The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Established 1919 Vol. XC, No. 3
THE HEIGHTS MONDAY, MAY 3, 2010
www.bcheights.com
Brighton Admins criticize MBTA reports schools face cuts Officials show concern about handling of crash MBTA COLLISION BY PATRICK GALLAGHER Assoc. News Editor
AND ANA T. LOPEZ Heights Editor
School Committe passes $60 million budget cut BY KENDALL BITONTE For The Heights
On March 24, the Boston School Committee passed a $60 million budget cut for the Boston Public School system. The budget cut was part of the unanimously approved balanced budget of $821.4 million dollars, reported the AllstonBrighton Tab. The Committee has approved significant budget cuts the past three years. Superintendent Carol R. Johnson told reporters, “Given significant financial constraints, the reductions were necessary, but not easily made.” The cut has been met with resistance from students, teachers, and parents. Students attended the Committee meeting and displayed textbooks of poor condition. Teachers have also come forward admitting that they have had to supply classroom materials from their personal accounts. One such teacher is Greg Lake of Mario Umana Middle School in East Boston. Lake said that he uses his own money to purchase paper for his classroom from Office Max. He is also concerned about the future of health insurance. An additional part of the budget includes possible plans to eliminate 25 percent of custodial positions, which would amount to 83 jobs. After the announcement of the cut, there was a protest downtown outside the School Committee building. Hundreds of students, teachers, parents, community leaders, and members of the bus drivers and the custodians’ unions were present with signs and chantsed, “Support our kids” and “No more cuts!” as reported by the Tab The Boston Public Schools have been under scrutiny for underperformance recently, but protestors said that with the budget cuts, the School Committee cannot ask for high performance. “How do you become a world-class school system if you have to take these cuts every year?” Sandra McIntosh, English High School’s parent coordinator, told reporters. McIntosh also suggested that the Committee seek a “formula for how they fund schools.”
See Budget Cuts, A4
INSIDE ARTS & REVIEW
The Boston College Arts Festival stormed O’Neill Plaza, A10
SPORTS
Boston College officials have criticized the MBTA and its investigation of the collision between a Green Line trolley and a student-filled Jeep that occurred on Saturday, April 24. The MBTA failed to “present an unbiased investigation of the facts,” University Spokesman Jack Dunn said. “As a result of our discussions with the students, we have serious concerns about the MBTA’s seemingly deliberate campaign to assign full blame for this unfortunate incident on our students,” Dunn said. Last Monday afternoon, administrators from the Office of the Dean for Student Development (ODSD) met with the students who were in the Jeep at the time of the accident, at which point the
administrators determined that student testimony differed from what had previously been reported by the MBTA. “Some of the discrepancies include the MBTA’s portrayal of the accident as having been caused by a student operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol,” Dunn said. “The MBTA’s insinuation of alcohol being the cause of this accident is untrue.” On the Sunday after the incident, MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo told The Heights that the driver of the trolley witnessed students exiting the Jeep and picking up what appeared to be containers of alcohol. But it was not until the Monday after the incident, when the police report was released, that it was confirmed that the driver of the vehicle, Jane Stanton, A&S ’13, had not been drinking on the night of the accident. According to the MBTA police report, an officer met with Stanton at about 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, when the officer
See Collision, A3
2010 ARTS FEST DRAWS CROWD
KEVIN HOU / HEIGHTS EDITOR
BC officials said they are skeptical of MBTA reports on last week’s accident involving students.
Main line break contaminates water Students advised not to drink campus tap water BY REBECCA KAILUS Heights Staff
HILARY CHASSE / HEIGHTS EDITOR
Students gathered last weekend to celebrate Arts Fest 2010, which featured performances from dancers, musicians, and other performing arts groups on campus. For full story, see A2.
