, pitching with a lead for the first time, walked Nico Popa to start the third inning. The starter’s first lapse of the game was an encapsulation of the command struggles he would face the rest of the game.

Soon, Popa advanced to second on a passed ball. With no outs, Connor Perry had a job to do: advance his runner to third. Perry did just this by driving a 1-2 pitch to right field.

Pittsburgh’s (16-10, 5-8 Atlantic Coast) small ball worked to perfection when catcher Cole MacLaren grounded out to second, scoring Popa and tying the game at one.

The Eagles responded by playing some small ball of their own. Three-hitter Jack Cunningham forced an error by hitting a slow roller to third base, and Dante Baldelli got pegged by the next pitch. They raced to scoring position on a wild pitch, which ended up being insignificant because Braren

was able to draw a walk, getting on base for a second-straight time, loading the bases with one out.

On cold days like Saturday, pitchers often reap an advantage on hitters if they pitch inside. If the hitter makes contact, his hands will be left stinging, and the ball does not fly as far as it does on warm, summer afternoons. Pittsburgh starter Matt Pidich’s willingness to pitch inside hurt him more than it hurt BC. For the second time in the inning, he plunked a BC hitter. This time, with the bases loaded, it allowed a run to score. Dempsey earned an RBI the hard way, and the Eagles took a 2-1 lead.

After Pidich escaped the bases-loaded jam with a 4-6-3 double play, Pittsburgh stole the show. In the top of the fourth, backto-back walks left Stevens with runners on for the second-consecutive inning. Similar to the third inning, Stevens was unable to escape unscathed. Frank Maldonado sacrifice bunted down the first base line to advance the runners to second and third. Stevens, clearly in a battle with his command at this

point, threw a wild pitch to Nick Banman, scoring the runner from third and equalizing the score at two.

To start the fifth, Stevens hit Popa on a full count and walked the ensuing hitter. MacLaren—sticking to his team’s strategy—bunted the runners into scoring position. After Pittsburgh walked to load the bases, Liam Sabino smacked a sacrifice fly to right field, giving the Panthers a 3-2 lead.

Stevens was unable to get out of the inning, and with little left in the tank, he issued his sixth free pass of the day to David Yanni. This prompted BC head coach Mike Gambino to make a switch on the mound.

“The way he was throwing the ball [early], I was like, ‘man, he’s going to go nine right now,’” Gambino said about Stevens’ performance. “He just lost the zone … he’s shown so many times that he can not have his stuff, not feel great and [still] work through it. And he just didn’t today.”

Right-handed reliever Sean Hughes was called upon to escape the jam. Hughes, like Stevens, could not find the strike zone. He

hopped four outside fastballs to the only batter he faced, walking home another run. Gambino quickly yanked the junior for lefty Zach Stromberg, who—right on cue—walked the first batter he faced in five pitches. That gave Pittsburgh three-straight walks, all off of different pitchers.

With an opportunity to blow the game wide open, Ron Washington Jr. laced a single up the middle, scoring Yanni and a racing Maldonado home. Stromberg finally got the strikeout he was looking for when he aced Popa in three pitches, but the damage was already done. Pittsburgh pushed across five runs in the top of the fifth, gaining a 7-2 lead on the Eagles.

Stromberg ultimately fought through two and two-thirds innings, but not before he gave up two more runs in the eighth. The Eagles were able to match that in the bottom half of the inning, when Cunningham hit a line-drive single to center field that scored two runs. That would be all for the Eagles, who dropped the first leg of the doubleheader. n

FOOTBALL

What to Look for at the Jay McGillis Memorial Spring Game

By Ben Thomas Asst. Sports Editor After its fourth 7-6 finish in five years, Boston College football hopes this is the year it finally gets over the hump. The Jay McGillis Memorial Spring game this Saturday afternoon will be the Eagles’ first opportunity to prove that they have grown into an entirely new group. BC will be without 15 seniors that are set to graduate next month—including nine on the defensive side of the ball, meaning there are lots of spots to fill on the depth chart. While players like A.J. Dillon and Zach Allen solidified themselves as stars midway through last season, there are still lots of other position battles to keep an eye on. Here’s what to watch for: 1) Running Back Depth Dillon is set to be the bellcow running back for BC next year—that much is certain, but beyond that, it’s gets a little shaky. Jonathan Hilliman began last season as lead back, but Dillon’s emergence changed everything, prompting the graduate student to take his talents to Rutgers. Now, the No. 2 slot is wide open for sophomore Travis Levy, who has just 21 career rushing attempts for a 2.6 yards per carry average.

Levy has put on 10 pounds of muscle since the start of the offseason, and Saturday will be his first chance to display a more powerful run game. He will be challenged by junior Ben Glines, who has exceeded expectations in spring practices thus far, scoring on a long touchdown run back in March.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, Dillon isn’t invincible, and will need to rest at certain points next season. It could be Levy, Glines, or even former quarterback John Fadule in the backfield for BC next season, and all will have a chance to prove their worth come Saturday.

2) Aerial Attack While the running game broke out for BC for the first time since Andre Williams’ Heisman-nomination worthy season in 2013, the Eagles’ passing game has improved significantly as well—with yardage totals increasing in each of the past three years. Although Anthony Brown will be absent from the spring game—he’s still recovering from a knee injury suffered last year—backups E.J. Perry and Matt McDonald will suffice as valuable replacements on Saturday.

More interesting, though, will be the competition at the wide receiver

spot. As a freshman, Kobay White led his group in receiving yards, but the Eagles’ spring roster now boasts eight upperclassmen wideouts. Charlie Callanan and Thadd Smith were the only senior receivers to play their final game last December, and the two only combined for 176 years last season.

