The Heights March 27, 2017

HEIGHTS

THE

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

WWW.BCHEIGHTS.COM

MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017

DANCES OF INDIA

SNAP STORY

ARTS & REVIEW

SPORTS

A collection of Indian dances and music channels culture and evokes sentiment.

Leonard Skubal cherished the role of long snapper despite being under-the-radar.

B7

B1

A Window Into the Recent London Attack A BC junior had a view of Westminster Bridge during the attacks.

BY CHRIS RUSSO Assoc. News Editor Andressa Quadros, MCAS ’18, is studying abroad in London and was in Parliament during the attack on Wednesday. In a phone interview Sunday, she described the moments after the attack and the confusionfilled hours that followed.

Quadros is in an external program through Boston University. She began an internship in late February working for Ian Lucas, a member of Parliament in the Labour Party.

“My internship experience so far has been amazing,” she said. “My office has the most spectacular view of Westminster Bridge. I am at the desk that’s right near the window.”

Quadros did not realize that the beautiful view of the bridge would one day be the setting of an attack in the heart of London.

On the day of the attack, Quadros was

doing case work in her office on the third floor. At 2 p.m. she decided to take a lunch break and went to a smaller room on the second floor to eat. Like her office, the room also had a clear view of the Westminster Bridge. Quadros was on her computer, with her earphones in, watching a video on professional horseback riding, when all of a sudden she was startled by an officer behind her.

“I feel somebody yank my hair,” she said. “I turn around, and it’s a police officer, and he has the most distressed face. And he grabs me, yanks my earphones off, and he tells me ‘Get away from the window—a police officer has just been shot in the head outside the palace.’”

It was around 2:40 p.m., Quadros said, and the details of the attack were not clear.

At the time, people believed an officer had been shot, not stabbed. The officer rushed out to evacuate people from other rooms.

“At that point there was nobody in the area, and I started to panic,” she said.

Quadros peeked into the main lobby, usually bustling with members of Parlia-

See London Attack, A8

White Signs With Ottawa

BY MICHAEL SULLIVAN Editor-in-Chief On Sunday evening, the Ottawa Senators announced the signing of Colin White.

After a contract dispute, the Boston College sophomore center will report to the Senators’ AHL affiliate in Binghamton on an amateur tryout agreement. He will likely debut for Binghamton on Wednesday against the Syracuse Crunch.

“We are excited to see Colin make the next step in his development in turning professional after a great college career,” said Ottawa general manager Pierre Dorion in a

statement by the team.

White was the 21st overall pick of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft by the Senators as a member of the United States National Team Development Program. In two seasons with the Eagles, White amassed 76 points—35 goals and 41 assists—in 72 career games.

White also put forth a strong performance in the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship, scoring seven goals in seven games for the gold-winning Americans.

White becomes the ninth early departure for the Eagles in the last two years. BC has now lost its top five scorers from the 2016-17 season. 

Forces Collide at Showdown

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

For the second-consecutive year, Boston College Irish Dance took home a victory at the ALC dance competition, B8.

Guerrero Receives Romero Scholarship The Father Dineen Alumni Award went to Juan Lopera, BC ’99.

BY CONNOR MURPHY News Editor Steven Guerrero, CSOM ’18, was awarded the Archbishop Oscar A. Romero Scholarship at a ceremony on Saturday night that featured a celebration of Romero’s life and a tribute to former University president and chancellor Rev. J. Donald Monan, S.J., who died last week. Juan Lopera, BC ’99, was awarded the Father John A. Dinneen,

S.J. Alumni Award.

According to Rev. Michael Davidson, S.J., Guerrero, a finance major and African and African Diaspora Studies minor, has always had a love for baseball and plays on BC’s club team, which influenced his approach to being in a team setting. He likes applying his classroom knowledge to the broader community, which he refers to as “taking the Heights to the streets.”

“I get really inspired by reading the applications of the students and seeing all that they have done, and thinking about all the things they’ll do with the talents and the dedication that they have,” said Ines Maturana Sendoya, co-chair of the scholar-

United Nations Adviser Talks Poverty Problems Jeffrey Sachs blames financial inequality on ethics, not economics.

BY JOSHUA HOLTZ Heights Staff Jeffrey Sachs, an internationally renowned economist and a senior United Nations adviser, spoke to students and faculty at Boston College on Friday, arguing that the continued existence of human poverty in any form is due to a failure of ethics—not economics.

His lecture, titled “The Economics and the Ethics of the Anthropocene,” was an installment of the Lowell Humanities Lecture Series—the “anthropocene” being the era in which “humanity is either going to wreck the plant, or preserve the planet.”

During his lecture, Sachs characterized the anthropocene as an epoch in which humanity is able to both end all human life and end all human suffering. He divided the anthropocene into three periods and described the economic paradigm—and ethical consequences—of each.

