The Heights February 25, 2016

TECH MATE

FUEL YOUR PASSION

‘A LEGACY RESTORED’

SPORTS

METRO

SCENE

A very poor shooting night doomed the Eagles against Virginia Tech on Tuesday, B8

The literary publications at BC are having a showcase at Fuel this Thursday, A8

Susan Michalczyk’s film reignites the conversation about BC’s first black athlete, B1

www.bcheights.com

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Vol. XCVII, No. 11

HE

established

1919

Thursday, February 25, 2016

L>9: <c\Zk`fe ;\X[c`e\ <ok\e[\[# E\n :Xe[`[Xk\j <d\i^\ 9P K8PCFI JK% ><ID8@E 8jjk% E\nj <[`kfi The Elections Committee announced Tuesday afternoon that it is extending the Undergraduate Government of Boston College’s presidential candidate nomination deadline to allow other candidates to run against the only team currently in the race, Anthony Perasso, LSOE ’17, and Rachel Loos, MCAS ’18. The new deadline is Tuesday, Mar. 1 at 12 p.m.

Two teams—Russell Simons, MCAS ’17 and Meredith McCaffrey, MCAS ’17, and Nikita Patel, MCAS ’17 and Joseph Arquillo,

LSOE ’17—have already collected the necessary 250 student signatures to be added to the presidential ballot.

“We know that the daily life of most BC students does not include UGBC,” Arquillo said in a statement. “As an organization for dialogue and discourse across the University, we want UGBC to help students engage with the student government, administrators, and policymakers about issues that they are passionate about.”

The elections will now take place from Mar. 15 until Apr. 1. The Committee is also allowing new nominations for the Student

Assembly in addition to UGBC president and executive vice president.

The Committee’s decision comes after current executive vice president Olivia Hussey, MCAS ’17, dropped out of the presidential race on Saturday due to personal matters. The Elections Committee decided to postpone the Election Kickoff until further discussion could take place. With Perasso’s encouragement, the Elections Comittee decided to extend the nomination deadline to ensure fair competition within the election.

McCaffrey, Hussey’s former running mate, formed a team with Simons when Hussey

exited the race.

Simons was interested in running for president earlier in the semester, but decided against it to support Hussey and McCaffrey’s campaign. Once Hussey withdrew, Simons decided to run to continue their vision.

“Our hope for next year is to serve Boston College students by re-engaging the student voice,” Simons said in a statement. “Meredith and I want to focus on building stronger relationships across the university that will allow for constructive action on issues facing BC students.”

All new candidates will be held to the same

standards as previous candidates, including attending mandatory meetings, the Committee said.

The UGBC presidential race initially started with three teams—Perasso and Loos, Hussey and McCaffrey, and Elizabeth Foley, MCAS ’17, and Joseph McCarthy, CSOM ’17.

Foley and McCarthy dropped out of the race Feb. 15 due to personal matters.

When Foley and McCarthy exited the race, they encouraged the Elections Committee to allow more teams to run, despite the original

See UGBC, A3

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GRAPHIC COURTESY OF BC ATHLETICS

9: 8k_c\k`Zj GcXej ]fi @e[ffi =XZ`c`k`\j 9P D@:?8<C JLCC@M8E ?\`^_kj <[`kfi The desires of many frustrated alumni may finally be realized.

Boston College will pursue the creation of three new facilities to help varsity, club, and intramural sports, Director of Athletics Brad Bates announced Monday afternoon.

This will include a new recreation center,

athletics playing fields, and an indoor practice facility. In total, the project will cost approximately $200 million.

The new recreation center will replace the Plex and be placed over Edmond’s Hall, which will be torn down at the conclusion of the 2015-16 academic year. This was included in the University’s Institutional Master Plan (IMP) from 2009. The project

will begin this summer, following the clearance of several permits, and construction will take approximately two years. The 2009 IMP also approved permits for new intramural, baseball, and softball fields to be built on the Brighton Campus.

BC’s newest development, however,

See Facilities, A8

Student Initiatives and the Student Assembly, departments under the Undergraduate Government of Boston College, have been working to create Conduct Consultants. This semester, the pilot version took flight under the “Conduct Consultant Program” spearheaded by Dan Sundaram, MCAS ’16.

The program is composed of a team of four students of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College.

These students have been working with the Dean of Students Office, in particular Dean Richard Decapua, and the Student Conduct Board in order to assess the Student Conduct Board and the Student Conduct System, in general. They have also been working as a resource for students going through the conduct system.

Olivia Hussey, UGBC executive vice president and MCAS ’17, explained the goal of this new initiative. When students get documented, the email that they receive to account for the

documentation also provides another student’s name. This student is not on the student conduct board, but understands the student conduct system and can be a resource to whom that student can reach out in order to understand his or her rights and the process. Each building is paired with a student consultant, as of right now, and the program hopes to expand.

“That’s a lot of feedback that we heard. That students felt that they were getting, to some extent, tricked into things by not understanding the system or how it works,” Hussey said.

Hussey said that the group of students met in the beginning of the semester with the Conduct Board to more closely understand how it works.

“A big part of this is going to be transitioning it because in order for this to operate well you need several students who are willing to be references, considering there’s 1,400 write-ups,” Thomas Napoli, UGBC president and MCAS ’16, said, noting that Sundaram is a senior this year.

Napoli said that there is a lot of potential for the program to grow since right now its focus is on meeting with students who are documented to

See Conduct, A3

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Elizabeth Medlevow, executive director of the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy, introduced lawyers Dean Strang and Walt Kelly, Boston College Law ’68, to a packed audience in Stuart House on Newton Campus on Wednesday, Feb. 24. Famous for representing convicted murderer Steven Avery, Strang and Kelly visited BC Law to talk about the Netflix series Making a Murderer, their collaboration with the media, and to offer inspiring words of advice to the law students.

Avery, a native of Manitowoc County, Wis., served 18 years in prison for a wrongful sexual assault conviction.

After new methods of DNA testing proved his innocence, he was exonerated with the help of the Wisconsin

Innocence Project.

Released from prison in 2003, Avery filed a lawsuit against Manitowoc County, its sheriff, and its district attorney, with Kelly as his lawyer. The lawsuit was pending until 2005, when Avery was arrested for the murder of a female photographer, Tessa Halbach.

Kelly explained that the team made a conscious decision not to file the suit right away.

Kelly, a civil rights and liberties lawyer, became involved with Avery’s case through a friend on the staff of the Innocence Project who told him that Avery was about to be exonerated after DNA testing proved his innocence.

“A reporter called up and said, ‘Walt, your client is being followed up in the case of a missing woman,’” Kelly said.

Kelly had to reconfigure the case immediately after hearing that Steven

was charged for the disappearance of Halbach. She said that they quickly switched gears when they realized Steven was in peril.

Avery, who maintains his innocence, was shocked at his arrest. Steven sat through almost all of the depositions of the civil case, Kelly said.

“He would ask, ‘How could they do this to me?’” Kelly said.

Public favor of Avery immediately declined after Ken Kratz, special prosecutor on Avery’s case, gave a press conference that was picked up by all seven of Wisconsin’s media markets.

“The damage was done before the trial started,” Strang said.

Strang said that if he could have changed one aspect of Avery’s trial, it would have been the press conference DREW HOO / HEIGHTS EDITOR

See Murderer, A3

Lawyers Dean Strang and Walt Kelly talked with BC Law students about their experience.

A2

THE HEIGHTS

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things to do on campus this week

Gasson Chair Pierre de Charentenay, S.J., will speak at 12 p.m. on Feb. 25 about the significance of the veil that Muslim women wear and its connotation in different countries around the world. The event will be held at the Boisi Center.

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Thursday, February 25, 2016

Two panels will be held on Feb. 25 at 3 p.m. to discuss governing in the digital age.

Panelists will speak about “Data Driven Leadership” and “Public Records Reform: Challenges and Opportunities.” The event will be held in the Barat House.

Nancy Ammerman, a religion professor, will speak about the one-third of today’s younger adults who claim to have no religion. Her presentation will take place in Simboli Hall on Feb. 25 at 5:30 p.m. and will deal with the demographic, political, and cultural trends of today’s youth.

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By Becky Reilly Heights Staff

JZ_fcXij_`g ]fi DCB >`m\e Boston College granted Chiamaka Okorie, CSON ’17, the 2016 Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Scholarship at a dinner last week.

The award is presented annually to a junior who demonstrates academic achievement, involvement in extracurriculars, involvement within the AfricanAmerican community, and passion about African-American issues.

“It’s such a huge honor,” Okorie said to the Office of News and Public Affairs. “Martin Luther King was able to unite a whole host of people for one mission, and that’s because he centered it on something that’s beyond race, that goes down to core identity.”

Okorie was born in Nigeria and moved to the United States when she was only eight years old. After returning to Nigeria to visit, Okorie decided to give up her plan to be a political science major and transferred to CSON. She now hopes to work in public health policy after testing the waters as a nurse post-graduation.

Okorie traveled to Ghana last summer to conduct research on malaria prevention for mothers and their children. She later shared her research at the Conference on Child Rights and Sight at Yale University.

At BC Okorie serves as the vice president of the Black Student Forum. She also works as a Resident Assistant and has created programs to increase dialogues about race on campus.

Okorie also works with Campus Ministry.

Gif]% I\Z\`m\j JZ`\eZ\ 8nXi[ Math professor J. Elisenda Grigsby is one of 105 recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. This award is one of the highest honors that the United States grants science and engineering professionals.

Grigsby will travel to the White House this spring to receive her award.

“These early-career scientists are leading the way in our efforts to confront and understand challenges from climate change to our health and wellness,” President Barak Obama said in a press release.

Grigsby has conducted research for the National Science Foundation, in addition to teaching linear algebra, advanced calculus, and algebraic topology at BC. The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers are granted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which is within the president’s executive office. The government looks for those who have conducted innovative research and focus on community service.

“Obviously, it is a dream come true to be recognized by the President,” Grigsby said to the Office of News and Public Affairs. “I am thrilled I will have the opportunity to meet the other awardees and learn firsthand about their work. I hope it will give me a better perspective on what my own research priorities should be, moving forward.”

On Easter Monday in 1916, over 1,000 people swarmed to occupy strategic points throughout Dublin to declare an independent Irish republic. The aftermath of the so-called six-day Easter Rising saw nearly 1,500 men imprisoned by the ruling British, who executed the organizers while the offenders’ families stood within earshot.

Irish citizens and descendants claim the event to be the first step toward Irish independence, a struggle that continued into the next 100 years.

U.S. Representative Richard Neal and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, WCAS ’09, spoke in Gasson 100 about the Easter Rising of 1916 before its centennial. Neal also fielded questions about its historical background and political implications for the future, in an event sponsored by the Irish Studies Program.

Walsh was elected mayor in 2013. His parents emigrated from Ireland to Boston in 1956 and 1959, both from County Galway.

His parents taught him Irish growing up and spoke it around the house, and he studied the Easter Rising on his own after hearing so much about it from his parents.

Neal, the representative for Massachusetts’ first district, has long been at the center of U.S.-Ireland relations. He currently serves as co-chair for the Congressional Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs, and he worked toward an Irish Republican Army ceasefire in Northern Ireland in the 1990s.

Through his grandparents, he has Irish heritage. Walsh, with his language ability, gave two speeches in Gaelic on one visit to

the country.

Walsh spoke first, noting that he had to leave for an event immediately after finishing. He discussed the importance of the Easter Rising to him and his family, emphasizing that the underlying issue of the event was self-determination. Walsh lauded leadership figures like James Connolly, a socialist theorist and Rising organizer. Walsh said that their values and history originally inspired him to pursue public service and connected the Irish will for self-determination to the struggles in the countries from which people immigrate to the U.S. “I want Boston to be a place where anyone can make their own destiny,” Walsh said. “I want Boston to be a community that supports self-determination and freedom for people from all over the world. It’s a universal human need.”

Neal then took the stage, beginning by narrating the events of the Easter Rising and describing the gruesome conditions of Irish treatment after ward. Ireland was Britain’s first colony and an experiment in colonization, a western island that could act as a military launching point. One principal division has emerged from religious differences between the Anglican Protestant British and Catholic Irish, accentuated especially during the Reformation years. But despite famine and subjugation, Neal said, the late 19th century before the Easter Rising was marked by cultural revival.

For all the Irish efforts, the Act of Ireland created a Northern and Southern Ireland in 1920, and the latter eventually became

In the United States, 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from clinically significant eating disorders, according to the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) Web site. On college campuses 5 to 20 percent of college females and 1 to 7 percent of college males have been reported as suffering from eating disorders. And four out of 10 individuals have either personally experienced an eating disorder or know someone who has.

This week, Boston College’s chapter of To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA), a non-profit organization dedicated to finding help for people struggling with mental illness, is hosting events coinciding with National Eating Disorder Awareness (NEDAwareness) Week.

According to nationaleatingdisorders.com, educating students on getting help for eating disorders has become crucial. Eating disorders can often go undiagnosed, and the rate at which they have been diag-

nosed in recent years has increased dramatically.

“Eating disorders can occur in many different forms,” Hanaa Khan, co-president of TWLOHA and LSOE ’17, said. “They are also nondiscriminatory.”

In addition to drawing attention to the importance of early detection and intervention when it comes to eating disorders, the week emphasizes what friends and family can do to support those who suffer from eating disorders.

TWLOHA started NEDAwareness week with a pledge-signing in front of O’Neill Library. The pledge was to love one’s body despite imperfections, similar to what TWLOHA did during National Suicide Prevention Week during the week of Sept. 7.

Next came a Scale Smash in O’Neill Plaza on Wednesday from 12 to 2 p.m. The Smash is supposed to rid the stigma associated with eating disorders and continue to promote positive body images, Gilbert Pan, co-president of TWLOHA and MCAS ’16 said. The week will conclude with a movie screening of To

POLICE BLOTTER

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KRISTIN SAILSKI / HEIGHTS STAFF

Mayor Marty Walsh spoke about the Easter Rising before its centennial. a sovereign state. Neal attributed Ireland’s successful transition to a free state to the Easter Rising, an event of political upheaval, as well as the intellectual contributions of Irish writers like George Bernard Shaw and James Joyce. Neal and Walsh both acknowledged the importance of Irish America to popularize the Irish independence movement abroad, as well as aiding in peacemaking efforts throughout the island afterward.

“Irish nationalism in America has always been stronger than Irish nationalism in Ireland,” Neal said.

“It’s why we’re here. So we get the memory here. The harshness of what happened because of immigration and famine. We have all the stories here, even while the Irish in Ireland are down to business.”

When an audience member asked Neal about his visions for continued peace and stability in Northern Ireland, he said that the processes with which he helped— including the Good Friday Agreement, which allowed for the joint governance of Northern Ireland by

the United Kingdom—should be kept intact. He also expressed his hopes to continue a close American-Irish political relationship, citing the fervent American-Irish support of the Easter Rising.

“A hundred years later, we celebrate their determination, we celebrate their courage,” Neal said.

“It is the American determination that keeps the British attention in Northern Ireland.”

Neal presented an optimistic vision of Ireland’s future during the question-and-answer session.

He predicted that the United Kingdom will likely be reluctant to participate in any centennial acknowledgement unless it falls to Northern Irish pressure. He also talked about the renewed Irish national confidence after overcoming politically and economically tumultuous times in the recent past.

“All of us in the global Irish diaspora have taken pride in Ireland’s history,” Walsh said, emphasizing the country’s continued worldwide support.

Garage.

12:24 p.m. - A report was filed regardng trespassing on Newton Roadways.

7:58 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious person on Commonwealth Ave.

Tuesday, Feb. 23

Wednesday, Feb. 24 12:20 a.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student in Duchesne East.

1:08 p.m. - A report was filed regarding an issued trespass warning in O’Neill Plaza.

4:01 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a miscellaneous traffic issue in the Commonwealth

Write Love on Her Arms on Sunday at 5 p.m. in Stokes 103N. The film is based on the true story of a 19-year-old girl fighting drug addiction, manic depression, self-harm, and other life issues and how her friends and family helped put her on the path to recovery. It inspired TWLOHA chapters to start up in different colleges all over the country.

“Mental health is associated with a certain stigma that renders talking about it difficult,” Pan said in an email.

“I wanted to change that. I wanted to bring these issues to the forefront rather than let them simmer on the backburner.”

The danger of eating disorders, Khan said, is that they will frequently go undiagnosed until the person’s health is at risk.

The longer an eating disorder goes untreated, the more advanced it becomes and the harder it is to achieve full recovery. That is why this year’s NEDAwareness week is titled 3 Minutes Can Save a Life: Get Screened.

Get Help. Get Healthy.

In addition to attending TWLOHA’s on-campus events, students can

go online and take a free screening where participants can learn whether it is time to seek professional help.

“It’s time to get beyond the stigma and stereotypes and recognize the diverse experiences of people affected by disordered eating,” Claire Mysko, interim CEO of NEDA, said in an online statement. “Early intervention is a critical first step toward ending this epidemic, and everyone who is struggling deserves to be able to access help without delay to provide them the best chance possible of full recovery.”