It is assumed that Michael Walker will start opposite White next season, but senior Elijah Robinson, who last caught a pass in the 2015 season, has shown a great rapport with McDonald in practice and could revitalize his career this season, starting on Saturday.

The team’s leading receiver in yards and touchdowns, tight end Tommy Sweeney, will be playing his final season on the Heights, and it is likely the passing offense will revolve around him once again. Still, offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler has increased his use of BC’s speedy receivers in his three years in Chestnut Hill, and Saturday will be the first indication of whether or not he will utilize Perry’s arm as a deep passing threat.

3) Special Teams Ever since Nate Freese left BC in 2014, the Eagles have struggled mightily in the kicking game—look no further than a botched field goal at-

LIZZY BARRETT / HEIGHTS EDITOR

With starter Anthony Brown still recovering, E.J. Perry has taken the first team snaps. tempt in a key moment against North Carolina State just last year. To make matters worse for the Eagles, they will be without their ever-reliable punter, Mike Knoll, in 2018.

Head coach Steve Addazio will have to put his trust into redshirt sophomore Grant Carlson, who is likely to man the fourth-down action for BC, but the punter has yet to play a single career snap.

Colton Lichtenberg will continue to work the field goal unit for BC, but the senior made just 12 of 20 attempts last season. Incoming freshman John Tessitore could very well take the starting spot as soon as next season. The young kicker was ranked as Connecticut’s ninth-best player overall, and could cure what has been one of the most inconsistent part of the Eagles’ game in recent years. n

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‘A Quiet Place’ Succeeds Through Silent Screams

BY JACOB SCHICK Arts Editor How many people could really survive a day—or an hour—without making any noise? If life really depended on it, could people live their lives below a whisper?

Most people probably don’t realize how much noise they make. Whether it’s setting down a glass on a table, flushing the toilet, or even walking on a hard surface, we all make noise inadvertently all of the time without consciously acknowledging it. A Quiet Place provides a fascinating look at a world where any noise above a whisper is a death sentence. John Krasinski’s directorial debut begins a little more than 90 days into

the apocalypse. The Abbott family of five works to stay alive in the newly dangerous world. Horrific monsters have invaded earth, brutally killing anything that makes enough noise to be heard. These creatures are blind, but they are heavily armored and have a highly discerned sense of hearing.

Lee and Evelyn (Krasinski and Emily Blunt) guide their three children from the house to the pharmacy on a supply run for their oldest son, Marcus (Noah Jupe), who is sick and needs medicine.

While the parents secure the area and search for antibiotics, Regan Abbott (Millicent Simmonds) looks out for her younger brother, Beau (Cade Woodward). As A Quiet Place changes perspectives between

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the characters, moving to Regan, the film silences itself. In a world where an awareness of sound is the difference between life and death, Regan is deaf. When A Quiet Place follows the other characters, we hear the background noise—the wind blowing through the trees, the rustle of clothes, breathing. Regan can only rely on her sight to alert her of danger, and the audience must follow suit.

In a movie with very few lines delivered through speech, A Quiet Place is championed by the mostly-silent performances of the characters. The family signs to each other—which A Quiet Place translates with subtitles—and uses facial expressions, body language, and gestures to communicate.

The amount of information and emotion that these actors convey is astounding. A Quiet Place is rife with weighty moments of heart and terrifyingly suspenseful scenes of anticipation—muscles tense and bodies cringe as the audiences waits for the inevitable horror. The film does use jump scares scattered sparsely throughout, but it doesn’t lean on them heavily.

What’s really interesting about A Quiet Place are the “jump scares” from the point of view of Regan. There aren’t any loud and startling noises to make her and the audience leap in their seats. Instead, we can watch Regan, who can see but not hear, narrowly avoid stumbling into a murderous monster who can hear but not see. The

movie is so quiet, it’s almost impossible not to hear every noise that comes not from the speakers, but from the other people in the theater. This is certainly interesting, but it’s also very annoying. For this reason, you can hear all of the rustles of hands reaching into popcorn buckets, all of the shifts in seats, all of the quiet coughs. This is only exacerbated if there are talkers in the theater.

Yet, this seemingly annoying quality of the theater-going experience also might prove a boon for the movie. Seeing A Quiet Place in theaters for a first time provides the wide-screen horrific experience that A Quiet Place deserves. Watching it in theaters delivers the impact and the atmosphere in the best way it can be enjoyed. But, A Quiet Place should be watched a second time, at home. A second viewing allows return viewers to notice more of the tiny details of a noiseless world. It also allows viewers to watch A Quiet Place without the distraction of a theater audience. An entirely quiet viewing experience is what A Quiet Place deserves as the great movie it is.

Joining Get Out as another directorial debut horror movie from an actor who got their start in comedy, A Quiet Place is easily the best horror movie of 2018 yet. It is wellacted, well-written, and well-directed. The film struggles at times with the motivations behind “those big moments,” but none of this detracts from what the film aspires to and achieves. 

‘Invasion of Privacy’ Illustrates Honest Rebellion

BY LUIS FIALHO Heights Staff

After the incredibly popular five-time platinum-certified single “Bodak Yellow,” Bronx-based female rapper Cardi B stood up to the hype and fully delivered with her debut album Invasion of Privacy. Impeccably produced, consistent, and honest, Invasion of Privacy cemented Cardi B’s status as a rising force in the hip-hop music industry.

“Get Up 10,” the first song on the album and arguably one of the best, is Cardi B showing off her unique personality to its fullest extent. In typical Cardi B style, she raps about her hard work and past professions without shame, declaring herself a “real bitch, only thing fake is the boobs.” This theme of honesty and openness continues throughout the rest of the album as Cardi plays with this idea of privacy, a subject which she can speak on from experience.