Adam Smith, the progenitor of modern

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

EST. 1919

economics, argued in 1776 that, while globalization would generally benefit everyone in the long run, powerful countries with force at their disposal would cause shortterm harm to developing countries. He was right, Sachs said. Global commerce, coupled with asymmetrical military power, allowed many nations to exploit their neighbors—near and far—economically.

From the vantage point of the post-colonial era, Sachs characterized the prescient Smith’s vision of the future as a remarkably accurate account of the past.

“Capitalism is a system that is absolutely susceptible to grave injustice,” Sachs said.

“It was born with injustice—it has grown up with injustice—it has continued with injustice.”

Sachs called the first period of the anthropocene—the three centuries between 1500 and 1800—an “age of discovery, global commerce, and empire” in which the modern economic system first began to take root. However, this burgeoning, pre-industrial world economy was technology- and energy-starved, and severely limited in its ability to grow, Sachs said.

See Sachs, A3

NEWS: Former Ambassador

Nicholas Burns was given the Ignatian Award for a career in public service....A2

JAKE CATANIA / HEIGHTS STAFF

The three finalists, Adonis Bonilla (left), Guerrero, and Sacha Hauc, posed with Fr. Leahy.

ship committee. “When I think about the young people that are here today, it gives me hope for the challenges that we will have coming ahead.”

This is the Scholarship’s 25th year—the committee narrows the applicants down to three finalists from a large pool. Academic achievement, leadership, community service, and involvement in the Latino community are the criteria.

“These are not easy times in our country and they’re not easy times in our world,” said University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., who presented the award to Guerrero.

“Our world needs individuals of conviction who do say they are not going to give up, and who maintain that spirit of service and conviction,” he said.

Guerrero said he entered BC as a “scrawny, hot-headed freshman” full of Boston pride, which on paper, he said, is perfect. But he didn’t realize that learning about philosophy and theology was the best thing for him, and he referenced the conception of communal justice laid out in Plato’s Republic.

“For me, this is when I am happiest, when I am helping my neighbors be a better

See Romero, A3

BC Profs Reflect on Meeting Pope Francis CTEWC, founded by Rev. James Keenan, spoke with the Pope.

BY BERNADETTE DARCY Heights Staff On the morning of Saint Patrick’s Day in Vatican City, seven members of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC) walked through the Apostolic Palace filled with anticipation. Floating through room after room, the group inched closer to the papal library, where Pope Francis awaited.

CTEWC is an organization committed to building a global network of theological ethicists. In its mission statement, CTEWC

FEATURES: Off the Wall

O’Neill Library’s “Answer Wall” has a witty response for every question.......................A4

recognizes the challenges of pluralism, promotes dialogue from and beyond local culture, and works to promote a world church that is not dominated by first world and western nations.

Rev. James Keenan, S.J., Canisius Professor of theology at Boston College and director of the Jesuit Institute, founded the CTEWC in 2003. He co-chairs the network’s planning committee with BC theology professor Kristin Heyer, who also met with the Pope. Toni Ross, associate director of the Jesuit Institute, also attended.

In order to expand the scope of Catholic theological ethics, the seven planning committee members of CTEWC went to Rome for a week-long trip. They built bridges with leaders of Pontifical Gregorian University, Alphonsian Academy, and Urbaniana Uni-

INDEX

versity, and met with Cardinal Prefects of six congregations: Cardinals Turkson, Ravasi, Feloni, Farrell, Versaldi, and Archbishop Carballo. Initially, the group was not scheduled to meet with Pope Francis, but after a series of successful meetings with important Church leaders, they were offered a private audience with him.

“Ethicists believe in what people can become,” Keenan said. “We see what we could be, what we’re not, and what we can do to become better.”

The group’s meeting with the Pope marked the end of a successful week of cross-continental dialogue.

“I believe Pope Francis wanted to meet with us in order to promote ethical dis-

See Pope, A3

NEWS.......................... A2 SPORTS......................B1

Vol. XCVIII, No. 17 METRO......................A4 ARTS & REVIEW............ B8 © 2017, The Heights, Inc. OPINIONS................... A6 www.bcheights.com

The Heights

A2

TOP

3

things to do on campus this week

1

The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures will host a screening of The Mexican Suitcase, a film which tells the story of the recovery of 4,500 negatives taken by renowned photographers during the Spanish Civil War. The event will be held this afternoon from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in Stokes S195.

Monday, March 27, 2017

2

Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner Odede, a couple who met while studying abroad in college, will talk about their experience of building a school for girls in Kibera, a large slum in Nairobi, Kenya, and founding the nonprofit community organization Shining Hope for Communities. The couple will speak on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

3

The Campus Activities Board will host a bingo night on Tuesday in the Walsh Function Room.

Several prizes will be offered to winners as well as free pizza for all attendees. The event will take place from 9 to 11 p.m. All students are welcome to attend the bingo night.