In terms of prevention, it is important to pinpoint risk factors, like societal pressures, dieting, and family social support deficits, according to nationaleatingdisorders.org, that may make an individual susceptible to eating disorders, and learn how to diminish them in everyday life.

“TWLOHA is predicated on creating a community on campus to talk about mental health and foster hope,” Khan said in an email. “It is more than just specific mental illnesses—it is about connection and the power of hope.”

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

2/22/16 - 2/24/16

Monday, Feb. 22

9:44 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a property confiscation in the Walsh Hall Lot.

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—Source: The Boston College Police Department

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THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, February 25, 2016

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UGBC, from A1 nomination deadline of Jan. 29. Foley and McCarthy did not believe that there was enough competition between the two remaining teams remaining teams.

The Elections Committee declined their request, which was then appealed by Arquillo, who was originally Foley and McCarthy’s campaign manager. Arquillo wanted to run for president when Foley and McCarthy dropped out. His appeal was rejected until Hussey and McCaffrey exited the race on Monday, and they felt that there was insufficient competition with just one remaining team, the Committee said.

“When Arquillo appealed, we had two legitimate presidential teams running,” the Committee said.. “Thus at that time, we had a competitive election season in our eyes. Once Olivia suspended her campaign, however, we only had one legitimate team left. Without another team, we felt that there was a lack of proper competition in the elections. Therefore, we decided to reopen the elections.”

There is precedent for the Committee’s decision, which occurred in the UGBC presidential election two years ago. The team consisting of Nanci Fiore-Chettiar, GSSW ’16, and Chris Marchese, BC ’15, was running unopposed. Fiore-Chettiar and Marchese also encouraged the Elections Committee then to reopen the nominations and allow more teams to run to ensure a fair election.

In light of the events surrounding this election, the Committee has also decided to revamp the current Elections Code, to ensure fairer elections in the future.

Ni`k\$Lgj# <ogcX`e\[ Conduct, from A1 discuss their rights. Napoli explained that schools like Georgetown University have expanded with an entire Student Rights office.

Offices like this serve as a place for students to report things they believe were mishandled, as well as offering professional consultants for the students, Napoli said.

Napoli said that the office at Georgetown is more professionalized and the services they provide serve as more of an advocate for their students, while the Conduct Consultant Program, in its starting stage right now, primarily functions to provide accurate information from fellow students to those who have been documented.

Hussey said that they hope that at some point, with continued efforts on conduct, they can get to a more holistic view with student rights initiatives, but they believe this policy is a step in the right direction.

ISABELLE LUMB / HEIGHTS STAFF

Two lawyers on the defense team from Netflix series ‘Making a Murderer’ spoke to students at BC Law School on Wednesday about their experiences with the trial.

Murderer, from A1 given 10 months earlier.

“We could’ve had an even shot had that horrific story not been put out,” Strang said.

Strang is unsure, however, if a change of setting for the Avery case would have resulted in a different outcome.

“That’s the question I will live with until I am not living,” Strang said.

Filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos contacted the Avery family, thinking that they would be documenting a post-exoneration civil suit.

“The collaboration with the filmmakers would not have happened without Steven Avery saying, ‘This is what I want,’” Strang said.

Ricciardi and Demos won the trust of Strang and worked hard to honor the wishes of both the family and lawyers. They respected the lawyers’ boundaries throughout the process.

There is no conversation between Steven Avery

and his lawyers, Strang said. Strang explained that there is no such recording, but rather that Steven Avery’s voice recordings are recordings from conversations he had in jail with his family and his girlfriend.

When asked about Avery’s innocence, Strang

Kelly encouraged students to remember the importance of and hang on to mentors.

Strang agreed and credits the mentors that he has acquired throughout his law career with helping him find a path to success. He assumed that many students are probably too focused and too directed. By taking every opportunity and being prepared, students can feel fulfilled by their law careers. Strang encouraged students to be available for when serendipity arises.

In regards to the future of the Avery case, Strang is unsure if Avery will ever be freed.

“At this point, it would be newly discovered evidence,” Strang said. “He has exhausted an appeal and opportunities in federal court.”

Both Kelly and Strang appreciate the positive response that the show has elicited, especially in explaining the criminal justice system to viewers in the hopes of later reformation.

“The gift of the movie is to show the system in a real way to real people,” Kelly said.

ÈK_\ ^`]k f] k_\ dfm`\ `j kf j_fn k_\ jpjk\d `e X i\Xc nXp kf i\Xc g\fgc\%É —Walt Kelly, Boston College Law ’68

and Kelly cannot come to a definitive conclusion but allege that he is innocent.

“I’ve never known, I personally suspect that he is,” Strang said. “There is, honestly, evidence suggesting guilt.”

The lawyers not only focused on the Avery case, but also offered advice to the students in attendance.

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By Sophie Reardon Assoc. News Editor Wadley was 8 years old when she and her mother moved into a tent in Port-auPrince, Haiti. The Jan. 10, 2010 earthquake destroyed her home and her school.

Her mother no longer had enough money to send her to the temporary school set up in the tent town. She spent her days traveling to a well with a bucket to collect water while her mother walked around town, looking for lost friends and family.

Wadley, determined to go to school, took a seat in the outdoor school with her notebook and a pencil. Even though her teacher sent her home the first day because her mother had not paid for school, she continued to go back until her teacher finally let her stay.

On Tuesday night, Medicine, Education, and Development to Low Income Families Everywhere (MEDLIFE) hosted a screening of Girl Rising, a documentary following the lives of girls, including Wadley, across the globe in the pursuit of education despite gender and financial barriers.

“We’re trying to touch more on education here,” Kayla Daniell, the chair of education for MEDLIFE and MCAS ’17, said. “We really want BC to learn more about what MEDLIFE is and what we do and why these people need help.”

Suma, from Nepal, began working as a servant at the age of 6. Her parents could not support her and needed her to start to make a living. At her first master’s house, work started at 4 a.m. She cooked,

cleaned, and watched the master’s daughters, who made fun of her because of her dirty clothes.

Her second master, she said, called her “unlucky girl” and forced her to sleep in the goat’s shed in the backyard. She ate scraps of her master’s food and was beaten every day.

Writing and singing songs, Suma said, was all that got her through this time.

There was a teacher at her third master’s house. Suma began to take night classes with other slaves where they would be able to talk with peers about the hardships they all endured. One day, her teacher came to her master’s house and told him that having slaves was illegal. He refused to listen, but the teacher was persistent, and Suma was eventually liberated.

Now, Suma lives at home with her parents. She works to get masters to release their slaves, just as her teacher did for her.

There are 66 million girls out of school across the globe, the film explained. Parents often cannot afford to send all of their children to school, so they will only send the boys. The girls, who are forced to work, face more violence, hunger, and disease. But if these girls were educated, there would be a high rate of return.

Senna, a 14-year-old living in a mountain village in the Andes in Peru, found inspiration in poetry. Her father was a miner, but he left his job after a near-death incident in the mine. Senna began to work in the public bathrooms, while her father worked as a cook, and her mother and older sister worked on the mountain.

She was, however, also able to attend

school. Her father saw the importance of education—it would keep her out of the town’s brothels—and encouraged Senna to go to school, but her concern for her father’s poor health distracted her.

As her father’s health declined, Senna’s mother decided to take him to the bottom of the mountain to be examined by a doctor.

He died on the journey there. Senna was devastated, she said, but she found hope and inspiration in a poem she read in school.

Senna found, she said, the power of words and began to memorize poems and write her own. Her family was the poorest family on the mountain, but she continues to go to school and now realizes why her father stressed the importance of education.

Amina, who lives in Afghanistan, was married to her cousin when she was 11 for $5,000. For the sake of her safety she chose to conceal her identity—she said her husband or her brother would kill her if they knew what she was saying in the film.

At her birth, she said, her mother was so upset that she was a girl that she cried and cast her aside in the dirt. Being born a girl cast her into a lifetime of servitude, Amina said. She has worked for her parents since she was 3 years old. She was able to attend school for a few years as a child, and she is determined to go back to school, despite having a husband and a child.

“If you try to stop me, I will just try harder,” she said. “Put me in a pen, I will climb out. If you kill me, there will be other girls who rise up and take my place. I will find a way to endure, to prevail. The future of man lies in me.”

ISABELLE LUMB / HEIGHTS STAFF

‘Girls Rising’ is a documentary about girls who pursue education in spite of gender barriers.

A4

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, February 25, 2016

THE ONLY JUAN

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It’s that time of the year again, and boy, am I happy about it. It’s the time when old men and young kids alike can eat copious amounts of food and escape judgment from horrified onlookers.

The same can be said about the questionable-yet-appropriate language directed toward those in control of the proceedings.

That’s right: baseball’s back.

Around early February every year, I anxiously begin looking at the calendar, waiting for one specific date to finally arrive: whenever pitchers and catchers report for spring training.

Ever since I was a child, I remember being in a field playing, be it with my friends, a team, or with my dad. It was my escape from the hustle and bustle of the city and school life. It was my very own personal garden to express myself and let off some steam.

Some of my best memories revolve around baseball, like spending my birthday at a game with my dad or winning a title with my travel team.

All of the sudden, that joy came rushing back at the possibility of sitting in the stands at Fenway Park once more, cheering on the Red Sox, and seeing off David Ortiz during his final season.

Some say it’s just a game. But, at least to me (and many others will agree), it signifies so much more than that. It is the opportunity to be a part of something bigger than yourself, to engage in a quasi-religious experience with 40,000 other individuals who are all there for the same reason: to see a bunch of guys hit and throw a ball around for 3 hours.

It’s an entire city getting behind a team and wanting to see it succeed.

Just take a look at a city like Kansas City and what it meant to it to finally win it all this past year.

Or look at the city of Boston after the Marathon bombing, how it rallied behind the Red Sox all the way to a World Series title in 2013.

The impassioned speech “Big Papi” Ortiz delivered (“this is our f*****g city”) will always live on in the city’s lore.

In a time of duress, the team served as a needed escape from the grueling reality that took over the city during those jarring spring and summer months, when the abrupt reality of the state of the world came knocking down Beacon Street.

The entire city united as one, in a way it may never again, in a time Boston needed it most. It truly became but one nation, a Red Sox Nation.

Fast-forward to today, and there is genuine optimism about the team once more, after two years of mediocrity, that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. Year after year, “Sweet Caroline” plays over the speakers during the eighth inning at Fenway every night, but this year, it might keep playing deep into October.

So, I impatiently check Twitter for updates from those lucky enough to be down in Ft. Myers, watching and reporting how the Sox are getting ready for the season.

I can just hold back the excitement it generates in me to finally be able to join the crowds at the ballpark, hot dog in hand, wearing my David Ortiz jersey and see one of my childhood heroes take the field for the last time. It’s been one hell of a ride, may it never end.

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FRANCISCO RUELA / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF

The longer diners are able to brave the cold temperatures while enjoying their food this Thursday night, the greater the donations the Salvation Army will receive from the establishment.

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This Thursday, Feb. 25, Del Frisco’s Grille, a nationwide chain of high-end steakhouses, will host a Polar Bear Dinner.

Inspired by the Arctic Blast that recently shocked the Northeast, Del Frisco’s has partnered with the Salvation Army to put the frigid temperatures to good use.

During the Polar Bear Dinner, guests will be challenged to eat their meals outside, braving the cold winds so that others might not have to. Those interested only need to show up at the Grille’s Burlington location at 7 p.m. with an empty stomach and plenty of layers.

“For the Burlington location the cost of a prix-fixe meal is $55 for an hour

and a half of eating outside,” said Nicole Berrio, a spokesperson for the Grille’s event. “A portion of those proceeds, 15 percent of each prix-fixe dinner, will go directly to the Salvation Army.

The longer that guests eat outside, the more money is donated to the Salvation Army, but obviously we are encouraging people to brave the cold for as long as possible, to finish out their meal, so that the most money can get donated to the foundation.

Del Frisco’s Grille was started by Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group, a company that also operates Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse and Sullivan’s Steak House.

Known for its contemporary atmosphere, Del Frisco’s Grille embodies elements of the traditional American bar-and-grille concept, but incorporates menu items specific to each individual location.

Del Frisco’s also attempts to source many of its ingredients locally in order to make its flavors and cuisine as au-

thentic as possible.

The menu will feature some of Del Frisco’s most popular and hearty items in order to keep customers cozy in braving the outdoor air. This includes items such as the famed cheesesteak egg rolls, as well as more traditional items, such as the Grille Prime Cheeseburger and the Prime Beef Short Rib Stroganoff.

Drinks and dessert are also included in the meal, with comforting and warm options, such as Del Frisco’s Hotty Toddy and its Warm Chocolate Cake.

Del Frisco’s currently has no projections as to how high the dinner’s resulting donations might be, but tits locations are eager to see the event’s success, as it is their first ever Polar Bear Dinner.

“It is the first time that we have launched this series,” said Berrio. “We are offering these Polar Bear Dinners both at the Burlington Del Frisco’s Grille and the New York Del Frisco’s Grille, those are the only two of all of the 19 Grilles in the country hosting

them.”

This means that this week’s Polar Bear Dinner is a much-anticipated trial run. If all goes well and the event proves successful, the Polar Bear Dinner could become an annual event that takes place at nationwide Del Frisco’s locations. But regardless of the night’s overall success, any revenue that results from the dinner will directly aid the Burlington community.

“All of the proceeds are going to the specific markets,” said Berrio. “All of the donations in Burlington are going to that specific market, and same goes for New York City.”

Those who choose to attend Thursday night will be supporting a cause that has a significant impact on the community, in addition to having the chance to create unique and delicious memories.

“It should be a fun night,” Berrio said. “We are hoping to have a lot of people come out, and embrace the cold so that others don’t have to.”

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Do you find yourself constantly missing your dog? Sometimes, all college students need is some canine companionship and puppy love to alleviate stress. With the mobile application Bark’N’Borrow, you can browse hundreds of dogs around you available to borrow at no charge.

Liam Berkeley, CEO and founder of Bark’N’Borrow, grew up surrounded by dogs who were loved and treated as family during his childhood in Australia. After moving to Los Angeles, Berkeley and his girlfriend contemplated getting a dog, but his 12-hour workdays and her commitment to school made it impossible. He started meeting dog owners in the neighborhood and playing with their dogs. As he got to know them better, he would offer to take the dogs for a hike or down to the beach for a run when the owners were busy.

He got the idea for the service when people would go up to him when he was out with the dogs. He found out that a lot of people could not have dogs because they got either got a new job, moved, lived in an apartment, or traveled too often. He then explained the situation and told them that he was actually borrowing this dog.

These encounters made him think about a platform that would connect dog owners to a trusted community of dog lovers in their local area.

“I saw that there was no medium between having no dog and committing to one for the next 15 years,“ Berkeley said. “My idea could make everyone happy ... borrowers were happy because they could get their puppy fix, and owners were happy because their dogs would be with someone who genuinely wants to spend time with the dogs.”

Enough interest was generated to build a website. In the meantime,

Berkeley continued meeting more dogs, and it took about a month to six weeks before he became a familiar face and was building trust with the owners.

Toward the end of 2014, a rough version of the app was launched.

After a bit of testing feedback , Berkeley learned that many dog owners needed someone to look after their dogs at the last minute. The professional service element was also a big draw for the system.

By creating an account and passing the background check, you become part of the Bark’N’Borrow Pack. You can connect through Facebook or enter your email address, home address, and phone number. When addresses have been verified upon registration, users

can then access and connect with dog owners, borrowers, and professionally paid dogsitters and walkers.

As a borrower, your online profile will consist of a photo, personal information, reasons for wanting to borrow a dog, and qualities you are looking for in a dog. Bark’N’Borrow also has the option to find certified dog walkers, sitters and caretakers, especially when dog owners need help for long periods of time.

The product launched in November 2015 in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. In the last three months, the app has expanded to Boston, Chicago, New York, and Seattle. Last week, Bark’N’Borrow hit 50,000 profiles.

With the success the company has

seen, Bark’N’Borrow wants to give back. It hopes to launch a paid model of the borrowing service in the near future. The fee will help promote the platform by making sure that everyone is insured, and part of the profit would go to the rescue organization it will partner with. The borrowing service also plans to eventually branch out to adoptable and foster dogs.

Berkeley believes the app will continue to further create and foster a community.

“We look to establish relationships because this is not simply a product, it’s someone’s baby … everyone loves their dogs,” he said. “I love having dogs around, and I want people to have the same options.”

COURTESY OF BARK’N’BORROW

Individuals who join Bar’N’Borrow and pass the background checks will get the chance to be loaned a dog free of charge.

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, February 25, 2016

A5

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By Pasquale DiFilippo Heights Staff It’s that time of year again. “Housing” is a word that often makes Boston College students cringe, especially for undergrads who are not guaranteed four years of housing and graduate students still on the hunt for apartments.

The competition for housing is so steep in an already crowded market that juniors often begin looking for

accommodations just weeks into the fall semester.

Coupled with the fact that Boston came in as the third most expensive housing market in the country, with the median one-bedroom rental price clocking in at $2,340 according to the national report released by Zumper, a real-estate rental startup, things look bleak.