Following is “Drip (ft. Migos),” one of the few songs on the album released as a single, and understandably so. Lacking some of the thematic overtones that fill the best songs on this album, “Drip” is a solid collaboration and a decent track. This single takes no risks, and as such does nothing wrong, but perhaps could have benefited from being a little less safe. Continuing the path of safety was “Bickenhead,” a track that followed the same safe route as “Drip,” with an equally mediocre result, if perhaps a little more interesting. “Bickenhead” has some lyrics that are definitely memorable, resulting in a track that will likely be popular in its own right, if only because it fits into the mainstream

without any difference.

After three consecutive bangers, Cardi B shifts gears with “Be Careful,” a much more personal and intimate track about her own experiences with infidelity. While not as mellow as some later tracks, “Be Careful” reveals a different side of Cardi B, one that shows her trademark bite and hard-hitting flow can work with softer beats and more emotional lyrics just as successfully as with more classic bangers. Taking that softer edge and making it better is “Best Life (ft.

Chance the Rapper),” one of the tracks on the album with a collaboration that is truly successful. Chance’s verses are as warm and melodic as ever, contrasting with Cardi B’s voice in a way that works wonderfully. With lyrics that are at times clever yet intimate, “Best Life” is mellow but engaging track that continues the themes laid out in the first song on the album. Following up with another incredible collaboration is “I Like It,” a Spanish-infused banger that is utterly surprising and utterly welcome. With clean samples and a Spanish verse that flows very well with Cardi B’s own flow, this is a song that hits hard in the best way possible, and is a definite highlight of the album.Returning to a calmer mood was “Ring” (ft. Kehlani), where once again Cardi Btakes a step away from her expected high-energy music to do a more sensual and mellow track. Kehlani once again delivers with a great feature, her smooth vocals resonating well with the rest of the track.

“Money Bag” is the absolute opposite, providing one of the favorites of the album.

Here Cardi B’s trademark sting is at its best,

combining with impeccable production in a track that slaps just as hard as “Bodak” and succeeds where other hype tracks like “Drip” and “Bickenhead” falter. “Bartier Cardi” is another typical hard-hitting Cardi, this time with some help from 21 Savage to carry this track to popularity. Released as a single, this track is notable for its surprisingly good adlibs and flawless production. “She Bad” is a track that doesn’t quite fulfill the promise of what came before it, the unbelievable repetitiveness unfortunately resulting in a rather lack-luster feel, that while not terrible, provides a definite break from the trend of successful tracks like “Money Bag” or “Bartier Cardi.”

Thankfully, “Thru Your Phone” picks up the slack with Cardi B once again providing an intimate look into her views on adultery,

spitting some of her fiercest bars in one of her more melancholy tracks. That interesting juxtaposition works surprisingly well, with Cardi B’s harsh edge blending well with Ali Tamposi’s smooth vocals. Finishing up was “I Do (ft. SZA),” providing the perfect exit in the same way “Get Up 10” provided the perfect entrance.Cardi B is openly rebellious in the best possible way, with SZA finishing a list of incredible collaborations that populated this album.

Personal and revealing, yet fiercely defiant, this song carried an infectious arrogance that defined the album as a whole. Overall, Cardi managed to fulfill in a great way the promise of “Bodak Yellow,” cementing her own honest yet arrogant style as one that will continue to define her as one of hip-hop’s current stars. 

Heights Senior Staff

It’s 2018 and we’re finally getting the movie we deserve: one in which teenage girls make their own decisions, there’s diverse representation, and John Cena sticks a tube up his ass for laughs. Yes, I’m talking about Blockers, the latest teen comedy that surpasses all expectations for the genre. Its punchy dialogue, well-developed characters, and incredibly raunchy situations make it a winner, the first movie in recent years that can stand next to Superbad.

Lisa (Leslie Mann) is a single mother to Julie (Kathryn Newton), and they do everything together. But along with her best friends since kindergarten, Kayla (Geraldine

Viswanathan) and Sam (Gideon Adlon), Julie’s made a pact to lose her virginity on prom night. When Lisa sees Julie’s iMessage left open on her computer explaining the pact with Emojis, she gathers Mitchell (Cena) and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) to try to stop them. As you can guess, hilarity ensues.

Cena provides most of it, taking more of the risks involved, including the aforementioned butt-chugging scene. In another scene, he puts himself right in the middle of two other parents’ night of role play at home. Spoiler alert: You see Gary Cole’s genitalia. Later, Hunter tries to guide Lisa through a driving maneuver he saw in one of the Fast and Furious movies. In my showing, each one led to uproarious laughter, though none of this is for the faint of heart—or children—Blockers

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‘DRIVING’ GROUPER

Grouper, an ambient-drone artist based in Astoria, Ore., is known for her drowsy and often dream-like compositions.

In “Driving,” a single from her upcoming album Grids of Points, Grouper crystallizes a style that is more formal and elemental, discarding heavily layered seas of synths for an icy piano melody that conveys the emptiness of memory.

The silent opening, where only the bare traces of sifting wind or footsteps are audible, proves Grouper’s unique ability to establish an extremely strong atmosphere through the most minimal means possible.

Grouper’s vocals drag alongside the daintily plucked melodies, like the solemn chime of a music box or nursery rhyme.

Her subdued whisper, rising and swooning among swathes of piano reverb, renders only a handful of lyrics comprehensible.

When we do understand them, their sparsity evokes a vast and mythical sense of scenery.

Grouper only completely articulates her message with the final line, ”a tunnel made of sun rays,” which is delivered promisingly and with halfhope, as if she intends to finish the sentence. But the song stops there, leaving us to bask in the warmth of a never-completed moment. 

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is about sex, after all.

At the beginning, the dialogue between the girls feels a little robotic, or at least not the way three 18-year-olds would talk now.