University holds top rating in bonds BY JAMES GU
Heights Editor Boston College’s bond ratings have remained constant, with Moody’s bond ratings at Aa3, and Standard & Poor’s rating BC’s bonds at AA-. While the bonds are evaluated yearly, Michael Barry, a professor in the finance department, said he believes that BC’s ratings will remain consistent. “BC’s mindful of our bond rating, mindful of our own credit rating, and is very good about maintaining a strong credit rating,” he said. Barry said, in an e-mail, that investment ratings are usually ranked in the order that “AAA is so high that only a handful of organizations have it, AA being extremely good, with BBB still investment grade, and BB and everything below as junk grade. The higher the rating, the less interest the organization has to pay for the debt.” Mark Conner, assistant treasurer at BC, also affirmed BC’s strong credit ratings. Conner said that of the 286 private colleges and universities that Moody’s
rated in May of 2009, only 18 have an AAA status and 54 have an AA rating. “With BC’s Aa3 rating from Moody’s, it puts us in the top quartile,” he said. “What separates the AA and the AAA is larger endowments and lower percentage of debt outstanding that some universities like Harvard and Yale have, although it’s primarily the larger endowments,” Conner said. Barry said that because BC is an institution of higher education, it cannot issue stock like a normal corporation would to raise money, but instead needs to raise money through donations or debt. Barry compared debt bonds to student loans, which are also long-term debts to be repaid in the future. “A student takes out a student loan because they have a long career, a long time to pay back the debt. That’s what BC’s doing,” he said. “It’s a perfectly normal way of doing business.” Conner also said that BC issues new bonds primarily to finance capital spending, or to refinance previously outstanding debt
See Bonds, A4
At Lower dining hall, nearly every student in line has purchased bottled water along with their meals. This comes after an e-mail was sent to the Boston College community alerting them to a water pipe break that has endangered the quality of tap water. The e-mail, sent by the Office of the Dean for Student Development (ODSD), said that “water from the faucet will not be suitable for drinking, but can be used for bathing, flushing, and fire protection. A boil water order is being issued for drinking water until further notice.” Students have been advised not to drink water from water taps, sinks, or water fountains, or to use the water for brushing
TAYLOUR KUMPF / HEIGHTS EDITOR
Faculty distressed by construction delays Heights Editor
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See Water, A4
City emergency services pumped water out of the Chestnut Hill reservoir as a temporary solution to the water contamination that has left BC students unable to use their taps.
BY ZACH WIELGUS The sailing team should no longer be BC’s biggest secret, B1
their teeth or cooking. However, the water has been deemed safe for showering, bathing, and flushing toilets. BC sent out the e-mail after a boil water alert was issued by the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority at 12 p.m. on Saturday, May 1. Due to a major water pipe break in Weston, water services in communities east of Weston have been affected. The 120-inch diameter pipe transports water to communities as far north as Wilmington and south to Stoughton. Currently, the pipe is leaking water into the Charles River at a rate of over 8 million gallons per hour. The Sudbury Aqueduct, Chestnut Hill Reservoir, and Spot Pond Reservoir have been activated to respond to the leak.
AND JULIA CLARK For The Heights
Delays in the implementation of the University’s Strategic Plan are becoming “catastrophic” to its ability to compete for top faculty, research grants, and higher national rankings, said Tom Chiles, the chairman of the biology department. Chiles said he and other faculty – including dozens added this year in a spurt of unprecedented hiring – were frustrated and angry to learn that the planned 100,000-square foot Integrated Science Building is not scheduled to be under construction until the 2014-2015 academic year. And now, administrators have disclosed that even that timeline is likely to slip. The building “is what has attracted faculty to BC,” Chiles said. “There is not a day that goes by that one of my faculty doesn’t say, ‘Where’s the building?’” But Executive Vice President Patrick
COURTESTY OF THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Amir Hoveyda said he passed up other positions in anticipation of new science facilities. Keating said in an e-mail that local politics and the economic downturn have snared the original timetable for much of the plan, including the science center, making it unlikely to be built as scheduled.
“The economic situation will have to improve in order for the University to be able to afford the project at that time,” Keating said. That means it may be difficult to keep recruiting top faculty, Chiles said.
“It’s about being competitive. Faculty want state-of-the-art facilities. They don’t want to think, ‘S—, I may have to leave after five years because there’s no space.’” Some new faculty in the biology department are being given office cubicles in a former computer lab because of the lack of space. “The people we are trying to recruit are interviewing with Harvard and MIT,” Chiles said. “We now are in the same realm, but if we lose competitive edge, and we will, it will be catastrophic.” Amir Hoveyda, chairman of the chemistry department, said he passed up a position at Oxford in 2005 based on the promise that the science building would be finished by next year. “I am not saying I would have gone had I known that the building was at least 10 years away, but I also do not know if I would have decided to stay,” Hoveyda said. “I am not sure how I would look at the future of science at BC next time I
See Delays, A3