This has been a particular problem for middle-class families who struggle

EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF

One of the aims of CC&F is to transform an old monastery into graduate student housing.

to meet rent, as housing prices continue to rise, yet income has failed to keep up. Allston, however, came in much lower, at $1,800 a month. On average, BC has about 1,000 students living off campus.

BC has been proactive in its efforts to increase on-campus residency, obtaining permits to build 2150 Comm.

Ave. and convert 2000 Comm. Ave., an apartment complex, into a residence hall. BC has also disclosed plans for further housing developments in its Institutional Master Plan.

Local real-estate firms are also beginning to dip their hands in the student housing market. Cabot, Cabot, and Forbes (CC&F), purchased vacant St. Gabriel’s Monastery in Brighton for $21 million. CC&F aims to transform the site into housing for graduate students.

The renovation will include muchdesired amenities for students, including a gym, Wi-Fi, and parking and shuttle service to universities in the area.

The property is adjacent to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and just under a 10minute drive from Lower Campus. The project will provide between 400 and 500 housing units for grad students.

“The idea is to provide a housing option that gives an inducement for graduate students to live there and get out of the way of families trying to live in the three-deckers of the neighborhood,”

Doherty said.

Doherty also expects the cost of rent for the two-bedroom units to be “materially lower” than the price tag of $4,000 for many newer apartments.

CC&F sees its latest housing project as an opportunity due to the explosion of graduate student enrollment in the city, a 47 percent increase from 1995 to 2010.

Despite trends in online education, increasing importance of post-secondary education suggests that enrollment will continue to grow at universities across the city.

The Allston-Brighton area houses the largest share of graduate students in the city. Private development of student housing has been hard to come by in the city due to its expensive land.

Developers will choose to finance large high-rise buildings backed by corporate tenants rather than residential.

This is due to the fact that it is more difficult to screen each individual tenant occupying the building, especially college students, according to The Boston Globe.

According to a January U.S. Census report, the ownership rate in the city is slightly below 60 percent. That, coupled with record population growth in the city over the last 25 years, has led to a surge in rental demand.

In order to combat rising costs for students, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, WCAS ’09, released the first compre-

hensive report on student housing trends in the city last April. The report placed a priority on making housing safer for students and increasing oncampus beds at universities in the city.

Boston, led by Walsh, has cracked down on students’ over-occupying apartments in the city. Last year, for the first time, over 30 universities submitted addresses of their off-campus students. Of the 25,000 addresses analyzed, the city identified 580 apartment units it suspected were overcrowded.

A 2008 zoning ordinance prevents more than four undergraduate students from occupying a single apartment.

The Inspectional Services Department (ISD) checked the addresses for health and safety violations, according to the Walsh administration in a previous Heights article.

Last month, Northeastern University announced plans for a residence hall housing 800 students.

The school partnered with a private developer, American Campus Communities (ACC). ACC will construct and manage the building.

Because the building will be privately operated, it will not be included in the university’s housing lottery, and students must independently lease units.

Giving students access to more offcampus housing units should bring down rental costs and mitigate violations of the “No More Than Four” rule.

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By Leslie Sellers Heights Staff 140 characters: just enough room to spew a witty joke, start a debate between Kanye and literally anybody, and bring American history to life.

In the past week, the Boston African-American National Historic Site’s (BAANHS) Twitter account has released a number of sequential tweets detailing the trial of an escaped Virginia slave, Shadrach Minkins.

The site sought to make history come to life by retelling it in a format both familiar for young audiences and one commonly used as a news outlet today.

News of the past became accessible by transmitting it through modern methods.

Shawn Quigley, an official park guide for the site, described his inspiration for the Twitter campaign.

“I wanted to tell [Minkins’] story without lecturing or just linking an article explaining what happened,” he said. “I started thinking about sensationalized trials, such as Whitey Bulger, and how reporters used Twitter as a medium to let people know what was happening essentially in real time.”

Shadrach Minkins, originally enslaved in Virginia, escaped to Boston where he took up residence and began

work at a local coffee shop.

He was working when federal marshals arrived and took him into custody.

When Minkins was brought to a hearing, he could not testify for himself because under the Fugitive Slave Law, the U. S. government denied him citizenship.

As the hearing proceeded, hundreds of black and white Bostonians crowded into the courtroom, overcoming the armed guards.

Eventually, black abolitionists freed Minkins from the marshals and hid him inside a Beacon Hill home.

A day later, Minkins headed to Canada by way of the Underground Railroad, where he finally reached Montreal.

Quigley, in one of his later tweets, wrote, “Breaking news: Our sources have informed us that Shadrach has made it to Canada and is now free!”

Using social media for the campaign had dual intentionality. Quigley attributed this duality to BAANHS’s desire to increase its online visibility.

The Twitter campaign fits into that mold. But increasing its presence is not their only goal.

“It’s important to show that history is more than dates or lectures from a professor,” Quigley said.

The BAANHS has more dates and presentations, too.

The site displays permanent and rotating exhibits on local AfricanAmerican history in an 1834 schoolhouse, runs special tours and outreach talks, and gives daily talks at its partner site, the Museum of African American History.

The Black Heritage Trail, a 90-minute, mile-long walking tour through the north slope of Beacon Hill, however, remains its most popular program for visitors.

“When most people think of national parks they think of Yosemite or Yellowstone—not downtown Boston,” Quigley said. “But we are unique in the sense that instead of protecting a natural resource, we protect a cultural resource.”

That cultural resource is the free African-American community on Beacon Hill that existed in antebellum Boston.

And though a story of abolitionist success, both Minkins’ story and the site remain mostly unknown by Bostonians and visitors alike, in stark contrast to the common knowledge of many of Boston’s surrounding historic sites.

Making the BAANHS more visible in the historic and popular communities relies on the ability to get the word out.

Using the most accessible form of media, the BAANHS sought to bring

more attention to the site, its history, and beyond—to the national parks as a whole.

As the fall approaches, the National Park Service is celebrating the centennial of the creation of the National Park Service.

The park is also targeting the young-

er generation, especially those who are more technologically oriented, to increase both awareness and involvement in park service as a part of its “Find Your Park” campaign. By showing how the story would have been reported, it sparked renewed interest in the historic building.

COURTESY OF BAANHS

The new courthouse in downtown Boston was the site of a slave escape in the 1800s.

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D8;<C<@E< ;Ë8E><CF I’m not sure if any of you know about this yet, but this week is National Pancake Week. Maybe some of you have been awaiting National Pancake Week with bated breath.

Some of you might even be like me, delightedly caught off-guard and ecstatic to find something that will give meaning to the nightmare that is (for me at least) the second consecutive week of midterms and papers.

But most of you might be confused as to why I even care about it in the first place. In a city where more sophisticated and mouth-watering breakfast foods like waffles or crepes are readily available at restaurants like Zinneken’s Waffles or The Paris Creperie, why would I be so excited about a week dedicated to the humble pancake?

Honestly, I’m not even sure that I could tell you. Pancakes are by no means my favorite food. And in a world where scones and pastries

exist, they’re not even my favorite breakfast food, yet over the past few months they have become a noticeable presence in my life. In fact, I can practically trace my experience in Boston through my consumption of pancakes.

I had my first Boston pancake shortly after I arrived at school. It was actually my first off-campus meal, which is probably why the day sticks in my head so vividly, a brunch with people who would become two of my closest friends.

By some miracle, we had gotten seats at The Met Back Bay, and I was starving for something different after almost a month of dining hall food.

As I glanced over the menu, the Red, White & Blue buttermilk pancakes jumped out at me, and before I knew it, I had ordered them without even giving a second of consideration to the Nutella stuffed French toast, or the three-cheese omelet.

Any regret I had vanished as the pancakes made their way toward me several minutes later.

Light and fluffy, each pancake was almost the size of my head and topped with intricate swirls of whipped cream and berries. They were so simple and sweet, exactly what I needed that day.

And apparently they were exactly what I needed not much later, when I ended up at a sub shop in Newton

Center that for some mysterious reason had pancakes on the menu. A part of me knew that they wouldn’t even be that good (they weren’t), but they still made the perfect lunch.

It turned out that pancakes were also what I felt compelled to order the first time (and the next couple of times, if I’m being honest) I dragged my friends to Johnny’s Luncheonette for dinner one fateful Friday night.

Even though it was clearly dinner, and I had yet to eat anything even vaguely nutritious that day, I ordered pancakes with whipped cream and blueberries, and relished every last bite of them.

It eventually became a kind of pattern. If there were pancakes on the menu, I would order them, regardless of the time of day. There were even moments when I didn’t particularly want pancakes, but I would order them anyway. It was almost like I was driven by some pancake-obsessed inner force that I had yet to recognize.

But as time went on, I began wondering about why I was so drawn to pancakes when the opportunity presented itself. Back at home, pancakes were a frequent breakfast item, but not so frequent an item that arriving in the pancakeless-world of a college dining hall could have left me with a deep pancake void that I needed to

fill up.

In retrospect, I think that it had something to do with the childish nature of a pancake.

Entering college can be a stressful time for even the most organized of people. There is suddenly a new city, a new workload, a new set of people, and everyone needs a coping mechanism. For me, that coping mechanism was pancakes.

I see pancakes as the definition of childhood. They are the ultimate diner food for a 6-year-old, and the breakfast that almost any child will request

before he or she understands what a crepe is. Pancakes are a grasp at the simplicity of being very young. They represent an existence when my family surrounded me at all times.

So I think that the whole thing has to do with the fact that every time I eat a pancake, I can feel childishly young and carefree, if only for a few moments. But sometimes, a few moments are really all that I need.

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KELSEY MCGEE / HGIGHTS EDITOR

THE HEIGHTS

A6

EDITORIALS

QUOTE OF THE DAY

E\n 8k_c\k`Z =XZ`c`k`\j N`cc @eZi\Xj\ Gi\jk`^\ Boston College Athletics officially announced Monday that it will pursue the construction of three new athletic facilities within the next three years: a recreation center, playing fields for baseball and softball, and an indoor practice facility.

The project will cost $200 million and will give varsity, club, and intramural sports better facilities to practice in, especially during winter.

By providing athletes with these necessary facilities, BC will be in a better recruiting position with more leverage over comparable schools. After a disappointing football season and the recent losses in basketball, it is clear that athletic improvement is necessary if BC wishes to maintain a competitive program in the ACC. As one of the few FBS schools located in a major city, with high-quality academics and a great alumni network, BC already has a number of great selling points for recruitment, as Director of Athletics Brad Bates often points out.

But one of the main selling points for student-athletes is quality athletic facilities. In that regard, BC has failed in its recruiting efforts over the last 10 years.

Once new facilities are in place, BC can attract recruits who would otherwise have chosen a different school.

This is a project that has been a long time coming. Indoor practice facilities are a must-have for a top college sports program, especially one in the Northeast. The University has promised improvements for roughly a decade now, and progress has been very slow.

While this announcement is a positive sign, it remains necessary that we wait and see if everything comes to fruition as it is meant to. If BC fulfills the plan it has put forward—and we should see this process begin over the

Thursday, February 25, 2016

“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”

-John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

summer after Edmond’s Hall has been demolished—it will be a worthwhile project that establishes a firm footing for athletics in the future.

It is important to note that the entire $200 million cost is covered by private donations, meaning that no tuition dollars will be put toward these projects. A common complaint when the University announces athletic expenditures is that the money could be spent elsewhere, but in this case, since the University is not using tuition dollars, it is putting donors’ money into programs that donors wish to see supported. Alumni have been clamoring for improved practice facilities for years, and using their donation money for this purpose exhibits a commitment to alumni interests.

K_`j gifgfjXc `j X nfik_n_`c\ lj\ f] [feXk`fe dfe\p k_Xk nflc[ ^i\Xkcp `dgifm\ k_\ jkXk\ f] 9: 8k_c\k`Zj Xe[ nflc[ `eZi\Xj\ 9:Ëj eXk`feXc gi\jk`^\% This proposal is a worthwhile use of donation money that would greatly improve the state of BC Athletics. BC has lagged in the creation of these facilities, and it is important to wait for an ensured fulfillment of the proposal.

Once construction is fully underway and the new facilities are an inevitability, BC will have taken a step toward legitimately improving athletics and the many programs they affect.

This will benefit everyone by increasing BC’s national prestige and bringing in more money that can be used on various non-athletic projects.

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The Undergraduate Government of Boston College has created a pilot program to provide an individual conduct onsultant for students who receive disiplinary sanctions. This consultant is a tudent whose job is to inform the disiplined student of his or her rights and help the student through the process.

A conduct consultant program is useful or students. As it stands, the disciplinry process often leaves students unsure of how to proceed. They do not know what they should say to their residential director, how to approach their hearing, nd what rights they have. A trained onsultant is a simple way of confronting his and preparing students. By informing tudents of their rights, the consultant will be able to help students understand heir position and how to proceed. This ould mean that a student could seek an ppeal, or better explain the situation to his or her RD with complete knowledge of the process.

UGBC has access to resources of which most students are unaware. By spreading nformation to consultants and setting up a system through which students can eek support, UGBC is using its resources wisely by supporting this program. Hopeully, this program will remain in effect in he future and will expand. This program s similar to an already-offered service at Georgetown University, which ensures hat students understand their rights n the disciplinary process. By joining nother elite Jesuit university in the cretion of this program, BC is improving its offerings for students.

While this is a good first step, the University should continue to develop tudents’ rights programs. The previously

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

mentioned Georgetown program involves an office devoted to students’ rights.

Moving forward, the University would do well to keep the conduct consultant program while also expanding students’ rights offerings.

One necessary portion of ensuring this program’s success is to properly train consultants. Since the consultants themselves will be students, they must undergo a thorough training process and be made aware of every facet of the disciplinary process in order to effectively help students. An untrained consultant would de-legitimize the program and

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A student’s lack of knowledge regarding his or her rights can lead to unnecessary mistakes during a disciplinary hearing. As an institution meant to help students, UGBC should attempt to create as many tangibly beneficial programs for undergraduates as possible.

Succeeding in the creation of a conduct consultant program demonstrates these tangible benefits and will help a great deal of undergraduates.

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

HEIGHTS

THE

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

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

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THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, February 25, 2016

A7

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MUENSTER CHEESE - Most people are easily overwhelmed when they enter the wild world of cheese. Colby?

Jack? Cheddar? What is this? For those people, we would like to provide a moment of parental guidance.

There is one true cheese, a cheese that rises above all others into a transcendent state of gustatory glory.

That cheese is Muenster.

PUTTING YOUR FEET UP ON DESKS - There’s no greater power move than strutting into your professor’s office hours, plopping down on a chair, and planting the heels of your dog-turd-stained boots right on his desk. This is a guaranteed way to get an A in any class. The professor will respect you and assume that you are a reasonable, intelligent, and worthy student.

FREAKING OUT YOUR ROMMATE There’s nothing better than an eightmonth, extremely well-coordinated plan to drive your roommate insane.

One day you’re found standing in a circle with seven extremely tall women, all raising both hands in the air and chanting, “Pimmy pams for my jimmy jams.” The next day you say you have no memory of this.

You wake up in the middle of the night and begin laughing maniacally.

When your roommate wakes, you fall back asleep. You brush your teeth every morning with a toilet scrubber while looming over your still-sleeping roommate. Occasionally you pet your roommate’s hair and tell them, “You’re the chosen one,” before sprinting from the room as fast as you can. Within two months your roommate will be requesting a new dormitory or a new college. That’ll teach them to treat you nicely and try to get along with you.

“I’ve spent four years here and haven’t made any real friends;” “None of my friends care about me;” “My friends are going to forget about me after I graduate”—all tearful confessions from seniors who have started their last semester at school. Since I am a junior, I can only nod my head and act supportive, left to question my own relationships.

Parts of BC, from our poor housing system to our competitive personalities, make students doubt the strength of their friendships. I love my friends, and I assume that I’ll share lifelong relationships with them. Yet after listening to different seniors, I became less confident in my friendships, and I couldn’t help but wonder how I’ll feel a year from now.

College is strange because our first relationships are determined by a computer program—one that put me on the fourth floor of Gonzaga with two complete strangers. This randomization, paired with BC’s general “Who do you know here?” exclusivity, makes it difficult for freshmen to branch out.

You spend freshman year with friendships formed out of convenience, hating the fact that you don’t have close relationships like you did in high school.

Some kids transfer, but most of us just go with it.

Then it comes time for housing, when students have to verbally express who their closest seven friends are, then five and then three (if you end up on CoRo like I did). There’s nothing more disheartening than having to be told you fit in less or are the “most expendable.” The only thing worse is getting removed from a group. Especially when eight-man’s are so coveted, we create

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TEST AND HOMEWORK ON THE SAME DAY - “This is absurd,” you scream.

“I should report you to the police.”

Homework on the same day you have a test? What kind of cruel joke is this? The second you heard the news you leapt onto your desk and proclaimed your protest. Your professor stares at you with a blank, dead-eyed glare. “Students, my brothers and sisters,” you yell. “I call upon you to rise up. To throw off this yoke of overwork. Come with me.

We shall lie in our beds and watch television in solidarity. They may take our GPAs but they will never take our freedom!”