It gets better as the movie goes on, leading to some genuine-sounding conversations between the trio and their dates. Viswanathan carries the humor for the prom-goers, playing Kayla like the crazy friend everyone had in high school with the right amount of carefree and dangerous qualities.

One of Blockers’ biggest strengths is that it turns comedy on its head a little. In the past, we’ve mostly seen the quest to have sex through a male lens—Molly Ringwald wrote an essay in the New Yorker just this week about how unsettling it is to look back at the misogyny and carefree sexual harassment of women in films like Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. It’s rare to find a movie so frank about female sexuality, and Blockers presents it well. Each girl’s path is different: Julie wants the perfect night with her boyfriend of six months, Kayla has decided to make it happen with her date, though she can’t recall his last name, and Sam isn’t really interested in men at all, but feels like she has a point to prove. The film also does well to include more diverse casting and unique families. Cena’s wife (Sarayu Rao) is an Indian interior designer, while he is a stay-at-home dad.

Mitchell is presented as emotional and very sensitive about his daughter, showing that men can cry and also still kick your

TRISTAN ST. GERMAIN

‘VACATION’

‘Blockers’ is Humorously Heartfelt and Honest

BY SHANNON KELLY

SINGLE REVIEW

ass. Sam’s stepdad is Frank, played by Hannibal Buress. And Angelica, Sam’s dorky crush that shows up to prom in a cosplay cape, is Asian. It’s definitely a small step for equity in film casting, but it felt like a real effort was there to create a cast that anyone could see themselves in.It’s clear that the main characters of Blockers are Julie and her mom. Lisa doesn’t want her daughter making the same mistakes she did, while Julie wants to go to UCLA, something that hasn’t even occurred to her somewhat suffocating mother, who thought she would go to nearby UChicago.

The most heartfelt of storylines, however, is between Sam and her dad (Barinholtz).

His reasoning for going after the girls is more justified than Lisa and Mitchell’s: He knows Sam is gay and doesn’t want her to feel pressured into doing something she doesn’t want to do. And up against Cena, he’s the next funniest character in the movie. Produced

by Seth Rogen, it’s no surprise that Blockers is funny. But it’s more than that—it’s hilarious in a way I haven’t seen since Bridesmaids and in the teen audience, since the incredible work that is Superbad.

Though you’re rooting for the kids, you’re also rooting for the parents, so they can at least make a final connection before their daughters go off to college. It may be heavy on the sexually explicit jokes, but that doesn’t take away from the truly beautiful moments in the film. And really, who can hate on John Cena? 

In an era of Soundcloud, Spotify, Bandcamp, and a variety of other music-sharing platforms, artists often find themselves seeking new ways to self-promote through rowdy or unusual antics. Rap trio Flatbush Zombies (composed of Meechy Darko, Erick Arc Elliott, and Zombie Juice) approaches and parodies just this very dilemma in their most recent music video, “Vacation (The Movie).” As the title suggests, the video is more than just a montage of the rappers strolling the neighborhood while spitting bars into the camera—the Zombies take us into a bar in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where they discuss ideas for a music video that will earn hits on YouTube.

With a change of heart, we see a different version of the video—where Elliot is stumbling naked through snow, hauntingly cooing lyrics that describe a deeply personal moral crisis. In contrast, Zombie Juice and Joey Bada$$ ride a yacht boarded with women gauzed in glue and glitter, their saturated saccharine get-ups bursting against the azure sky backdrop. Ice-T enters the bar in real time and tells Juice he’s the “flyest of the group”—a surprisingly lax summation of his character in comparison to Darko’s interview with actor John Leguizamo, who tells the crucifix-waving rapper that his projected “darkness” is just for show. In the funniest bit of the video, Leguizamo asks Darko, “Ever seen an ex-con use his veins as dental floss?” Re-evaluating the authenticity of his stage persona, we leap in to a segment of a separate music video in which Darko sloshes around in a bathtub filled with blood, rapping over jangled piano chords that echo dissonantly. “I’m the darkest rhymer since DMX dropped that album with blood all over his body,” raps Darko.

In the end, the three leave the diner, still wondering how they’re going to promote their album. “Put the hook at the end of the video,” says Darko—and in suite, the chorus for “Vacation” starts blaring over the cooly neon lit street-scape. 

The Heights

Monday, April 9, 2018

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‘BC’s Best’ Lineup Settled at ‘Singer Songwriter’ Show Up to Showdown

By Kaylie Ramirez Assoc. Arts Editor

Student performers filled Vandy Cabaret Room for the Singer Songwriter competition on the evening of Thursday. A panel of four judges (Mary Kate DiNorcia, MCAS ’19; Alex Eichler, MCAS ’20; Austin Hord, MCAS ’20; and Stefan Strychar, a member of the band A Modern Armada) chose the top four singers, who will perform at BC’s Best at Arts Fest later this month.

Stavros Piperis, MCAS ’19, kicked off the night with “Till the Morning Breaks,” a building acoustic guitar-driven ballad that allowed the singer to showcase a large range of emotions. He then performed “I Remember,” a song that recalled memories with nostalgic lyrics and included a building guitar solo that evolved to reveal low, vulnerable riffs.

Next up was Nicole Rodger, MCAS ’19,

who introduced her first song by warning the audience she was going to slow it down. The singer complemented her soft voice with a steady acoustic guitar riff to create a dreamy tone for her first song. She was joined by her fellow Shady Lady band member Alex Moran, MCAS ’19, who also performed her own pieces later in the night, for the second song. The two harmonized to convey the longing lyrics of the song.

Little Saturday’s Andrew Hammond, MCAS ’18, exhibited his illustrious range of musical talents in his two song set, using his laptop to keyboard, drum, and autotune throughout. Hammond was accompanied by bandmate Zachary Moelchert, CSOM ’21, who played bass during the “esoteric” first song about trees and the second song, which Hammond introduced as a song “for guys who have girlfriends who ask a lot of questions.” While the subject matters of the songs were relatively irreverent, the musi-

kaitlin Meeks / Heights editor

Mac Porter, MCAS ’21, was chosen to perform at ‘BC’s Best’ for his song, “Don’t Try.”

cians demonstrated skill that indicated their seriousness about music.

Building on the lighthearted mood, Alex Waldner, MCAS ’19, took the stage with his ukulele to perform a hilarious song about a reformed college dropout. The audience laughed along as he worked his way through bold lyrics like “School told me to f—k off based on the grades I got,” maintaining perfect comedic delivery the whole time.

Jeremy Espano, MCAS ’19, employed his commendable keyboarding skills for “Find Your Way,” an uplifting song with a happy beat and optimistic lyrics. Espano switched to his acoustic guitar for “Take Off Your Shoes,” a love song with busy, upbeat strumming and a chorus that questioned “Why are you so afraid of love?”

Shea Heitz, MCAS ’20, captivated the room with her haunting voice during her two-song set, which included “Fixing Me” and “Framed Pictures.” The singer’s endearment for her two friends to whom the song was dedicated was obvious as she sang the lyric “I thought that I could fix you / But little did I know, you were fixing me” in the former. “Framed Pictures” discussed the transient nature of life over a delicate piano progression.

Mac Porter, MCAS ’21, upped the energy of the room with his Ed Sheeran-esque groovy acoustic guitar riffs and quick lyrical delivery. “Don’t Try,” the singer’s first song, featured fast tempo verses to create a poppy feel while “Too Young To Be Alone” boasted a building chorus to convey the talented songwriter’s heartbreak.

The audience was enthralled by the massive musical talent of Liz McGovern, MCAS

’18. The singer’s effortless, folkish voice filled in slow, acoustic guitar riffs on “How to Leave a Lover,” a song she sarcastically dubbed “one of the happiest songs [she has] ever written.” She closed her brief set with the expertly written “Beautiful Man,” which compares the subject of the sultry song to the work of the world’s best artists.

Joe Malone, MCAS ’21, provided fuzzy alternative rock guitar riffs for the vocals of his friend Tim Fortin, UMass Amherst ’21.

The duo drifted through songs about loving and longing and closed their set with “Only You,” a track in which the singer repeated “Wish I could get you off my mind.”

Moran returned to the stage to perform two of her original pieces. “Company” featured mingling acoustic guitar riffs as the skilled singer crooned “I want to be your company for eternity.” Moran was joined by her sister Camille for the second song, in which the two harmonized for the chorus that included lyrics about being invisible to the one you want.

The folkish feel made a reappearance for the two song set of Peyton Spencer, MCAS ’18. The singer’s first song, unofficially dubbed “Gravedigger,” payed homage to the night sky under which she made fond memories. The singer delicately plucked the guitar strings she expertly tuned between songs to create the nostalgic feeling of “4 AM,” a track she joked is only “moderately about Michigan”—a common topic for the songwriter’s work.

Despite the steep competition throughout the night, McGovern, Piperis, Spencer, and Porter were selected to perform at BC’s Best at Arts Fest. n

‘Swing Spectacular’ Sends Students Soaring

By Emily Himes Asst. Arts Editor

Boston College Full Swing packed the Rat for a night of flips, jumps, and twirls.

The eight-song set featured talented dancers who captivated the audience with their ability to seemingly fly over the stage and do flips in midair.

The show started off with a performance of “Another Day of Sun,” which many people recognized to be the first song in La La Land (the traffic scene).

The performance, coordinated by Sierra Acosta, MCAS ’19; Matt Morris, CSOM ’19; and Kathleen Flaherty, MCAS ’19, was whimsical and bright—the female dancers all sported a rainbow of primary colors as they stepped onstage with steering wheels in hand. The male dancers donned white costumes, allowing the vivid brightness of their female counterparts to really pop.

“Another Day in the Sun” ended with lots of midair flipping, timed and coordinated perfectly.

“You’re the One that I Want,” the Grease classic, was exceptionally fun. It was choreographed by Anna Grabovac, MCAS ’18 and Dave Somers, CSOM ’18.

The girls donned “Pink Ladies” jackets as they walked onstage, complete with red bandanas around their necks. A few seconds into the dance, the jackets came off to reveal sleek, all-black outfits. The

audience cheered on as their friends were swooped into the air and stuck their landings perfectly. The girls were being tossed and swung in every which way during this performance, but the whole group pulled it off with ease.

The third performance of the night, choreographed by Elizabeth Attaya, MCAS ’18; Tara Coffey, MCAS ’20; and Erica Osiecki, LSOE ’18, was to “San Francisco,” sung by The Mowgli’s. The old-fashioned number was charming and sweet. It was the only all-girl number of the night, featuring bright colors and a fast-paced beat. After “San Francisco” came a guest appearance by the dance team Conspiracy Theory.

Smiles appeared all over when the audience heard the first few chords of The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There.” The number consisted of freshmen alone and was choreographed by Jason Rothstein, CSOM ’19 and Ashley Stauber, MCAS ’20. The girls’ costumes were black and white, and the boys donned suspenders and bow ties. Although this set might have had a bit of a slow start, it picked up by the end. Before the audience knew it, the dancers were spinning and gliding through the air.

What would a BC event be if it didn’t feature a song by The Killers? The sixth performance of the night, set to “Mr. Brightside,” was choreographed by Kate

Jake evans / Heights STAFF

Full Swing performers twirl and spin in unison across the stage in The Rat. Bade, MCAS ’20 and William Stone, MCAS ’19. The girls wore black ballet skirts, and the boys wore matching vests.