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Pfl jg\e[ ]i\j_dXe p\Xi n`k_ ]i`\e[j_`gj ]fid\[ flk f] Zfem\e`\eZ\# _Xk`e^ k_Xk pfl [feËk _Xm\ Zcfj\ i\cXk`fej_`gj c`b\ pfl [`[ `e _`^_ jZ_ffc% So as I listen to these seniors, I can’t help but worry about my friendships. I wonder if I’ve merely found a group and stuck with it because that was the safe or easy choice. Again, I love my friends, but not even that recognition can stop the paranoia, the fear that I belong to the group because it’s convenient.

Then there was the funeral. When one of my friend’s family members passed away, the entire group left Boston to show support. It sounds cliche, and it is, but there was a liberating moment in loss. It gave us the opportunity to be vulnerable with one another—a certain unwritten license that let us cry together and say things like “I love you man.” I began to understand more and more why seniors felt this level of insecurity. Sure, it was partially because of the housing

system, but the issue goes much deeper.

It centers on the idea of vulnerability.

Imagine your high school friends.

Many of us still cherish those relationships. Even though we might not see these friends every day, we still consider them some of our closest companions.

High school was a formative time, and we had to confide in these friends, and share information on our hopes, dreams, and changing emotions. It generated an undeniable sense of trust. We created a space of openness where we recognized that our individuality was accepted and appreciated.

Yet, while it’s still a formative experience, college presents a different atmosphere. People are older, everyone talks about the “real world” and we have to put on the facade of certainty—act like we know what we want from life. But the same conversations, the ones of hopes, dreams, and changing emotions, are still there. It’s only in college that we are expected to be more reserved, to keep our problems to ourselves. With these expectations, how can we possibly be vulnerable? Our relationships suffer because they lack this depth. We may live with someone for four years, but that doesn’t mean we are best friends. The strength of relationships is not defined by their longevity, but by their content.

We need this vulnerability. We need to be open with our friends. We can’t wait until the funeral to finally realize that it’s okay to say, “I love you.” I feel horribly for these seniors. I can’t imagine leaving school feeling friendless.

Outside of the education, college friendships are perhaps the greatest reward to the experience. We need to intentionally be open with our friends. Let’s take moments, whether they are birthdays, holidays, or Mondays, to actually tell our friends that we care. And if you don’t feel that way, then maybe it’s time to find a new group before it’s too late.

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PLATITUDES - They’re fun because everyone can be a part of them. Join arms with me, fellow humans, and let us rejoice.

WASHING YOUR SHEETS - You wake up one morning and realize that you are swimming in a sea of dead skin and solidified sweat. The stench emanating from your bed has attracted a horde of 17 rats that crawl up your walls in a synchronized assault of nightmarish proportions. Sighing, you rip the sheets off your bed and march down to the laundry room.

The horror. Could your life be any more of a struggle?

this culture in which you need to belong to a group—it becomes the core of your social status. The housing process makes students desperate to find a group and cling to it. We might even openly dislike some of the kids in the group, but that doesn’t seem to matter—all that matters is actually having a group.

We make sure we have a group and then commit a year of our lives to living with it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end after freshman year. At the start of sophomore year, the off-campus frenzy forces students to find a house or apartment almost immediately (I found my house within the first two weeks). But who are you going to live with? Another year committed, this time with a lease.

At this point, living with this group is routine, and senior year won’t change the status quo.

This past weekend, I started my ultimate music history-buff move: curating an exhaustive list of my favorite classical works. As a violinist since first grade and progeny of a family of classical enthusiasts, I pride myself on having an intimate connection with the classical greats—Rachmaninoff ’s elevating piano concertos, Beethoven’s deeply profound symphonies, Paganini’s technically incredible violin caprices—since before I can remember. Unfortunately, as expected, my list project backfired in a lot of ways: I did none of my required homework, I lost a Spotify follower, and I didn’t even end up finishing the list because I became immersed in a cathartic rediscovery of how much I love Franz Liszt, Romantic-Era composer, virtuoso, and superstar, who reshaped the way an entire planet understands classical music, and what it does for humanity.

To keep it short, Liszt was a colossal and unrivaled pianist, whose solo performances defined the idea that a pianist could attract, and deserve, crowds of thousands—“A god for pianists,” as composer Berlioz said. He was alluring and brilliant, with a natural sort of magic that set off the phenomenon that poet Heinrich Heine termed “Lisztomania”—a condition in which swooning female fans would literally faint in his magnetic presence, throw their brassieres onto the stage, and collect his cigarette butts as souvenirs. His music is rich and tantalizing at times, romantic and dreamlike at others, and always technically complicated, making him an inevitable adversary for any music student—a titan of emotional understanding and practical mastery.

In the middle of my forgotten list I found myself embarrassingly teary-eyed at this virtuosic genius, now 100 pages into his gorgeous three-volume biogra-

phy by Alan Walker, and in the context of the overwhelmingly lame, uncontroversial Grammys last week, I scrolled through my classical music playlist and wondered, “Is anyone else feeling this?”

This is no elitist, I-was-totally-bornin-the-wrong-generation, woe-is-mepop-music-is-shallow lament. Anyone who knows me can attest to my position on the Nicki Minaj defense squad, the fact that I’ve had Zayn’s “Pillowtalk” on repeat since its release, and that I wrote my last column for The Heights on Beyonce—all in all, that I am a shameless lover of the celebrity phenomenon and am unafraid to defend it. But it still feels to me that classical music has a timeless sort of depth, maybe one that we as youth should draw upon to reconnect with the most important facet of our humanity: our emotions.

N`k_flk nfi[j# n`k_flk i\jki`Zk`fejfe n_Xk @ j_flc[ k_`eb# n`k_ fecp jgXZ\ kf XYjfiY k_\ dlj`Z Xe[ dXb\ dp k_fl^_kj d`e\Çk_`j `j# ]fi d\# k_\ dXkZ_c\jj gfn\i f] ZcXjj`ZXc dlj`Z% Obviously, the tears I shed at Franz Liszt’s brilliance are not unique to me.

In times of tragedy, classical music has often given us comfort: Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” has become the effective anthem of mourning in our country, though it wasn’t written with that intention. Similarly, the first thing I do in the aftermath of human tragedies lately (mass shootings, police brutality, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, unjust rape trials) is listen to instrumental music. Without words, without restrictions on what I should think, with only space to absorb the music and make my thoughts mine—this is, for me, the matchless power of classical music.

Lately in my MCAS Honors seminar, we have been learning about the ideals of Enlightenment thinkers. Most notably, Immanuel Kant tells us in his

famous essay “What is Enlightenment?” that it is the courage to sapere aude— dare to know. It is a rejection of the easy way out, an embrace of the difficult, a willingness to think for ourselves—only then can we become enlightened within our humanity. It is with these academic principles in mind, or perhaps even the notion that I have access to these complex academic principles with my $60,000 tuition, my BC bubble, and my safely locked and maintained dorm, that I reflect in these spaces on what I am doing on this Earth—what I should accomplish, when people are struggling even to survive in just the next country over, the next city over, the next street over. Listening to Franz Liszt unlocks in me not just my deepest emotions, but the knowledge that I have the capacity for these deep emotions, that I am magnificently human. Feeling in this capacity is an assertion of our shared humanity.

There are so many problems in the world. There is no simple answer to the diplomatic impasses between America and the world or to the dismal outlook of millennials, to the oppression of freedom by tyrannical governments, to the social and political divisions between warring parties. Obviously, just listening to music is not the cure-all to the world’s great problems. But it is still incomparably powerful. It insists on mindfulness from its listeners, on a silent and powerful affirmation of our humanity. If we drew upon music, or rather, upon the unique, wordlessly human quality of the emotion, I think we as individuals could understand each other, and ourselves, in a much deeper and necessary sense. It may inspire the urge to actually doing something.

“A sympathetic recognition is assured,” Liszt writes, “to everyone who consecrates his art to the divine services of a conviction of a consciousness.” Art has a knack for opening minds, and in this time of change, perhaps that’s just the push we need.

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:FEFI J?<<?P Health care costs are one of the most contested issues in the Democratic Party today. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been looking at the rising costs associated with our health care system, and how the government can help alleviate the financial strain that health insurance is placing on people who are just trying to make ends meet. Clinton has framed herself as keeping with Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act policies (the staple legislation of his administration), while Sanders has signaled vehement support for a single-payer national health care system—Medicare for all. The Affordable Care Act did not go nearly far enough in relieving the heavy burden of insurance premiums because of the lack of a public option. A single-payer system would be a tremendous step forward in reducing the exorbitant costs that Americans pay for health insurance.

Health care per capita in the United States costs 50 percent more than in Canada, and double the cost per capita in the United Kingdom. Private insurance providers calculate the expected cost of the insurance that they sell based on the likelihood of injury or illness and the costs of the medical care of treating those ailments.

There are also other unavoidable costs in providing these plans, like administrative fees to cover labor, land costs, and technology. In all, the expense ratio for private insurers usually lies between 15 and 25 percent, while the Medicare program has a measly expense ratio of 2.9 percent. It doesn’t spend anywhere near the amount of money that private insurers spend on commercial advertisements and executive bonuses.

Critics argue that when all other costs associated with administering Medicare are taken into account, the ratio goes up to around 10 percent. If that number is correct, most people would still benefit from a more efficient program. University of Massachusetts Amherst economist Gerald Friedman has looked at Sanders’ proposal for nationalized Medicare, and has shown that aggregate net savings with a singlepayer system over our current system will be around $5 trillion over the next 10 years.

The legislation Sanders wants to implement would also allow the Medicare program to negotiate drug prices, which it is currently unable to do because of concessions made to the pharmaceutical industry under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. A recent study out of Carleton University and Public Citizen showed that Medicare pays 83 percent of a brand-name drug’s official price, on average. Medicaid and the Veteran Health Administration pay only 48 percent and 46 percent respectively because they are not prevented from utilizing their bargaining capabilities.

The best critique of the payroll taxes needed to implement a national single-payer system is that taxes to pay for it are unjust because they are involuntary and people must relinquish the personal freedom to choose whether to pay for health insurance by themselves. The critique is right, but it neglects a critical aspect of the current system. What happens if someone chooses not to purchase insurance because they think that their likelihood of needing medical treatment is low, and they are wrong?

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 already requires hospitals, which receive payments from Medicare, to treat people that are in need of emergency medical treatment. The federal mandate does not provide funds to cover these people. The vast majority of hospitals have to pick up the tab for these people, and The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have pointed out that approximately 55 percent of an emergency physician’s time is spent providing uncompensated care.

If our country is supposed to protect its citizens’ lives, shouldn’t it consider nationalized health insurance to provide all citizens with reasonably affordable health care? The United States should implement a nationalized single-payer health care system, or at least a public option, in order to secure more affordable insurance costs for its citizens.

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THE HEIGHTS

A8

Thursday, February 25, 2016

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ARTHUR BAILIN / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF

9P AL8E FC8M8II@8 D\kif <[`kfi Nowadays, conversations do not often contain more than simple, scattered text messages riddled with emojis. The interpersonal connections many take for granted have begun to wither away rapidly.

This Thursday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., in a joint effort between the Laughing Medusa, Stylus, the Medical Humanities Journal, Slam, and Other Americas, the literary publication community is taking over Fuel America in Brighton during its “Fuel Your Fire” event.

The event, which will feature an open coffee bar and a wide selection of pastries, hopes to expand the reaches of the creative community within the BC student body.

It will also have poetry readings, slam performances, and readings from all five organizations hosting the event, not to mention a special performance by BC bOp! Jennifer Heine, the events coordinator of Stylus and MCAS ’16, believes that this is an “exciting opportunity to feature our work and everyone else’s.”

She says that this event will be different from other more

formal poetry readings in that this will be more of a social event in a more informal, safe environment where everyone is there to either showcase their work, support those performing, or to simply observe. Additionally, she says that it is always fun for students to get off campus for a bit and have fun.

“I hope that people [are] going [to] get excited about the creative forces at BC,” she said. “We sure are.”

Fuel America was chosen as the site of the event because of its existing connection with the BC community, with many students spending their mornings or afternoons there.

“People and students come and spend their entire day here,” said Gabriel Ferreira, manager of Fuel. “They can relax and do their work. It is an experience that is unlike that of Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts—we aim to celebrate the people.”

Kaitlin Astrella, editor of the Laughing Medusa and MCAS ’16, agrees with what the event is trying to achieve and that the venue was chosen due to its close proximity to campus and its familiarity to the student body.

“I’m there all the time,” Astrella said. “I wanted it in a bigger and safer space for all writers, especially women writers.”

Astrella also talked about bringing the literary community

closer and, thus, making it stronger. For her, listening to other people perform allows creativity to flow through the entire audience. Plus, she added, all of the writers and performers “do cool [stuff ].”

Listening to others perform often inspires her, Astrella said, as listening to others showcase their work and seeing their own individual styles creates a special environment and a connection between the performers and the audience.

Regarding her goals for this event, the biggest driving factor was to bring together all of the other publications in one room and to become familiar with both their work and the individuals that make it happen.

“It opens up a lot of people to new ideas, and [I] hope that they make new connections as well,” she said.

All of the publications when the idea first came to fruition, said Astrella, were very receptive and excited at the possibility of having a joint event and of “do[ing] something different.”

Looking toward the future, Astrella and Heine hope that this type of event at which many publications showcase their work together will become a more common occurrence.

But for now, this is a good start.

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Spent grain accounts for an estimated 85 percent of a beer brewery’s total by-product.

During the brewing process, the grain loses its sugar content and nourishes the yeast.

Numerous breweries throughout the country have recycled spent grain as animal feed, organic fertilizer for growing mushrooms, and even fuel to power their day-to-day brewery operations. Because most breweries recycle their by-products, the brewing industry as a whole has earned a reputation of being environmentally friendly.

Somerville Brewing Company, also referred to as “Slumbrew,” has initiated

an innovative program that salvages the unused by-products from the beer brewing process. Considering its bounty within the brewing process, spent grain is an abundant and inexpensive addition to Slumbrew’s pantry. Slumbrew is able to extract the large quantities of spent grain at little to no additional cost. By introducing food items made with spent grain to its product line and its menu, Slumbrew demonstrates its creativity, resourcefulness, and commitment to sustainability in its brewery. One of Slumbrew’s specialty food items includes its spent grain Belgian waffles.

An excellent source of fiber and protein, Brewer’s Spent Grain, or BSG can be a foundation for numerous foods. Because beer

and bread are similarly composed, water, sugar, yeast, and grain, bread products are the easiest ways to use spent grain in the kitchen. Its unique nutty taste and gritty texture are ideal for baked goods.

Slumbrew co-owner Caitlin Jewell hosts 45-minute interactive and instructional cooking classes in which attendees use BSG as ingredients for two different dog treats, including sweet potato spent grain treats and peanut butter treats. The cooking classes feature a tasting of Somerville’s finest brews as well as a tour of Somerville Brewery.

According to Jewell, the program is also an environmental initiative, as grains that would be previously thrown out are now being consumed or used for other purposes.

During the tour, the attendees not only learn about the beer brewing process but also pick up the recently brewed ingredients for their recipes. The cooking class offers an opportunity for Slumbrew to pair its reputable brews with food items made with the same ingredients. Jewell demonstrates her expertise in brewing and provides an in-depth explanation of how to successfully incorporate liquid beer in baking repertoire.

At the end of the dog treat cooking class, the guests receive a goody bag filled with freshly spent grain, four recipes, and premade samples.

“The recipes are ones I’ve modified over the years for my beagle Bailey, and the artisan bread, which is a rosemary bread, is

about to become a permanent part of our menu,” Jewell said.

For the spent grain bread-baking class, attendees can take home a freshly baked loaf of bread, extra spent grain, other bread recipes, bread and butter sampling, and a beer “token” to a Slumbrew pint. Jewell encourages her attendees to email her to arrange to pick up additional spent grain in the future.

Slumbrew currently incorporates BSG in its recipes for four different dog treats as well as bread. The brewery hopes to introduce a line of chocolate chip cookies in the future.

“The funny part is these dog treats are incredibly healthy for human consumption,” said Jewell.

E\n 8k_c\k`Z =XZ`c`k`\j @eZcl[\ I\Zi\Xk`fe :\ek\i Xe[ =`\c[ ?flj\ Facilities, from A1 is the pursuit of an “athletics field house” constructed adjacent to Alumni Stadium.

This indoor facility will provide a desperately needed space for football and the spring sports to practice during the winter without having to rely solely on the bubble over Alumni. Bates, however, confirmed that the bubble will still be used as an auxiliary practice facility for teams during winter months.

University spokesman Jack Dunn reiterated that the plans for the new rec center and baseball/softball fields have been approved and the University is merely awaiting permits—that being said, those projects should begin as soon as this summer.

The indoor practice facilities, however, will have to go through the approval and permit process, just as those facilities did when the IMP first came out.

The original IMP had planned for undergraduate dorms to be placed on Shea Field.

Since this plan was submitted to the City of Boston in 2007, Dunn said that the University will reevaluate the housing component on Shea with the indoor practice facilityslated to go next to Alumni.

Bates expressed his excitement that an indoor practice facility will bring to BC from a recruiting and standpoint.

“We have a lot of assets that are inher-

ent to Boston College,” Bates said. “When you combine the facilities part of it, with the assets of Boston College, it just adds to the lucrativeness of Boston College to a prospective student-athlete.”

Bates also believes that an indoor practice facility will greatly help the University’s varsity sports, particularly football.

Moving practices indoors allows football to avoid inclement weather in fall months. It will also negate time and lighting as an issue, and help BC simulate crowd noise of larger stadiums in the ACC without disrupting the neighboring residential area.

Though Bates said no red flags came up in the process, BC Athletics wanted to make sure that the plan was solid before making it public, given how big of an investment $200 million is.

As of now, contracts have not been estimated or put out to bid. That being said, Dunn believes that this project will create significant construction opportunities and could result in hundreds of jobs.

“We’re looking to work with the city to advance this project and to meeting with the Boston College Allston-Brighton Community Task Force, the mayor’s office, and the BRA to advance this important and noteworthy project for Boston College,” Dunn said.

Bates estimates that, once the permits have been approved for the indoor practice facility, it will take 8-12 months to complete the project. As for what the baseball/softball

GRAPHIC COURTESY OF BC ATHLETICS

BC is planning to significantly upgrade its facilities to remain competitive nationally in a project expected to cost $200 million. fields will look like, Bates said that it largely depends on how many additional donations BC Athletics receives—however, he stated that the department has already been given significant money for these projects.

“Once we put a shovel in the ground, we’ll be able to give an accurate estimate,” Bates said.

BC Athletics has provided artistic renderings of the new recreation center and the field house.

In the press release from BC Athletics,

several head coaches expressed their gratitude over the pursuit of this project.

“This announcement represents a commitment from Boston College to give our students the best facilities possible,” football head coach Steve Addazio said in the official release. “We are very excited for an indoor facility that will provide our student-athletes an opportunity to develop throughout the winter months.”

“At Boston College we talk about and believe in “cura personalis”—care for the

whole person,” baseball head coach Mike Gambino said in the statement. “The BC Athletics Department, and specifically the baseball program, strives to live up to that standard by making sure our student-athletes reach their full potential on the field, in the classroom and as people. These new facilities will play a huge role in helping our players develop on the diamond and, in turn, helping our program compete on the national stage and for a chance to go to The College World Series in Omaha.”

REVIEW

NETFLIX’S ‘LOVE’

JUDD APATOW PRODUCES THE NEW NETFLIX RELATIONSHIP COMEDY, PAGE B4 COLUMN

TOO LATE FOR MS. LEE

IN THE WAKE OF THE WRITER’S DEATH, TWITTER TEEMS WITH PRAISE, PAGE B3

REVIEW

‘Last Week Tonight’

JOHN OLIVER RETURNS TO ‘LAST WEEK TONIGHT’ DESK READY TO TAKE ON LAST WEEK, Page B4

THURSDAY | February 25, 2016

THE

ABBY PAULSON / HEIGHTS EDITOR

THE HEIGHTS

B2

Thursday, February 25, 2016

A FULLER PICTURE

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We all retain parts of our childhood that are reignited at certain points in our adulthood.

For me, I think my love of video games stems directly from that piece of my childhood that lies, partially dormant, somewhere in my head.

I’m not talking about just any video games, though—I’m talking about games that a lot of people might think a 20-year-old wouldn’t be playing. Ever heard of Kingdom Hearts, the epic Final Fantasy and Disney mash-up? I’m currently going through my second play-through in my dorm. I can’t get enough. That is, until I get swamped with work for two weeks and can’t pick it up. That’s when the real world wins.

Back to my point. When I heard Disney had created a sandbox video game that pulled characters from virtually every corner of the Disney universe (including Disney’s recently acquired Star Wars and Marvel universes), I was hesitantly hooked. Did I want to build my own racetrack through Andy’s room from Toy Story and drive around as Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Inc.? You bet. Would I be mortified if anyone ever saw me doing it? Yep, kind of. With this in mind, I let the game go for a few years.

Each year, however, Disney released new versions of Disney Infinity rife with new missions, iconic places to build whatever you wanted, and more characters to buy. I should note that to play as whatever character you want, you need to buy a little figurine of the character at a video game store. You put these figurines on a pad that comes with the game, and they appear in the game—fascinating what technology can do these days. Anyways, once Disney started integrating Star Wars into the mix, I was really itching to get in on the fun.

The game had actually gotten good reviews from IGN and Gamespot, and if those 30-something-year-old men could play Disney Infinity, why couldn’t I? I decided I’d go check it out at Target, ready to explain to the clerk that I was getting it for a little cousin.

When I got to Target, I finally saw why Disney was pushing so hard for people to buy Disney Infinity. A starter pack for the game costs $80. Subsequent missions and character figurines can range anywhere from $15-35 each. Let me quickly repeat that. It costs $15 to play as Buzz Lightyear in a video game.

There are 117 Disney characters you can buy for this game, and to play as just one, it costs $15. I might be a bit childish in my game selection and general demeanor, but there is no way in hell I would ever spend nearly the amount of money that Disney expects from me just to get a few characters and missions in Disney Infinity.

Later, it dawned on me just how brilliant Disney is to sell the game like this. With a beautiful color palette and stylized renditions of most, if not all of Disney’s most famous characters, kids must be dragging their parents to Best Buy and Gamestop to get the Barbossa figurine or the Pirates of the Caribbean mission pack. With 117 figurines and a variety of mission and location packs, Disney has to be swimming in all the cash it’s raking in from this game.

It’s not the only one to take up this new formula. LEGO recently released its own version of the Disney Infinity world with Lego Dimensions. It’s practically the same concept, except LEGO takes advantage of the movie and television brands it has acquired over the years, pulling together a collection of characters ranging from Bart Simpson to Legolas.

Lego Dimensions is, notably, sold at about the same prices as Disney Infinity.

This is a dangerous and slippery slope we’re staring down as gamers. In a video game world where the effects and pervasiveness of downloadable content are constantly growing, it’s terrifying to see this formula that Disney Infinity and Lego Dimensions have quickly and efficiently mastered come to life.

Sell the game, then sell individual missions, then sell individual characters. Sure, it’s cool to see a type of game that is constantly being updated with new content, but Disney set the standard with how these types of games can be sold, and the prices are excruciating. I would not want to be a parent with a video game-addicted kid right now. I have to acknowledge, on the other hand, that that terrible gene is in me and that one day it could very well be passed down to my son or daughter. By that time, lord only knows how the Disney Infinity formula will have evolved.

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JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

J\e`fi 8Zki\jj fe Jkl[\ek J_fnj# >iX[lXk`e^# Xe[ G_`cfjfg_p 9P :?I@J =LCC<I 8ikj I\m`\n <[`kfi Years ago, somewhere in the vast expanse of New Hampshire, a 5-year-old Caroline Portu, MCAS ’16, prepares to face off against the French National Guard. She’s nervous. Portu has never faced off against a force quite like this. Her saving graces are her two brothers. They’re younger, but they’re made up of the same vivacity as their sister. She’s quietly singing to herself, “Here upon these stones we will build our barricade / In the heart of the city we claim as our own.” The Guard is advancing on their location. Portu and her brothers take a deep breath and prepare to jump. After a few seconds of perfect stillness, the three leap over the pillows and charge headfirst into the oncoming soldiers.

This is practically how Portu responds to the question, “What are some of your favorite musicals?” One might expect to hear her rattle off a few Broadway hits and move onto the next question. Instead, Portu hits you with a beautiful picture of her early days learning some of the best musical numbers to hit the world’s stages.

Years later, finishing up her senior year at Boston College, Portu has just signed off on the last musical of her BC theatre career, Learning How to Drown. In her time here, Portu has performed in a variety of musicals and plays, including Godspell, The Drowsy Chaperone, The Trojan Women, and Le-

gally Blonde. While Portu notes that each of these musicals brought its own challenges, Learning How to Drown provided the best learning experience.

Learning How to Drown was written and produced by Patricia Noonan, BC ’07, and put into the BC theatre schedule as a workshop.

The students involved were given a chance to experiment with characters since there were no previous performances. Portu was told to work on the character at many different angles. In this thinking, Portu was able to relate herself to her character, trying to see where her personality could aid the character.

Also, with the novelty of the show came a chance for the students to interact with it on a more personal level instead of academically, as Portu puts it.

“It was great because it was less academic,” Portu said. “It was much more performanceoriented, which put us in a more professional setting. What I’ve noticed at BC, which is great, but can be detrimental, is that we’re focused on the history and background of a piece, rather than how we feel about it or connect with it.”

Looking back on her other work in the theatre department, Portu noticed that she often enjoyed student-directed plays and the unique opportunities that they gave students. In a less rigid setting, Portu felt that the students could discuss where they fit into the pieces that they were working on, rather than the setting and reason that the play was written.

“I tend to like the student shows more,”

Portu said. “It’s more fun. We’re in charge. We can talk about a vision of a show over mozzarella sticks, as opposed to being given these big inaccessible abstractions. The students won’t talk like that. They’ll ask you what you think.

They’re really open to hearing your opinion because you’re on equal playing fields.”

Now that Portu has finished her last show at BC, she’s got her sights set on the future. With graduation nearing, Portu is in the midst of planning her career outside of BC. Currently, she’s working with two national wedding band companies. Over the summer, Portu will play at venues across the country, continually earning a name for herself in the music world.

She’s also looking to record an EP in New York, but with school, it’s hard for her to plan trips to New York to go into a recording studio. Sketch comedy is also an interest of Portu’s, and though she might not set that at the top of her priorities, Portu is all about keeping her options open to the best of her ability.

“The key is, you’ve got to actually be there,” Portu said. “That’s what this summer is for. I’ll probably start in New York and see where things go from there. I definitely don’t have a plan, and I’m fine with that because that’s what my life has been like for the past four years.”

Reflecting on her time at BC, Portu had many words of wisdom for future BC students and, particularly, theatre majors.

Portu also went to lengths noting how dif-

ferently things worked out from how she thought her time at BC would be spent.

When Portu entered BC, she felt that theatre would be a much larger part of her educational experience here. She even thought about applying to a conservatory in the city under the assumption that she wanted to focus more on performing than on traditional education. Once at BC, Portu found a love for philosophy and adopted the subject in a double-major with theatre. Over the years, Portu started to realize that she could directly apply what she learned in her philosophy classes to much more than just academic papers.

Portu feels that an ability to observe the world from different perspectives has helped her grow as an actress. She notes that her philosophy major helped her realize this vital point and that, even though she enjoys applying this practice into her acting method, she feels that having a multifaceted worldview is the most helpful thing someone can do for his or herself in life.

“Generally, in college, your job should be to pick and choose the philosophies and worldviews that work for you, wrap them up in a ball,” Portu said. “You end up holding onto that ball for the rest of your life.”

Portu’s future might be shrouded in fog. The French National Guard might be looming ahead of her. But Portu, also, has her ball of knowledge—a ball of knowledge and practice that can help her through all of life’s challenges and trials.

EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

THIS WEEKEND in arts

BY: HANNAH MCLAUGHLIN | ASST. ARTS & REVIEW EDITOR

BOSTON COLLEGE IRISH DANCE PRESENTS: “ELECTRIFY” (THURS.-FRI. AT 7 P.M.)

‘TRIPLE 9’ (OPENS FRIDAY) When a major heist hinges on the murder of a prominent policeman, a gang of criminals take drastic measures to ensure their success. Crooked cops and criminal behavior abound this star-studded action film, in theaters Friday.

Secure your tickets for this week’s Robsham show, Boston College Irish Dance’s “Electrify.” Experience a fusion of traditional dance and contemporary music at this captivating cultural performance.

‘EDDIE THE EAGLE’ (OPENS FRI.) This family-friendly biopic of Michael “Eddie” Edwards’ outlines the Olympic aspirations of one unlikely British ski jumper. The film emphasizes the importance of overcoming adversity and rising to great challenges in the pursuit of achieving an impossible dream.

20TH CENTURY FOX

MY MOTHER’S FLEABAG (THURS. AT 10 P.M.) Get to Gasson 305 early to grab a seat for the comedy stylings of the always-hysterical My Mother’s Fleabag. This week’s 2016 Spring Cafe is a free event that promises to bring entertaining improv comedy to campus.

FUTURE FEAT. TY DOLLA SIGN (FRI. AT 7 P.M.)

“SO YOU THINK YOU CAN SWING?” (SUN. AT 4 P.M.)

Boston’s House of Blues is your destination for one of the greatest hip-hop concerts of the season. Find tickets now for Friday’s Future concert featuring Ty Dolla Sign.

Join the Boston College Full Swing dancers this Sunday afternoon in Robsham Theater for a high-powered performance. The group’s first annual show will feature entertaining dance numbers from guest performers Fuego and AeroK.

TROYE SIVAN (MON. AT 7 P.M.) The Youtube star-turned singer brings his signature electro-pop sound to Boston on Monday. Sivan will perform hits like “WILD,” “FOOLS,” AND “BITE” straight off his debut album Blue Neighbourhood.

UNIVERSITY CHORALE (SAT. AT 7 P.M.) Head to St. Ignatius on Saturday to hear the University Chorale of Boston College perform classic and contemporary songs. This weekend’s highly-anticipated winter concert is free to the public.

B3

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Rebuilding a Legacy

A MCLAUGHLIN MINUTE

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SUSAN MICHALCZYK

Susan Michalczyk’s Film Shows Lou Montgomery as a Symbol of Progress Both On and Off the Field.

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For every story we have told, there are dozens we have yet to tell. For every story we have heard, there are thousands we have yet to hear. Some of these stories are unfolding now, while others have yet to happen. Still others are lost in time. One such forgotten story is that of Lou Montgomery.

Lou Montgomery: A Legacy Restored is a film by MCAS Honors Program professor Susan Michalczyk, and it follows the trials and triumphs of Montgomery, Boston College’s first black athlete.

Brimming with heartfelt testimonials, family accounts, and audio from Montgomery himself, the film speaks to both the successes and shortcomings of BC as Lou treaded on the untested grounds of integrated collegiate sports.

A native of Brockton, Mass., and a Brockton High graduate, Montgomery made his stature as an athlete clear.

He was a state-athletics star, and many schools recognized his potential. He was offered football scholarships from schools across the country, most notably UCLA, one of the most progressive universities of the time when it came to integrating sports. Going to UCLA would have made made him teammates with Jackie Robinson and Kenny Washington, the first black football player to sign with an NFL team.

But instead of heading off to California, Montgomery chose to stay close to home and attend BC in 1937.

With so much talent, the Eagles were quickly becoming a powerful football force. Under head coach Gil Dobie, Montgomery was put on the varsity squad after his freshman year. After the departure of Dobie, legendary head coach Frank Leahy stepped in to bring about a golden era of BC football, heavily involving Montgomery. During this historic era, Montgomery, a running back, shared the field with several College Football Hall of Famers, including

quarterback Charlie O’Rourke and fullback Mike Holovak. Played to his potential, Montgomery was incredibly impressive. Under Leahy, Montgomery averaged just under nine yards a carry.

His fullest potential, unfortunately, may never have been realized, as the outside world pressured the team to make unfair concessions. Plagued by the “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” in which Southern schools would refuse to play unless the other team’s black players were not in attendance, Montgomery was often benched. During this time in BC football history, building a brand stood above upholding principle.

Montgomery’s absence did not go unnoticed, however. In the 1939 season, the Eagles’ only losses were against Florida and Clemson in the Cotton Bowl, leaving the Eagles 9-2. Montgomery was absent from both games.

In the 1940 season, Leahy sought to flesh out other options in the offense, as he knew Montgomery would not be allowed to play when facing tough Southern opponents.

Leahy and the Eagles went on to finish the season with a win against Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl at 11-0 without Montgomery.

This was the year BC stood as mythical national champions.

But a large part of Montgomery’s legacy stands not on the injustices done against him as an individual player, but in his virtue as a teammate. Many of his teammates at BC also hailed from Massachusetts.

Montgomery had played with them in high school and his absence in many games was seen as unfair by a bulk of the team. Despite this, Montgomery removed himself without protest, not wishing to inflict punishment on the rest of the Eagles because of Southern teams’ unwillingness to look past the color of his skin.

“Had he gone to UCLA, he would have found a more welcoming community with respect to race. [...] His life would have been so very different,” Michalczyk said.

“He would have had the chance to reach his potential and that is a loss not only for

SUSAN MICHALCZYK

SUSAN MICHALCZYK

Montgomery, but for all of us.”

But Montgomery’s love of the game was far greater than the prejudice harbored in the hearts of others. During the pivotal seasons of 1939 and 1940, Montgomery proved himself a vital part of the program on and off the field.

These sentiments are beautifully explored in Lou Montgomery: A Legacy Restored. Rife with passionate, earnest reflection on Montgomery’s story in the BC community, the film is as much about what his story meant at the time as what it means today. In a critical, yet fair fashion, many interviewees in the film call into question the conflict between the Jesuit values of the University and the willingness to abide by the Gentlemen’s Agreement. What real jurisdiction does an antiquated Southern prejudice have in the North? Certainly, when visiting teams in the South, Southern law took precedent, but Montgomery was also put on the sideline at home when facing visiting teams.

Sadly, principles were set aside to ensure BC could play ball at the highest level.