The lyrics of the song, specifically the line “Are we human or are we dancers?” made for a dramatic performance.

The Jack and Jill set was made up of multiple short partner dances. The winners of the competition got a prize (a White Mountain gift card). Each couple had a different set of costumes, but they were all coordinated well. There was a variety of songs performed, ranging from Andy Grammer’s “Honey I’m Good” to “Goofy Goober Rock” from The Spongebob SquarePants Movie, from Chubby Checker’s “Let’s Twist Again” to “Treasure” by

Bruno Mars. The audience cheered loudly for all the contestants who had clearly practiced their performances until they knew them absolutely perfectly.

The show ended with a mix from Hercules, complete with togas and other costumes from the movie. This set incorporated songs such as “Sorry Not Sorry”

by Demi Lovato and “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne. The performance was chaotic and busy—many people in the audience seemed confused by the dialogue, taken from the movie—but the dancers knew what they were doing. They flipped and twirled through the air, simulating fights and battles in the most artistic way possible. n

‘Bought & Sold’ Showcases Sobering Artwork

By Jacob Schick Arts Editor

While art can often depict scenes of serenity or objective beauty, it also has a very unique ability to provide social criticism in a visual medium. The latter is on full display in the exhibit in the Social Work Library, located on the basement level of Boston College’s McGuinn Hall. Bought & Sold: Voices of Human Trafficking is artist Kay Chernush’s depiction of a globalized society that has forced girls and women, through dire financial straits or the promise of a better life, to engage in

prostitution. This same society has created a black market for other kinds of sex trafficking, in which girls and women are taken from poor countries or communities and trafficked hundreds or thousands of miles to those who pay for them.

Large pieces of art hang on the walls throughout the Social Work Library.

Posted next to each piece is a plaque of wall text. Instead of including the medium of the piece, or a description by the author, these texts are simply quotes. They are attributed to women who have been sex trafficked across places like Russia, Thailand, the Neth-

Katie Genirs / Heights Editor

Artist Kay Chernush uses artwork to critique a society that has allows sex trafficking.

erlands, Germany, Nigeria, and Italy.

One of the first pieces one might see when walking into the library is a large and blurred picture of a man. Next to him is the faded image of a young woman, blending and disappearing into the background. When the wall text of the piece, Somebody’s Brother Son Father, is taken into account, the context of the piece comes into full view, and is incredibly moving and saddening.

The quote is introduced as “A john’s’ narrative.”

It reads: “Why do you care if older men are with younger women? Is it any of your business? This is just a wedge issue to try and get a global ban on prostitution. That’s the true aim. It’s not child sex. In my opinion, very few men are having sex with minors in Pattaya.

Yeah, it happens. But hey, these women here, they have different values, a different culture. They’re available. How do I know she’s being forced?”

This message was sent in an email by an Australian sex tourist who had visited Thailand. The rhetoric of this message begins disgustingly, and only becomes more appalling as it continues. With this sobering piece at the start of the exhibit, viewers get a good sense as to the content of the rest of the pieces.

The next piece is titled Sex Tourist. It depicts a blurred couple. Again, the man occupies the majority of the area, while the woman fades into the background. The text contains a quote attributed to a Thai woman who was trafficked from her rural community to a resort town in the south, where sex tourism is more popular.

“Here they rent girl, one hour, all night, have as much girlfriend as they want, as much sex. They must have a hole where their heart should be.”

Reflecting this quote, the man in the piece has been graffitied, tracing his body in white, and leaving a swirling black mass in the center of his chest.

These pieces only comprise a small part of the exhibit. Furthermore, Bought & Sold only scratches the surface of the rampant problem of the sex trafficking of women and children all around the world. This is a problem that has seen larger and larger awareness by much of the developing world but, as Chernush demonstrates in her art, there hasn’t been much work done to eradicate it. In an increasingly globalized world, many people are striving to stay abreast of the times. Yet, as Bought & Sold shows, globalization has also left many behind and, even worse, brought some along against their will. n

Jacob Schick This coming Saturday is ALC Showdown 2018. For those unaware, this is one of the biggest arts-related events every year. This year, 14 dance teams will perform for a huge crowd in Conte Forum.

There are two categories that compete for cash prizes (that are donated to a charity of the team’s choice). These two categories are Dance and Culture. In addition to these two categories, there are teams chosen as showcase dances.

Last year, I had a few problems with the way Showdown was done, and I’d like to discuss a few ways that I think the event has improved, and a few changes I hope to see next weekend.

First, I think ALC made a very good choice in moving Showdown back into April. Last year, the event was in March, and I believe that this put an undue amount of time-based pressure on the dance teams to prepare for the big night.

Auditions take place in January, and it is very important that these teams have ample time to prepare, especially when taking into account the fact that all of these teams have spring shows and showcases that they must organize and prepare for. This is not even considering the struggle each Boston College dance team must undergo to find adequate and available practice space (Hint: there isn’t enough space for all 16 groups on campus, and they must juggle available space with each other).

So, in moving the event back to April, ALC has done a good job of providing the teams with enough time to prepare while also not getting into Arts Fest time.

There are some improvements I would like to see. The first, I think that the votes for the people’s choice awards should be more transparent than last year. The idea that the crowd can choose the winner of an award not involved with the Dance or Culture categories is really great, and I think that its introduction last year was very well done. This year, however, I think ALC should release the exact numbers, at least for the top two or three candidates, in the interest of transparency.

Second, last year there was mention that the profits of Showdown 2017 would go to the development of more student spaces (think: outside of Hillside) and the eventual construction of a student center.

Showdown makes a lot of profits, but it doesn’t make “new building” profits. ALC (and UGBC as the umbrella organization) either fundamentally misunderstand the way a student center has to be built, or they insist on giving money to a project that a) BC should be paying for on its own and b) won’t make any sort of difference.