Though racism and prejudice are forces that exist outside of one university, organization, or sport, people complicit in their effects warrant criticism. In BC’s case, Montgomery’s plight, as so many of the interviewees pointed out, is a blatant violation of Jesuit and Christian values and that these events represent, at least, a sorely disappointing moment in the University’s history.

This may be why Montgomery’s story is not widely known. We have always heard of Doug Flutie, Matt Ryan, and Montgomery’s contemporary, O’Rourke, but we seldom, if ever, hear about Montgomery.

“As with so much in life, when there is pain or embarrassment or a sense of not having done something perfectly, most people and institutions prefer not to dwell on those moments,” Michalczyk said. “It’s human nature. And yet, unless we acknowledge the past, we are doomed to repeat it.”

The film will hopefully achieve acknowledgement and recognition of Montgomery in a wider sense. In 2012, his jersey was retired and honored in the southwest corner of Alumni Stadium, but as the film is quick to point out, the discussion

should not stop there. The film seeks to put a fire under the conversation and to achieve a greater sense of recognition of Montgomery.

Cai Thomas, MCAS ‘16, worked on the film as a co-producer, camera operator, and editor. After hearing about Montgomery’s story as a freshman during the 2012 ceremony, Thomas wanted to learn more about Montgomery. Upon learning about the film project, Thomas quickly became involved. In addition to the production work, Thomas was instrumental in gathering the archival sources for the film.

Speaking to the most compelling aspects of Montgomery’s story, Thomas said that listening to the audio and hearing him speak about the discrimination he faced and about BC was one of the most profound and personal touches of the film.

Through the film, all those involved hope to institutionalize his memory and make it as common as other BC greats’.

Presenting Montgomery as an important pioneer in BC’s history is integral for the University. This is in part the reason his story is being presented as a film.

“Art, the visual image, the music, the story, the narrative allows for a less threatening interpretation,” Michalczyk said. “It allows people to watch and process, and make connections in a way that would not work with simply listening or reading.

The film is a great tool to get the idea out to people.”

Lou Montgomery: A Legacy Restored is, as the title suggests, an attempt to renew an interest in Montgomery’s story. Though the film does point out BC’s shortcomings, it does not wish to demonize the University.

A Legacy Restored is a touching account of one man’s virtue in the face of adversity. In the audio logs from Montgomery, talking about his time at BC, one thing remained clear: in spite of all the troubles, his love of the game was strong.

“I hope people find inspiration in Lou Montgomery’s story and consider ways that we can help make a difference, whether through a scholarship, a statue, yearly conversations, and dialogue, in ways that will result in positive changes on our campus and beyond,” Michalczyk said.

Last week, for approximately 24 hours or so, the Twittersphere took a momentary hiatus from societally perceived “important things”—incessant prattle about Kanye West and those viral white Vans belonging to some kid named Daniel, for instance—pausing, only briefly, to pay its respects to the life of award-winning author Harper Lee. After publishing To Kill A Mockingbird in 1960, pocketing a Pulitzer Prize for it in 1961, and recently releasing her controversial sequel—a hotly disputed follow-up on the Finch family— Lee’s respectable literary resume received recognition from Twitter users worldwide when she died. Oddly enough, a vast majority of such sentiments read less like genuine admiration and more like an obligatory outpouring of posthumous praise.

As is often the case with big-name celebrity deaths, condolences come out of the proverbial woodwork to commemorate the lives of entertainment greats, prompting most social media platforms to transform into muddled messes of mourning messages and sorrowful soliloquies laden with sad-face emoticons. Practically impossible to distinguish between genuinely disappointed fans and those whose knowledge of the deceased extends only as far as the title of their most notable masterpieces, each tear-soaked tweet or Instagram in memoriam contributes to the puzzling phenomenon that I’ve come to call “Enigmatic, Electronic Eulogizing” (EEE).

Not to be confused with the potentially fatal, mosquito-associated affliction of the same acronym, the social epidemic of EEE is incredibly interesting. Blurring boundaries between the distinct levels of fandom—the all-out fanatic as opposed to an occasionalappreciator, for example—platforms like Twitter allow anyone to pose as a proud proponent of this and a staunch supporter of that. The pressure of maintaining one’s tailored online image sometimes has a funny way of producing an onslaught of feigned affection—arguably the most telling symptom of societal EEE that I’ve encountered. Personally, this irks me a bit.

Someone who hadn’t heard of David Bowie until his death in early January could express his or her deep condolences as quickly as one of his diehard fans. Kids who merely skimmed To Kill A Mockingbird in seventh grade tweet profuse praise to Harper Lee, as if the two months spent laboriously analyzing her novel were by far the best days of their young lives. Maybe it’s just me, but I find this sometimes-hollow expression of emotion a little bit odd.

Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way claiming that artistic geniuses deserve less praise than they currently accumulate from the public (please, I’m not a monster).

Rather, I believe such bold ventures into their respective fields should be celebrated more often. My main issue, I realize, stems from the cultural practice of social media users’ only oozing deserved attention and praise promptly following a death announcement.

In an age when National Donut Day—a fabricated, commercial celebration of consumerism and calories—is celebrated more readily and with much greater enthusiasm than the publication date of cultural or literary classics like Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, the social media-obsessed should take a step back and examine their priorities.

When a viral cat video or the ramblings of a confused rapper get more Internet-air-time than the life of an author who highlighted the horrors of racism with one novel, something about society seems a little off.

I don’t know. I just think Lee’s legacy deserves a little more than all of this. Bowie’s iconic, celestial glow dims duller with every unenthusiastic “RIP, D.B.” tweet from guys who heard “Starman” once and liked it.

I acknowledge that this rant of mixed emotions is decidedly inconclusive when it comes to the way social media users should mourn those who’ve passed on. I know that I have no authority to determine it, anyway.

All I’m really saying is this: Creative geniuses deserve much more than halfhearted sentiments of pseudo-sympathy.

Genuine appreciation isn’t pithy, preachy well-wishes cut and molded into the tidy confines of a 140-character limit.

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THE HEIGHTS

B4

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Af_e Fc`m\i Ilc\j k_\ Gfc`k`ZXc CXk\$E`^_k N`k_ Xe @ife D`Z 9P :?I@J =LCC<I 8ikj I\m`\n <[`kfi Taking one of his many comedic breaks from his serious discussion on abortion laws in some states in the U.S., John Oliver elaborated on the worst way he can imagine dying.

“Your mother catches you masturbating and when you fall trying to pull your pants up, you hit your head,” Oliver said. “Your dad has to carry you pants-less to the car. The girl next door is trying to help, but she’s laughing so

hard at you that she closes the door on your hand, startling your mother, who slams on the gas, dragging you behind the car while your father shouts, ‘Your TV show is derivative and you’ll never escape the shadow of Jon Stewart!’ That’s what we’re all afraid of, right?”

While many began watching Last Week Tonight thinking, “I’ll check out the show with the British chum from The Daily Show,” if Oliver has proven anything in the first two seasons of his program, it’s that he certainly

made a name for himself apart from being Stewart’s sidekick. Especially with Stewart’s bowing out on The Daily Show last August, Oliver has filled the hole left by his spiritual predecessor rather well. With a slew of late-night programs airing every weeknight, Last Week Tonight offers a unique, accessible, and poignant program once a week that tackles, in extreme and cautiously accurate detail, one major political or societal issue, alongside a few big stories from the week’s news.

TELEVISION

LAST WEEK TONIGHT JOHN OLIVER PRODUCED BY AVALON TELEVISION RELEASE FEB. 15, 2016 OUR RATING

AVALON TELEVISION

On HBO, there is very little Oliver isn’t allowed to do on-air. He can swear as much as he likes, insult whoever he wants. He also has a noticeably high production quality compared to his cable-television colleagues.

Within the realm of political late-night programs, comparatively, Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore are all overly opinionated. If you watch too much of any of these programs, it’s easy to be sucked into an opinion that doesn’t give itself enough of an evidential backing as Oliver’s Last Week Tonight gives its viewers. It seem like Wilmore and Noah are overly critical of right-leaning politics, and do not easily concede points that go against their obvious political beliefs. Sure, Noah might make fun of Hillary Clinton’s hand motions during a debate, but rarely does his program analyze the Democratic candidates’ political stances with the same fervor as it does with candidates like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

Sure, all of these programs, including Last Week Tonight, are built on political opinions, but often, Oliver presents his program with as much of an unbiased air as possible and focuses less on weekly battles between politicians and more on

conceptual societal issues. In last week’s episode, Oliver discussed abortion laws in states like Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas.

While it was obvious that Oliver is against these laws, he attacked them in a calm, sophisticated manner, analyzing in detail the points their proponents make in their defense, and pointing out the hypocrisy and unnecessary nature of some of their claims. He also presented many case examples of patients’ lives that were seriously affected by these laws’ restrictions in their states.

Oliver’s method of crafting a detailed, 20-minute argument, as well as his ability to surround some very serious topics with both relevant and irrelevant humor give Last Week Tonight a unique format compared to the many late-night programs on TV. Entering his third season of Last Week Tonight, Oliver no longer needs to fear that his name doesn’t stand on its own two feet—though he has probably realized this for some time now. While in many respects and by many people, Oliver may be considered Jon Stewart’s protege and successor of political late-night, Oliver’s program stands wholly apart from The Daily Show in its determination to cover a story or issue with the utmost detail and least biased perspective possible.

@e ÊCfm\#Ë Al[[ 8kXgfn 9i\Xbj Lg N`k_ JkXe[Xi[ Ifd$:fd 9P 9<:BP I<@CCP ?\`^_kj JkX]] Love is patient, love is kind, and, as Judd Apatow’s new Netflix series would have it, it’s pretty weird too.

Love made its quiet debut last Friday. The first season contains 10 episodes, and a second season is already on its way to production and is set to arrive next year. Its formula realistically presents the formation of a relationship from both genders’ perspectives. It arguably succeeds in this presentation, but it is far from the most entertaining of Netflix’s original series.

The tension in typical romantic comedies generally lies in discovering how two seemingly incompatible characters end up involved. This rule holds true for Love. Gus, played by the show’s co-creator Paul Rust, a former writer on Arrested Development, is an on-set tutor for a bratty child actress. Gus is constantly pining to bring his spec script for one of its episodes to an executive’s attention. Mickey, played by Gillian Jacobs, who also starred as Britta on Community, manages a therapist’s radio show and struggles with her former relationship with a cocaine addict. Both are in their thirties and struggling to find real love.

At the show’s start, both characters are experiencing the fallout of breaking up. Gus moves out

of his ex-girlfriend’s house to an apartment building full of older neighbors (including Dave Allen from Freaks and Geeks). Mickey forces her ex-boyfriend out and finds a new Australian roommate Bertie, played by the charming Claudia O’Doherty. Mickey and Gus meet while trying to determine what roles relationships should play in their lives.

At its core, Love is an exercise in showing what lies beyond first impressions. Gus seems geeky and stressed, but can, in fact, be surprisingly tender, even to the point of being a pushover. Mickey appears cool and confident—a girl that a guy like Gus could never hope to be with. But she can be uncharismatic and even manipulative. The only constant in Love seems to be that Gus and Mickey misjudge everyone around them—their coworkers, friends, and even themselves.

There is a strong audiovisual component to this hyper-humane take on the romantic comedy. The creators humble all interactions, including sex, to the point where nothing feels romantic. This quality follows the creators’ original intentions of humanizing the typical pedigree of love shown in romantic comedies, but the show suffers in tone from feeling ubiquitously awkward and blunt. It claims to be a comedy but doesn’t deliver many

laughs.

Love sometimes feels, ironically, artificial, particularly in its insistence on the kind of self-reference that seems popular in Hollywood recently. In one of the first episodes, Gus goes through a box of Blu-Ray discs from his ex’s house. As he throws them out of the window in turn, he criticizes each for its unrealistic depictions of love—although Love parodies itself here when Gus criticizes Homeland for being as equally wildly unbelievable as the rest. The orientation of the characters in Los Angeles and especially

Gus’ work on the set of a television show seem overly self-obsessed to the point that it feels like a viewer could sometimes miss inside jokes and meaning.

All of this is not to say that Love doesn’t still have its charming moments. While Love frequently critiques modern phenomena like Uber and Blu-Ray, it’s pervaded by a quirky sense of anachronism. Letters morph and objects dance to the beat of the groovy title sequence, reminiscent of the opening animation of Grease. Despite its flaws and some of the discomfort that comes

along with these sometimes unsympathetic characters and slow-moving plot, the show is still somehow utterly binge-able, as the dramatic tension festering in a somewhat-real relationship builds. The moments when Gus and Mickey have genuinely joyful exchanges are often well worth the wait.

Love is far from typical romantic-comedy fare and can feel dragging and relatable at times. But if you’re not looking for your average dramedy or want to try something new, give it a go—it may just latch onto your attention.

High energy, high action, high conflict—Triple 9 is, if nothing else, a high-octane thrill ride. Yet another installment to the genre of crime drama that seems to dominate American cinema, John Hillcoat’s film recounts the story of a band of corrupt cops and gang members blackmailed by the Russian mafia into performing a dangerous robbery. When the

plan goes awry, the crew is forced to assassinate an unsuspecting Atlanta police officer in order to complete its job. As tensions mount, trust wavers, and each man must question who he can really trust.

It is from this premise that Triple 9 marches forward. Hillcoat’s newest work suffers greatly from weak writing and a lazy plot, so much so that, at times, it can be exhausting to watch. Why does every single Atlanta cop converge on the scene

TOP SINGLES

1 Work Rihanna ft. Drake 2 Love Yourself Justin Bieber 3 Stressed Out twenty one pilots 4 Sorry Justin Bieber 5 My House Flo Rida 6 Pillowtalk Zayn 7 Hello Adele 8 Me, Myself & I G-Eazy x Bebe Rexha

TOP ALBUMS

1 25 Adele 2 Purpose Justin Bieber 3 ANTI Rihanna 4 Hymns Joey + Rory 5 Traveller Chris Stapleton Source: Billboard.com

MUSIC VIDEO

HANNAH MCLAUGHLIN

“MAKE ME LIKE YOU” GWEN STEFANI

TELEVISION

LOVE JUDD ATAPOW PRODUCED BY ATAPOW PRODUCTIONS RELEASE FEB. 19, 2016 OUR RATING

ATAPOW PRODUCTIONS

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CHART TOPPERS

when an officer goes down? Who was being horribly tortured by the film’s antagonists? What exactly is the mafia’s motivation in manipulating ex-Marine gang members? Why is Kate Winslet so bad at faking a Russian accent? These questions and more will plague viewers as they blindly grope in the dark for some sense of plot cohesion in Triple 9.

Frustratingly, where the writing of Triple 9 struggles, its actors and actresses struggle just as much.

FILM

TRIPLE 9 JOHN HILLCOAT DISTRIBUTED BY OPEN ROAD FILMS RELEASE FEB. 26, 2016 OUR RATING

OPEN ROAD FILMS

For such a largely talented cast, it is unfortunate to see so many wanting performances. Casey Affleck, well-known for his work in Interstellar and the Ocean’s trilogy, delivers a substandard, unrelatable performance as fresh-blood police officer Chris Allen. Falling right behind Affleck are Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anthony Mackie, who both feel incredibly out of place in their roles.

Mackie in particular is a notably deficient and thoroughly dissapointing villain. Playing to the same tune are Aaron Paul and Winslet, both dropping several levels below their typical prestige.

Despite his peers’ shortcomings, Woody Harrelson (as Sgt. Det. Jeffrey Allen) steals the show this time around. His character is very much the stereotypical pragmatic, “byany-means-necessary” anti-hero, and though this brings nothing innovative to Triple 9, Harrelson performs with poise. Also coming out of the film’s woodwork is Norman Reedus, known for his central role in AMC’s The Walking Dead. Though tragically underused, Reedus manages to carve out a decent role despite the sloppy writing.

The saving grace of the film is its

ability to build tension—when Triple 9 seeks to move the audience to the edge of its seats, it actually does so very well. First and foremost, the film proves that, when it comes to music composition, less can sometimes be more. The plot’s breaking point features almost no ambient music at all, which adds enormously to the scene’s air of terror. It is no surprise to see that Atticus Ross worked on the score, as Triple 9’s sound very much resembles his premier work, The Book of Eli. Adding to the tone as well, Triple 9 undoubtedly earns its R rating—numerous scenes of horrific, punctuated violence dot the movie, proving that Hillcoat does not fear making his audience ever-so-slightly queasy. Imagery, in fact, is the movie’s biggest strength: thematic visual connections, while no substitute for a cohesive plotline, do help to tie Triple 9’s beginning to its end.

Triple 9 is all bark and no bite. As shown by 2009’s The Road, Hillcoat has diplayed the kind of slick, energetic story, beautifully unsettling art he can produce. Triple 9 delivers instead all potential energy, but very little kinetic, ironically.

Gwen Stefani has a funny way of making a comeback. Every once in a while, the dance-pop diva releases a dizzying music video or two just to remind music lovers that she’s still an active solo artist trying to establish a signature sound. Determined to solidify an identity as something other than that edgy lead vocalist who dominated No Doubt many moons ago, Stefani tried her hand at making entertainment history with the live Feb. 15 premiere of her music video for “Make Me Like You.” With the help of discount retail giant Target, Stefani filmed the first-ever live music video as an extended commercial break during the telecast of CBS’ 58th Annual Grammy Awards. The video is a vibrant and fast-paced romp through 11 different sets, and the singer’s seven live costume changes are a fluid and impressive feat for such a high-pressure performance.

Channeling her inner Marilyn Monroe—expertly emulating the sultry starlet with a retro blonde hairdo, striking red lipstick, and a purposeful stride—Stefani struts through the individual sets, completing the choreography of each new scene with incomparable finesse. In one moment busting moves on a motorcycle, performing roller skate stunts during another, Stefani provides viewers with a vertigo-inducing visual that is perfect for the song’s poppy instrumentals.

The video—a project a steep $12 million budget—is with a risky venture into an emerging entertainment trend: taking advantage of live TV. The music industry has been void of the energetic synthpop stylings of an emotion-packed Stefani LP. Now, Stefani sets high expectations for her upcoming third studio album This is What Truth Feels Like with the exuberant music video for “Make Me Like You,” a performance that reads much more like an artistic spectacle than some kind of a celebrity sellout.

SINGLE REVIEWS BY DAN FITZGERALD JAKE BUGG “On My One”

SIMPLE PLAN “Opinion Overload”

LUMINEERS “Ophelia” The music of English rocker Jake Bugg has always felt like a throwback, and “On My One” is no different. In a Johnny Cash-like track, Bugg delivers lyrics about loneliness and broken dreams as experienced by a 21-year-old. If you’re looking for a run-of-the-mill acoustic blues tune, this one’s for you.

The Lumineers deliver in the lead single from their much-anticipated sophomore album, Cleopatra. It does not feel the need to break the trend of catchy repetition that has come to define modern pop-folk, weaving feel-good lyrics about young love. It will certainly be stuck in the head of anyone who listens.

No one ever said, “We NEED more Simple Plan music.” The band that was never quite The Offspring or Blink-182 has released this track from its fifth album Taking One for the Team.

The song’s rebellious, carefree attitude is a tired shtick, seeing as the band members are in their 30s and their fans aren’t 14 anymore.

CLASSIFIEDS

THE HEIGHTS THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, January 17, 2014

B5 B5

Thursday, February 25, 2016

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Directions: The Sudoku is played over a 9x9 grid. In each row there are 9 slots, some of which are empty and need to be filled.

Each row, column and 3x3 box should contain the numbers 1 to 9. You must follow these rules: · Number can appear only once in each row · Number can appear only once in each column · Number can appear only once in each 3x3 box · The number should appear only once on row, column or area.

THE HEIGHTS

B6

Thursday, February 25, 2016

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through the 2006-07 season, this season’s lack of great teams is magnified.

This season, no team has fewer than three losses. In fact, only Villanova and Xavier have three losses.

At this point over the prior nine seasons, denoted by ESPN as Week 15, an average of 4.8 teams had fewer than three losses, with the two teams claimed by the 2012-13 season ranking as the fewest in that time period.

Next, let’s look at some more advanced stats. Since win-loss records can sometimes be misleading, a look at the analytical ranking of the best teams in the country should give a more accurate representation of the relative strengths of teams across the years.

Ken Pomeroy, one of the premier college basketball analysts, ranks teams based on their Pythagorean rating, a team’s expected winning percentage against an average D-I team. This season’s current No. 1 team on kenpom.com is Villanova, with a Pythagorean rating of 0.9446.

Based on the same nine-year period considered above, in which the average rating was 0.9659, Villanova has the worst rating of any of the topranked teams. In fact, last season, six teams boasted a better rating than Villanova currently has.

Having proven the absence of top-flight teams, let’s see if the same above-average group still exists or if college basketball is just having an unusually poor season.

Again using Pomeroy’s website, 14 teams currently have a Pythagorean rating over 0.9000. This number can be used as an arbitrary cutoff to designate the group of very good teams. Looking at the nine prior seasons, an average of 13.8 teams per year amassed such a mark.

Incredibly, despite the utter lack of dominant programs, the 2015-16 season actually possesses a slightly higher than average number of very good teams. For comparison, despite having had six teams with a higher rating than Villanova has this season, there were just 12 teams in the 2014-2015 season with a rating above 0.9000.

Now that we comfortably know parity exists in college basketball this season, let’s examine the causes.

Decline of the Dominance of Traditional Programs If you were to ask casual college basketball fans which teams were the best in the country during any given season, they would probably give pretty similar responses. Teams like North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky, and Kansas would likely dominate the results. Breaking from the past, that answer would be wrong this season.

This season marks the latest that neither Kentucky nor Duke has been in the Top 10 since 2006-07.

Fans can usually count on Mike Krzyzewski and John Calipari to consistently roll out national championship contenders year in and year out. With Duke’s injury woes and the high-profile struggles of Skal Labissiere at Kentucky, neither of those two teams has lived up to its lofty Top Five preseason ranking. Duke actually slipped out of the rankings for a brief period, the first time since 2007-08 that the Blue Devils weren’t a ranked squad.

Despite currently holding the No. 5 ranking, North Carolina hasn’t exactly been dominant this season.

The Tar Heels have six losses and

recently had a three-game road trip that saw them drop the first two games before needing a ferocious second-half rally to topple ACC cellar-dweller Boston College in the final game.

This lack of success for the traditional powerhouses has opened up conference races across the country.

The ACC offers the best example of this, with six teams currently situated within two games of first place in the conference.

Over the past nine seasons, an average of just 2.7 teams finished the season within two games of first place. While the remaining two weeks of conference play do provide some opportunities for teams to separate from the pack, it still speaks to the parity caused by the decline of UNC and Duke.

In those nine years, exactly half of the teams that finished within two games of first place in the conference were either UNC or Duke outfits.

With their decline, a potential power vacuum has opened this year, allowing non-traditional powers like Miami (Fla.) to ascend to near the top of the conference.

The Top Teams Lack the Top Players With no offense to Ryan Arcidiacono, your average college basketball fan probably couldn’t identify Villanova’s senior point guard as one his team’s best players.

Arcidiacono’s plight sounds pretty familiar to members of the other schools currently ranked in the AP Top Five—Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa and UNC. With the exception of Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield, who has reached exploding supernova status at this point, the majority of the best players on these teams are veteran leaders, who produce solid but not spectacular results every night.

UNC has Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson, Kansas features Perry Ellis, Wayne Selden, Jr., and Frank Mason III, and Iowa sports Jarrod Uthoff and Peter Jok. All of these players are very good but don’t provide the constant night-in, night-out impact that a superstar like Hield does. They are more susceptible to off-nights and shooting slumps and can often be neutralized by elite defenses.

Having entire teams built upon these types of players creates a bit of variance in the quality of those teams’ games. A seemingly easy victory against an unranked opponent can turn into a blowout defeat very quickly, as Kansas found out in its 86-67 loss to Oklahoma State in late January.

Usually, teams ranked in the Top Five boast surefire NBA talent. Over the past nine seasons, the teams ranked in the Top Five of the Week 15 AP poll boasted an average of 6.2 players that were selected in the first round of that year’s NBA draft.

This season’s Top Five boasts just two players—Hield and Uthoff—that are ranked among Chad Ford’s top 30 players for the 2016 draft. The top NCAA players in his rankings, such as Ben Simmons and Kris Dunn, play for teams that don’t figure to pose serious threats in March.

Particularly, this year’s Top Five teams lack NBA-caliber interior scoring—a post player that can grind out points on nights when the rest of the offense slumps. Three of last year’s Final Four teams—Kentucky, Duke, and Wisconsin—had this crucial bailout option. Players like Karl Anthony Towns, Jahlil Okafor, and

Frank Kaminsky provided security blankets for their respective teams.

Their ability to overwhelm opponents with their sheer size, skill, and athleticism allowed their teams to compete on nights when their shots weren’t falling. As a result, those teams’ performances varied less on a night-to-night basis than this year’s top teams’.

Top Teams Rely Too Much on 3-Pointers Likely because of this lack of high-quality interior scoring, the top teams in the country this season rely more on the 3-point shot than top teams usually do.

Using Pomeroy’s website, I looked at the percentage of team shots that were 3-pointers for the top five teams over the last 10 seasons.

Then, I averaged those numbers and subtracted the average from the percentage of team shots that were 3-pointers for the average D-I team for each season. This season’s Top Five—Villanova, Virginia, Michigan State, Kansas and Oklahoma—take 36.06 percent of their shots from long range, whereas the average D-I team this year takes 35.3 percent of their shots from that distance.

This season’s Top Five is one of just two groupings over the last 10 seasons that took more of its shots from downtown than the average team. In fact, the majority of those groups took far fewer threes than the average team. The only other season where the Top Five took more 3-pointers than the average team was 2012-13. That season also had just two teams with fewer than three losses by Week 15, the lowest number over the prior nine seasons, indicating a possible correlation between a reliance on 3-pointers and nationwide parity. It makes team performance more variable from game to game, another possible reason why this season’s top teams aren’t as good as prior seasons’ top teams.

Corresponding to those numbers, according to hoopmath.com, the Top Five teams on kenpom. com this season are taking far fewer 2-point jumpers than the top five teams over the prior four seasons.

As college teams attempt to adjust to the growing analytical mindset within the game, trickling down from the NBA, greater parity may become an unintended consequence. Instead of winning correlating to long-range prowess, top college teams still appear to be those that dominate the paint and possess top-flight big men.

That’s not to say that games this year are uninteresting. The see-saw nature of the season has provided the usual share of mind-blowing endings and absurd game-winners.

As we move into March Madness, without a historically great team to root for or against, expect the unexpected. The good thing about a season without a clearly defined top team is that the NCAA Tournament can go in an infinite number of directions, keeping fans glued to their seats for every minute.

The only difference between this year and years prior is that the team cutting down the nets in Houston in April will have to admit that it was never a real No. 1 team.

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AMELIE TRIEU / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Garland Owens (5) gave BC fans a reason to smile on Tuesday. The rest of the Eagles vs. Virginia Tech? Not so much.

=`e[`e^ I\Xjfej kf NXkZ_ 9: Conte Forum, from B8 as beat up as it may be.

With my faith in this team on the line, I was undoubtedly let down. I expected a much closer game. That last strain of optimism, however, is still alive within me.

This season is not the end of the world, so let’s get some perspective before anything gets out of hand.

First off, injuries are a big factor. BC was improving with better showings against Miami, Florida State, Clemson, and a highly impressive performance against UNC. Then two starters got injured, and BC became a depleted team.

Take a look at the starting lineup from Tuesday: Clifford, Eli Carter, Ervins Meznieks, Garland Owens, Sammy Barnes-Thompkins. I don’t expect a single win from this squad.

Clifford is still only a shade of his former self, even in his second year back from injury. Meznieks is a long-term project who is nowhere near ready to be an ACC starter.

Owens is just simply not a scorer, and Barnes-Thompkins does his best despite his size.

To top it all off, the first three off the bench are Matt Milon, a streaky, inexperienced shooter, Daryl Hicks, playing in his first season in three years, and Idy Diallo, a last-minute recruit from last year that looks like a lost hope.

I don’t think any coach—except for those in the NBA like Steve Kerr, Gregg Popovich, or even Brad Stevens—can get anything out of these players.

So the Eagles didn’t lose because

Christian can’t coach them up to important, winnable games. They are simply not good at scoring.

They got the open looks, and they just missed them. The players aren’t playing badly because they are hanging their heads, they are hanging their heads because they can’t score. And they can’t score because players like Owens, Hicks, and Meznieks are forced into a lot more of an offensive role without Turner and Robinson. It’s a confidence problem, not a morale problem, and that’s somewhat okay because lack of confidence is to be expected with a young team. BC also happens to be missing one of its most confident players in Turner.

This is all offensive, of course.

Defensively, I saw them continue to play actively and rebound well against Virginia Tech. Clifford’s play and Garland’s career high in rebounds are positives that it hasn’t all gone the drain.

If this team does have one scary problem, however, it’s Carter. He stinks. He is the best basketball player on the team who at times looks like its worst. His shot selection is terrible, especially from 3-point range, and he tries to do too much. He’ll get his 18 points, but has to shoot 18 times to do so. He has Aaron Brown’s streakiness from last year, but he has the ball as much as Olivier Hanlan. I’ll deal with this, as long as he’s a leader off the court for all the young guys.

As of right now, Christian is 2for-3 as head coach. First, he proved last year that he could coach a team, getting a misfit group of players

to hang with the best teams and drawing a lot of praise from ACC coaches in the process. Second, he proved that he can have success on the recruiting trail, bringing in the much-hyped A.J. Turner and finding a steal in Jerome Robinson.

Now, he gets his first strike with the way this season is going.

But it’s only rock bottom in the short-term. This season doesn’t matter. I don’t care if we don’t win a game in the ACC. Christian isn’t tasked to create an immediate tournament team. I believe in his long-term mission to build a program. Besides, maybe we’ll get another new athletic facility built for every horrible season just to keep people happy. In the long-term, Carter is gone, Turner and Robinson get healthy and keep improving, and all that’s left is for Christian to keep bringing in recruits. While his leash undoubtedly got tighter following these bad losses, he still has time.

Admittedly, I left the game midway through the second half. I would maybe have left at halftime, but an unbelievable Garland putback slam in the final seconds kept me hoping for just a bit more.

Eventually, I went back to my real-world responsibilities and put aside sports to focus on important things, like academics and creating great Spotify playlists. I live to see another game of BC basketball.

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THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, February 25, 2016

B7

MEN’S BASKETBALL

?fb`\j ;\Xc <X^c\j (,k_ JkiX`^_k Cfjj MBB vs. Virginia Tech, from B8 screens to take advantage of the Hokies’ man-to-man defense all night long, and it worked—a majority of BC’s 28 three-point attempt s were unconte ste d “gimme” shots.

But something was off for the Eagles, who shot 35 percent from the field for the contest. Looks that should go in for any college basketball team, and usually do, were rimming out. Those missed shots made all the difference in the 71-56 defeat, the 15th straight loss for BC. For much of the game, BC head coach Jim Christian stood helpless on the sideline. His team was not losing for lack of preparation or gameplan—Christian’s offensive plan created countless open shot opportunities for some of BC’s most consistent shooters from the field. But as shot after

shot from player after player clanked off the rim, there were few adjustments at Christian’s disposal. He called timeouts, he made frequent substitutions, he lectured players on the floor, but he could do nothing to add to BC’s score other than shoot the ball himself.

“We’re all frustrated,” Christian said after the loss. “Especially when we go 1-for-15 from three at home. Those are open shots.”

When asked how he keeps his young team motivated during this especially tough stretch of an especially tough season, Christian suggested that the team shouldn’t need much external motivation.

“It shouldn’t be very hard to keep them going,” Christian said.

“I’ve never been a big believer in getting demoralized. If you’re out there playing basketball, and

you love to play basketball, and you’re demoralized, then you’re playing the wrong game.”

The team’s postgame demeanor, however, might suggest otherwise. As the final note of the Alma Mater rung out and the drum kicked three times to indicate the beginning of the Fight Song, the team metaphorically limped off the floor with heads drooped and spirits obviously beaten.

Virginia Tech, for its part, played well and took advantage of BC ’s shortcomings. Allen led VT’s balanced scoring attack with 14 points on 4-of9 shooting. Justin Bibbs and Kerry Blackshear, Jr. were not far behind at 12 and 10 points, respectively.

Now with only three games remaining on the 2015-16 schedule, BC’s chances to avoid college sports infamy are limited.

If the Eagles lose all three—and they’re underdogs in each of those games—they will become the first Division I program to go winless in conference play in both football and basketball in a school year in the post-World War II-era.

But not only now is it a question of talent—it is also a question of effort. The injury-depleted Eagles will likely have to play twice as hard just to be at even footing with ACC competition, and that’s a lot to ask of a team that has lost 15 consecutive games. The option to “check out” and coast through the remainder of the season is enticing, and from the fan’s point of view, it seems as though some players have already chosen that option.

The loss to Virginia Tech came down, quite simply, to a lack of execution. If the Eagles

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With just two seconds left on the shot clock, Matt Milon committed a cardinal sin, fouling a 3-point shooter and sending Virginia Tech’s Jalen Hudson to the line for a potential four-point play. Jim Christian looked on in shell-shocked disbelief, immediately pulling the freshman guard from the game.

Minutes later, Darryl Hicks committed the same egregious blunder, fouling Seth Allen on a 3-point attempt. This latest error sent one fan sitting a few rows behind the Boston College bench past his breaking point.

“Hey boys, when are we gonna stop fouling 3-point shooters?”

His question reverberated around an empty Conte Forum, where the slightly more than 1,000 fans in attendance likely heard him as clearly as if they were having a conversation from across the room.

In a game that was as listless as the fans’ enthusiasm, BC (721, 0-15 Atlantic Coast) dropped Tuesday night’s game 71-56 to Virginia Tech (15-13, 7-8), prolonging the team’s fruitless quest to simply win a conference game.

The Eagles played out of rhythm for most of the night, shooting just over 35 percent from the floor and tallying nine assists to 15 turnovers.