Showdown makes thousands of dollars, but a building costs millions. ALC should be using these profits for something more achievable, whether it be as supplemental funds for dance teams, or for part of one of ALC’s larger goals. But that money should go to something that AHANA+ Leadership Council should be paying for.

Third, I think that Showdown could benefit from better sound equipment.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to cover the event from inside the rink, where the dance teams sat as they waited to perform.

From there, I was very close to the stage, and could hear everything. But sitting in the stands of Conte, it’s much more difficult to hear anything apart from the music that the team has chosen for their performance. This might not be a problem for most of the dance teams, but there are some BC groups that need to be heard in addition to the music they choose. Sexual Chocolate and Females Incorporating Sisterhood Through Step (F.I.S.T.S.) are both step groups. Their performances are very percussive, incorporating the sounds of their synchronized stomps, claps, and slaps to match the beat of the song.

These sounds aren’t carried up to the higher rows in Conte. This cheapens the performances of two very talented teams.

What I hope to see this year at Showdown is some way that these noises, beats, and sounds can be amplified to present groups like this in the way that they should be.

I think this Showdown is going to be great, because Showdown is always great.

The teams and the coordinators do an incredible job with this huge event. I just want it to be as good as it can be.

Jacob Schick is the arts editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@ bcheights.com.

ARTS

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MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2018

@BCHEIGHTSARTS

NAMe Drop, Mic Drop Liz McGovern, MCAS ’18, debuts self-titled album

BY EMILY HIMES Asst. Arts Editor It’s not every day that a college student releases an EP on Spotify, but Liz McGovern, MCAS ’18, is different.

The Arizona native released her selftitled debut on March 22. Speaking with her for just a few minutes, you instantly become aware of her passion and love for making music.

McGovern has been a musical person all her life. She’s loved it for as long as she can remember, and as her parents are both musical people, it’s not hard to imagine.

She sang a s a child and w a s involved in theatre from first grade through college.

“I’ve been interested in music for as long as I could make noise,” McGovern said. “But I started songwriting in eighth grade.”

She’s not the only one with a knack for songs in her family—apart from her parents, her brother is also a drummer currently on tour with indie rock band Active Bird Community. McGovern also plays two instruments—the piano and guitar—both self-taught. She started playing them in the sixth grade and hasn’t stopped since.

Winter Break of 2016, McGovern produced an EP in a professional recording studio. Clearly, it was an experience of a lifetime for her, but the process of getting there was somewhat unconventional.

“It’s kind of a long and confusing story,” she said of her journey to California. “My dad knows a woman who is a producer in L.A., and she wanted to work with me but she couldn’t because she was traveling when I was available.”

Evidently, the producer passed the memo along to a friend (also a producer) who contacted McGovern’s father because he was interested in helping record the EP. For her 21st birthday, her parents gave in and as a gift allowed McGovern to go to California to record at the studio.

“I will never be able to repay that,” McGovern said. “It was such a dream.”

When McGovern writes songs, it’s purely acoustic—just her and a guitar.

“It’s very stripped-down and folky,” she said. “But when I went into the studio, I had all this equipment and all these instruments at my disposal, I said, ‘Let’s throw this instrument in, and this one!’”

McGovern’s music is mostly folk, but she recorded Elizabeth with a hiphop producer. “You’ll be able to hear where those two worlds meet,” she said. It certainly is a unique mix—hiphop and folk—but it worked well for McGovern and her team.

“When the team took over and was editing, they had hip-hop experience so it became filled out and more electronic,” she said.

When asked about the experience of recording in a professional studio, it is clear that McGovern is still caught up in the excitement. “It was insane,” she said. “It was in California and we worked for 10 hours a day for a week straight.”

The daily recording process was both stressful and rewarding. “It was quite funny, actually,” she started.

“I would get up really early in the morning and then the producers would text me asking for another hour … I’d be like ‘Okay, you L.A. people’.”

When they finally came in, they’d

just play music on the guitar, not in the booth yet. It was more of a brainstorm of the general sound of the song.

Then they’d lay down a guitar track and a rough vocal before returning to the booth.

“Most of the hours of the day were me sitting with the producer, telling other musicians what to do,” she said.

“It was just insane to watch, these dudes would pick up a mandolin and just be able to do it.”

C a l i f o r n i a m ay h av e a l a i d back stereotype, but McGovern’s experience proved it wrong. In fact, she caught on to the fast-paced lifestyle pretty quickly.

“It was a lot of in the booth, out of the booth, playing things back, experimenting with different sounds … and once the real song was being built I would go back and do the vocals,” she said. “It was a lot of work, but it went by so fast.”

When she plays her music, the spotlight is on McGovern alone. She has no band, but sometimes she plays with people in the Boston College Music Guild.

When she recorded Elizabeth however, she was able to instruct professional musicians on exactly what she wanted in each particular song.

“I’d love to work with a band one day,” McGovern said. “ When we recorded, I sort of just watched as random musicians tried to do what I was telling them to do.”

McGovern cites Lana Del Rey and Radiohead as some musicians that inspire her music and songwriting.

She is also inspired by her brother.

“Not that he’s some super famous artist that has influenced me forever,

KAITLIN MEEKS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Liz McGovern, MCAS ’18, sang two of her original songs, with an accompany guitar, at this year’s ‘Singer Songwriter’ competition.

Liz McGovern’s seven track debut, ‘Elizabeth,’ is now available on Spotify. but just the fact that he’s doing it and is so committed,” McGovern noted. “I want to be like that.”

She said that she definitely has a few “Lana-esque” songs on the EP—the rest are pure folk—as well as a wide range of tones. There are six songs on Elizabeth. She wrote the first when she was in eighth grade, while another was written just last year.

“We’re all over the place,” she joked. Not only does the EP span a variety of sounds, but a variety of writing types and parts of life. The EP has been nearly a decade in the making.

Clearly, McGovern is ecstatic about her new release. “I think everyone who knows me knows that music is front and center in my life,” she began.

“But I haven’t taken it seriously as a career.”

People are constantly asking her when and how they can hear her music, and up until recently she didn’t have a large platform to share it.

“Now that there’s this professionally produced EP that’s available on all the streaming sites, I’m just absolutely pumped that now people can see what I’ve been doing my whole life,” McGovern said.

McGovern tries to perform live as much as she can. She recently performed at the BC Music Guild’s Singer Songwriter showcase, and has also played at Battle of the Bands. In addition to this, she occasionally does open mics.

She doesn’t get off campus too often, but she has played the Middle East in Cambridge with some fellow students in the Music Guild.

“In Phoenix, in high school and even before, I played downtown a lot,” she said. “I sang for a lot of arts shows.”

On campus, she is involved with the Music Guild and the BC Acoustics. In her freshman year she was involved in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and as a sophomore was in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

When asked how much music will play into her future, the answer became clear. “We shall see,” she started, rather tentatively. “I’ve always wanted to do something musicrelated, I don’t think I’m ever going to give up and stop looking for gigs or stop trying to record and get music out there.”

“At this point it’s a waiting game,” she said. “It’s up to the universe, really.

But I definitely plan to keep it a big part of myself for the rest of my life.”

McGovern is extremely grateful for the amazing opportunities she has had over the past few years, both in her life in general and specifically in the world of music.

She is extremely grateful to her parents who helped her create this EP and allowed her to go out to California to record it.

“My parents are so incredibly supportive,” she said. “It’s sort of silently pushing me to [tell myself ] ‘o k a y, y o u s h o u l d r e a l l y m a k e something of yourself and not let this part of you go away, whatever you wind up doing’ ... I owe it to the people that got me to this place.”

McGovern is self-awareness in this manner is heartwarming. For a person with a fair amount of newcome success, she is extremely humble in regards to her accomplishments.

“One of the biggest things I’m taking away from it right now is how lucky I am to have been able to do it,” McGovern said. “As if the other details about where I am right now in my life weren’t overwhelmingly lucky.” 

BC Dynamics Turn Back the Clock with ‘MTV Cafe’ Show

BY AUSTIN HORD

Heights Staff

The BC Dynamics went retro on Saturday night with its MTV Café. It was a fun-filled night, with students and parents alike filling McGuinn 121 and cheering on the singers. The Dynamics are one of Boston College’s a cappella groups. The Dynamics

started the show with a video filled with MTV references that introduced all the 17 members before they cozied up to the mics to begin their songs.

The group stuck mostly to the pop genre, but it incorporated hip-hop elements and cool choreographed routines. This added a very interesting aspect to the show that other a cappella performances don’t usually

MELISSA RICE / HEIGHTS STAFF

The Dynamics recreated famous songs with just their voices in their ‘MTV Cafe.’

INSIDE SCENE

‘Singer Songwriter’

contain.

What made the performance different from most typical a cappella shows is that it played its own prerecorded music videos after every few songs as a nod to MTV. Furthermore, many of the songs that were chosen are very popular pop staples which have been or would be featured on MTV. The first one was a video for Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” which paired the music with silly clips of the Dynamics dancing around and lip-syncing in the Plex while wearing neon retro workout attire.

The next video was more of a pop culture reference to popular YouTube videos titled “Unexpected Compilation” and “People Are Awesome.” In the video, the members made their own version of these viral compilations around campus.

The third and final video was a music video for Ariana Grande’s “Side To Side,” and it featured all the members lip-syncing on exercise bikes. The

Students sang original compositions and competed to be chosen for the upcoming ‘BC’s Best’ at ‘Arts Fest 2018’......B7

clever videos got a lot of laughs.

The Dynamics are replete with very talented soloists. Claire Fitzpatrick, MCAS ’20, demonstrated her particularly powerful voice in her performance of “Out of My Head”

by Begonia.

Ian Goodman, CSOM ’19, executed a very unique vocal freestyle solo in his rendition of “The Way” by Sammy Johnson. Joe Palumbo, MCAS ’18, had one of the more memorable and impressive solos of the night.

In his performance of Anderson East’s “All On My Mind,” Palumbo showed off his gritty, soulful tone and sexy minor-pentatonic melodies that really commanded the audience’s attention and praise.

He was also the soloist for their final song of the night, sung alongside Dynamics alumni in attendance.

“It’s awesome to be a part of something that I know will transcend my four years here at BC,” said Palumbo. “Singing our last song with the alumni is always my favorite part

‘Swing Spectacular’

Boston College dance group Full Swing put on their ‘Swing Spectacular’ show, set to today’s most popular music....... B7

of the show.”

Not only was there individual talent on display, but there was also plenty of talent as a group. As its name suggests, the group made good use of dynamics with crescendos, blending, and phrasing. This complex mixture of performance tactics sent the show soaring to new heights of enjoyment.

It were able to execute its difficult arrangements with ease, including some complex chords present in their version of “Guilty” by Paloma Faith and a chromatic walkdown in their performance of “Woman” by Kesha.

The beatboxing was strong and consistent, and there was also a captivating tempo change in “Girlfriend”

by NAO. This change came in when they transitioned it briefly in Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend.”

The show was an outstanding display of talent that showed that the Dynamics know how to be lighthearted and have fun, but can back it up with its music. 

‘A Quiet Place’................................................ B6 ‘Invasion of Privacy’.................................... B6 ‘Blockers’............................................... B6