On the other end, effort and intensity waned on defense, especially as the first half wore along. Christian attributed the lack of intensity to the fact that his young players weren’t making shots on offense.

“It’s hard to keep guarding when you’re not making shots,” Christian said. “Especially shots you need to make.”

Three Up 1.) Dennis Clifford’s Renaissance - Early in the season, Clifford struggled to stay within the flow of the game. He was often late on rotations, held the ball too long, and struggled to get shots up quickly around the rim.

But as his injur y-plagued career at BC winds to its end, Clifford has been playing the best basketball of his career. Tuesday night he scored 13 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, his second double-double of the season and the fourth time in the last five games he’s had at least 13 points and 8 rebounds. He even tallied four blocks for good measure.

Offensively, Clifford worked efficiently off of pick and rolls.

He got up off the floor quickly, something he has struggled with in the past, and persistently finished through traffic. He also had a put-back dunk late in the game, a sure sign that his body finally feels the way it’s supposed to.

Clifford also functioned as a very good distributor from the low post, with Virginia Tech

electing to double him for most of the game. He spun away from traps and did well to keep the ball over his head and away from defenders. He moved the ball to both cutters and spot-up shooters across the court.

“We’ve got to get him the ball more, to be honest with you,” Christian said after the game. “I thought we didn’t get it to him enough.”

2.) Garland Owens - Right b efore the half time bu z zer, Owens finally pulled off the one-handed putback dunk he’s attempted several times this season.

His SportsCenter Top 10 moment was emblematic of the constant energy he provided to the team all night long. Owens just missed a double-double with nine points and 11 boards, five of which came on the offensive glass.

In the continued absence of A.J. Turner, Owens played a career-high 36 minutes, constantly battling larger Virginia Tech forwards in the post.

He utilized his athleticism on defense, chasing down loose balls and forcing turnovers .

Offensively, Owens showed a more well-rounded attack than usual. He did tally his customary dunks—the aforementioned putback and a dunk off of a nice baseline cut—but he also drilled two jumpers, showing a bit of off the dribble creativity.

While those plays will never be Owens’ strong suit, developing a more competent jumper in the coming months will allow him to become a much more threatening offensive piece for the Eagles.

3.) Offensive Rebounding - Entering the game, BC ranked 346th in the nation in offensive rebounding rate, the lowest among Power 5 basketball teams.

Though the team lacks reliable size outside of Dennis Clifford, the ranking is still surprising.

On Tuesday night, the Eagles attempted to make up for an entire season of not crashing the boards, compiling 14 offensive rebounds. While Owens led the effort, Clifford and Idy Diallo totaled a combined five offensive rebounds. Virginia Tech didn’t have substantial interior size for most of the night, and the two big men in the Eagles’ rotation took advantage.

The hustle plays allowed BC to keep the game competitive until late in the first half. While not something it can replicate on a nightly basis, this effort on the offensive glass is something that the team should be able to carry out for its remaining games. A few second-chance possessions could ultimately make the difference in stemming the tide of its losing streak.

Three Down 1.) Eli Carter - Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing

scoreboard

Um, is there any reason NOT to pick BC right now? Just look at the dominance of its starters this weekend. No runs! Not a single run given up by FOUR different pitchers. That’s an ERA of 0.00, for you folks keeping score at home.

Meanwhile, have you seen Pablo Sandoval’s stomach? Dude looks like he should have the crying Michael Jordan meme completely tattooed on his gut. Give me the Fightin’ Gambinos.

Prediction: BC 4, Red Sox 1 RILEY OVEREND

AMELIE TRIEU / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Dennis Clifford recorded a double double (13 points, 12 rebounds) in the loss. the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In Carter’s case, his form of insanity is the contested, offthe-dribble 3-pointer.

Despite a promising 3-for-5 start from the floor, when he seemed to make a concerted effort to drive to the basket, Carter slumped to a 6-for-19 finish, largely owing to his infatuation with these impossibly difficult long-range shots from well beyond the 3-point line. He finished 2-for-10 on threes, and the fact that he scored 19 points was mitigated by the sheer volume of attempts needed to reach that mark.

In the absence of Jerome Robinson, Carter’s inefficiencies have become more glaring.

With no one else around to soak up possessions, Carter will often aimlessly dribble away the last 10 seconds, before settling for a very low percentage attempt.

Additionally, while he can make good reads on pick and roll plays, the amount of offense he is forced to generate for the Eagles has exposed the fact that he is really better-suited as a secondary creator. Without Robinson, no one else is around to help ease his burden. As a result, Carter had just three assists to six turnovers, a largely unacceptable ratio for a starting point guard.

Defensively, he appears disengaged on certain possessions and spent a few transition possessions arguing with the refs in lieu of heading back down the floor.

2.) Transition Defense - Late in the first half, Virginia Tech used a 16-2 run to blow open what had previously been a 19-18 contest. In that run, most of the points came in transition and at the free-throw line, where the

BASEBALL

GLENDALE, AZ 2/20

M. HOCKEY

HOOK 2 H CRONIN 2 RBI

BC 4 MERR 1

BASEBALL NIU BC

1 2

MICHAEL SULLIVAN

Sports Editor

NIU BC

0 5

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LACROSSE BC ND

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Hokies had 10 attempts.

For the season, Virginia Tech ranks fourth in the country in free-throw rate, averaging nearly one free throw for every two field goal attempts. While BC managed to keep them off of the charity stripe early in the half, the Hokies asserted themselves during this run.

Allen, whose 14 points led Virginia Tech on the night, had six of the 10 attempts. Virginia Tech shot 22 free throws overall.

“That stretch, we did a really bad job of transition defense and stopping the ball,” Christian said after the game.

BC committed a few turnovers that led to easy buckets on the other end, with a few bad fouls compounding the issue.

The inability to run back down the floor, identif y individual matchups, and stop the ball from parading to the rim ultimately cost the Eagles the game.

3.) Gap in Bench Scoring While BC certainly has a depleted bench now that Robinson and Turner are injured, it’s still reasonable to expect some help from the second unit every night.

Tuesday, the Eagles bench totaled three points on just 1-for14 shooting. All of the shots were taken by either Hicks or Milon, many from long range.

The performance was particularly poor in light of the fact that the Hokies’ bench put up a robust 35 points.

While the Eagles ordinarily struggle to win conference games, the team won’t approach a win in the ACC until the bench can provide some reliable scoring, allowing the exhausted starters to obtain some much-needed rest.

BURLINGTON, VT 2/20 m. BASKETBALL 48 R. FITZGERALD 2 G 1 A BC PUSKARICH 1 G WAKE 74

NOTRE DAME, IN 2/21 softball MARGOLIS 1 G NW FORTUNATO 5 G BC

2 3

Assoc. Sports Editor The Eagles will get a chance to see how real professionals stay in shape during the offseason (I’m looking at you, Pablo Sandoval) when they travel to Florida to play an exhibition contest against the Red Sox . It may only be spring training, but these Red Sox players will be competing for a spot on the roster. S orr y, Birdball, but you’re not on the level of John Farrel’s squad quite yet.

Boston’s lineup has such natural swings that it’ll be able to rake off of any BC pitchers.

Prediction: Red Sox 8, BC 3 ANNABEL STEELE

Asst. Sports Editor The Eagles are coming off a very successful and promising season opener. They’re confident.

They feel like they have nothing to lose. And spring training only just started for the Sox. Overconfidence will carry BC into the game, and overconfidence will be its downfall. There’s no way this college team will beat a professional team, even a professional team just starting spring training with a bunch of players who may or may not be in baseball shape. Sorry, Eagles, but I’ve got to go with the Sox here.

Prediction: Red Sox 5, BC 0

WINSTON-SALEM, NC 2/21

GLENDALE, 2/211Boston, MaAZ11/11

BASEBALL

OWENS 13 PTS MOORE 19 PTS

NIU BC

CHAPEL HILL, NC 2/21

m. Basketball

FILLER RBI MURPHY RBI

VT BC

0 17

71 56

RUSSELL 2 H HOGGARTH 5 RBI

Newton, CHESTNUT HILL,MA MA11/09 2/23 BIBBS 12 PTS 10 REB CARTER 19 PTS

SPORTS

B8

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2016 MEN’S BASKETBALL

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<ogcX`e`e^ k_\ gXi`kp CHRIS NOYES

A8:B JK<;D8E For the first time, I was asking myself why I was in Conte Forum.

In a year and a half of being at Boston College, I’ve gone to Conte Forum. As either a fan or member of the media, I’ve been to men’s and women’s basketball games, men’s and women’s hockey games, sat in on a handful of practices, and attended plenty of media events. Every single time, I was happy to be there to get my sports fix.

But then, at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night, I walked into Conte and felt differently. I attempted to count the individual fans on my own and listened as the pep band tried to fill the silent void. At one point, a security guard’s job consisted solely of looking at me: I was literally the only one standing near a section where the students usually start filling in. As the sound system fed music into empty space, BC and Virginia Tech came out to the court in what looked like slow motion.

This was rock bottom.

Following what was probably one of the most embarrassing defeats in program history, in which the Eagles made national news for their complete ineptitude against a Wake Forest team missing its best player, the state of affairs surrounding the team was bleak.

So why was I here? Was I just avoiding real-world responsibilities and hiding from the thought of a midterm at the end of the week? I think it was something deeper inside of me. The very last strain of optimism that I hold for one of my favorite sports was dying, and I was determined to not let it go on my own. I was gonna be at this game, even if the atmosphere and game sucked all the life out of me. I’m not giving up on Jim Christian or this program so soon.

I knew three outcomes were possible. 1.

BC would implode again and I would most likely wither away and perish. 2. BC would narrowly lose by about six as betting lines suggested and that would be that. 3. BC would get its first win and some internal life force would heal my aching soul.

A game like the one against Wake Forest is unacceptable, so BC had to show that it could bounce back and not give up on the season. Avoiding outcome 1 was imperative, but other than that, I didn’t think that BC would win, and I didn’t care. All it had to do prove to me was that it hasn’t given up.

The actual outcome of the game was somewhere in the middle of the first two.

The game was really bad. Both teams were incredibly sloppy, and the game looked like a Rec league at times. In the end, Virginia Tech did its thing in getting to the foul line a lot and hit its shots. The Eagles did not. They were horrendous from the field, especially from deep (1-for-15?!). No one created any offense outside of Dennis Clifford and Eli Carter, who finished with a double-double and continues to drive his revival tour van,

“We’re All Frustrated” K_\ <X^c\j Zflc[eËk dXb\ Xep f] k_\`i n`[\$fg\e j_fkj X^X`ejk M`i^`e`X K\Z_# ]fi k_\`i (,k_ jkiX`^_k cfjj% 9P KFD ;<MFKF ?\`^_kj <[`kfi

HOKIES

71 56

Eli Carter received the outlet pass from a rebounding Dennis Clifford and shifted into overdrive as he crossed halfcourt—it was just a minute into the game, and he still had plenty of energy. As he made his way into the key, he was confronted with a gaggle of defenders closing in on him. Carter was essentially going one-on-four, but he charged ahead anyway.

In one seamless motion, Carter took a quick step with his right foot to freeze defender Seth Allen, and gracefully cradled the ball above his head, switching from his right to his left hand. He pushed hard off his right foot, gliding from the edge to the middle of the lane before Allen could react—a perfectly executed Euro Step.

Before the defense—or even his teammates, who were still around midcourt—could react, Carter

up to finish off EAGLES rose a textbook move.

Allen and his teammates attempted to swarm Carter in the paint, but help came just a splitsecond too late. The graduate transfer from the University of Florida rose up for the finish with a clean look at the rim, nothing standing between him and the first two points of the ballgame.

But Carter shortarmed the shot and left it on the front of the rim, where it bounced away into the waiting hands of Zach LeDay. Carter then fouled LeDay on a fast break on the other end, capping off a four-point swing for the opposition.

Boston College (7-21, 0-15 Atlantic Coast) got plenty of open looks against Virginia Tech (15-13, 7-8) Tuesday night. The Eagles ran players off

See MBB vs. Virginia Tech, B7

Legendary Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo has more coaching experience than all but a few men in college basketball today. With his 21 years of experience on the job comes a refreshingly honest perspective on his team, free from the sugarcoated statements of younger coaches hoping to simply retain their jobs.

Earlier this season, his team was ranked No. 1 in the country for a little more than a month. More recently, in an interview with ESPN.com, Izzo was asked about the perch his team had occupied.

“I don’t know if we were ever [a No. 1] team,” he said.

When pressed about the current top teams in the nation and whether any of them had the ability to pull away from the rest of the pack, Izzo gave a very unusual response.

“I don’t think anybody is gonna say there aren’t 15 teams that could win it this year,” he answered.

Izzo was describing the unprecedented state of parity in college basketball during the 2015-16 season. Five teams have already lost a game while at the top spot in the rankings, with Villanova currently the sixth different school to lead the AP Top 25. That number is already four more than all of last season, when Kentucky dominated the polls virtually every week.

Reporters, players and coaches alike have all discussed their belief in this parity and the waves it has sent through college basketball.

But does it actually exist? And if it does, why is this particular season so susceptible to parity?

Proving Parity Before beginning, it’s important to define the parity that we’re looking for. Though it could take many forms, when discussing parity here, the term will refer to the absence of great teams and the proliferation of aboveaverage teams. For an example of what this type of parity entails, imagine a large lecture class. Say one or two students get incredibly high grades on every exam, almost always occupying the spots at the top of the rankings of the exam scores.

Then, there is probably a group of 15-20 students who consistently get above-average grades on exams. Despite their presence in the same grade region, their positions relative to each other change depending on the exam. The student that heads this second group on one exam might drop back a few spots on the next exam. If you removed the couple of students, you would introduce parity into the class, with the top score in the class changing frequently, depending on which of the students in the second group happen to perform better on any particular day.

This definition appears to fit the pattern emerging this season. The constant fluctuations atop the polls appear to indicate both the absence of any great teams and the presence of a clustered group of very good teams that change in position relative to each other almost weekly.

Looking back over a period of 10 years,

AMELIE TRIEU / HEIGHTS EDITOR

See Conte Forum, B6

See Parity, B6

=fli <X^c\j <Xie Jgfkj fe L%J% EXk`feXc Nfd\eËj ?fZb\p K\Xd 9P 8EE89<C JK<<C< 8jjk% Jgfikj <[`kfi Four current members of Boston College women’s hockey will represent the United States at the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) world championships this year. Sophomore Megan Keller and seniors Alex Carpenter, Haley Skarupa, and Dana Trivigno will leave the Heights and travel to Canada for the event, which takes place in March and early April.

Carpenter was first named to the U.S. National Team three years ago.

During that span, she played in the Sochi Olympic Games, winning a silver medal, and served as the assistant captain in 2015 when the team won the world championships. As a junior, she won the prestigious Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award. In her senior campaign for the Eagles, the forward has tallied 38 goals and 38 assists for 76 points.

Skarupa, also a forward, played for the U.S. U18 team in 2010, 2011, and 2012. She won silver medals in 2010 and 2012, and helped the team win the

gold in 2011. The senior has scored 29 goals and recorded 37 assists this year for the Eagles.

Keller, a defenseman, won a silver medal representing the United States on the U18 team at the 2014 IIHF championships. So far this season, Keller has netted 12 goals, including two game-winners, and recorded 32 assists for a total of 44 points. She is the nation’s leading scorer among defensemen.

Trivigno is the third forward from BC to represent the U.S. in the world championships. Her 43 points this season have come in the form of 15 goals and 28 assists. Her hat trick against Northeastern in the women’s Beanpot final helped propel the Eagles to win the tournament.

In addition to Keller, Carpenter, Skarupa, and Trivigno, two BC alumnae will represent the U.S. in Canada.

Defenseman Emily Pfalzer graduated last year and won a gold medal at the 2015 IIHF championships. She currently serves as the captain of the Buffalo Beauts in the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL).

INSIDE SPORTS THIS ISSUE

2011 graduate Kelli Stack, a forward, won silver medals with the national team at the Vancouver and Sochi Olympic Games. Stack has played in four IIHF championships over her career, winning three gold medals and one silver medal. She plays for the Connecticut Whale of the NWHL. The six current and former Eagles will join other notable names on the national team. Northeastern’s biggest threat, Kendall Coyne, is also on the roster. Michelle Picard, Brianna Decker, and Hilary Knight will also represent the U.S. at the tournament.

The Canadians and Americans have historically dominated the tournament.

Canada’s 10 gold medals and six silver medals qualify it as the most historically successful country in the contest.

The U.S. has accumulated six gold and 10 silver medals.

The tournament kicks off for the Americans on Mar. 28 when they take on Canada in a rematch of the Sochi gold medal game. Mar. 29 and Mar. 31 will see clashes with Finland and Russia. The gold medal game, should the U.S. qualify, is Apr. 4.

JULIA HOPKINS/ HEIGHTS EDITOR

Megan Keller, BC’s top defenseman, was one of four Eagles named to the U.S. National Team.

Notebook: Clifford Gets Double-Double Hey, it wasn’t all bad news for the Eagles vs. Virginia Tech, as their senior center excelled yet again........B7

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