NEWS Burns, Former NATO Ambassador, Wins Award BRIEFS

By Leo Confalone

Law Dean Signs Letters

On Friday, 166 deans of law schools around the United States signed and sent a letter to four congressional leaders urging them to maintain funding for the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). Dean of Boston College Law School Vincent Rougeau, Nell Newton, dean of Notre Dame Law School, and William Treanor, dean of Georgetown University Law Center, were among the 166 signatories.

The LSC is a nonprofit corporation funded by Congress that provides grants for civil legal assistance to low-income Americans.

The letter, addressed to Rodney Frelinghuysen, John Culberson, Thad Cochran, and Richard Shelby, noted that the LSC receives bipartisan support, as illustrated by the variety of personal political views among the signatories and a myriad of different institutional missions that each dean upholds.

“What brings us together today is a shared conviction that the loss of LSC funds would devastate efforts to provide access to essential legal services in our communities,” the letter said.

The letter came after an earlier letter from Catholic law school deans addressed to Mick Mulvaney, the director of Office Management and Budget. Among the signatories were, again, Rougeau, Newton, and Treanor.

“As the late Justice Antonin Scalia stated in his remarks celebrating the organization’s 40th anniversary, the LSC ‘pursues the most fundamental of American ideals,’ for ‘without access to quality representation there is no justice,’” both letters concluded.

Foundation Helps Children Carly’s Kids: A Foundation for Education is an organization created

by Irene Vouvalides, the mother of the late Carly Hughes, BC ’11. Although Hughes passed away four years ago from gastric cancer, her legacy for her love of children lives on through the foundation.

Created in 2013, Carly’s Kids supports education for children in need.

The organization provides help to the Holy Family School in Natchez, Miss., one of the nation’s oldest AfricanAmerican Catholic schools. Hughes had a special connection to the school after she visited during her annual Lynch School service trip there. The organization has provided Holy Family with grants for building repairs, computers, tuition assistance, and the construction of a new playground.

The foundation also supports the work Julian Abrams, a Columbia University researcher, who works to find a cure for the esophageal cancer that killed Hughes.

Vouvalides also founded a local chapter of Helping Parents Heal, a support group for parents who have lost a child, in South Carolina, where she currently lives. She is organizing the group’s first-ever national conference.

Hughes’s former classmates commemorated her at their fifth-year reunion in June by taking a picture in front of Gasson Hall holding letters that spelled “We Love You, Carly!”

Katelyn Hoerner, an investment officer in the University Treasurer’s Office and BC ’11, recently wrote a blog post about her friendship with Hughes.

“Carly unknowingly taught me what real gratitude feels like,” Hoerner said in the blog post. “Even after four years without her, she still inspires me to be spontaneous and do anything I can to love my life right now. There’s no time for waiting. I’m grateful to have met her and to have been with her for so much of her short time in this world.”

Opinions Editor

Nicholas Burns, BC ’78, a career ambassador and former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, has had an extensive career in public service around the world. If his parents were here today, however, he isn’t so sure that both of them would believe what he has accomplished.

“If my parents were here today, my mom would be very proud to hear it,” Burns said. “My dad would’ve believed about half of it.”

Burns was presented with the Ignatian Award following the Laetare Sunday Mass at a Boston College Alumni Association event. The award is given to individuals by who “live out the Ignatian mission of ‘men and women for others.’” In 2001, Burns was given the Public Service Award by the BC Alumni Association.

He briefly described the current state of international affairs, which he believes is just about as contentious as it has ever been.

“This might be the most complicated foreign policy agenda, the agenda that President [Donald] Trump has to face, of any generation going back to the Second World War,” he said.

Burns has spent the majority of his career in public service. He got his start in diplomacy as a member of the State Department Foreign Service, working overseas in multiple embassies and consulates. His first assignments were

spread across Africa and the Middle East, where he served in Nouakchott, Cairo, and Jerusalem.

He was director of Soviet (and then Russian) Affairs under President George H. W. Bush, and then served on the National Security Council of the White House from 1990 to 1995. Burns went on to work as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton, spokesman of the State Department (1995-1997), and U.S. Ambassador to Greece (1997-2001) and NATO (2001-2005). He is currently the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Despite his background, Burns elected not to talk too much about global politics at Sunday’s event. Instead, he focused on a message of hope for the future and where he sees hope in the BC community and the world beyond. He discussed the influence that his education at BC had on his life, and that he was inspired by his professors and the Jesuit mission of service.

“The Ignatian creed, finding God in all things and the importance of service to Boston, to Massachusetts, and to the world, that’s what makes a Jesuit education different, and I am profoundly grateful for it,” Burns said.

Later, Burns mentioned Rev. Tony Penna, S.J., Director of Campus Ministry, a close friend who taught Burns in eighth grade religious education. Burns called him “the finest moral leader” he has ever met.

He then discussed some of the domestic problems currently facing the U.S. He mentioned income inequality, the opioid crisis, and transportation reform as some of the most pressing issues that the next generation of Americans will face in the coming years.

Burns, however, sees hope all around him. He alluded to the achievements of Leonardo Da Vinci, Martin Luther King Jr., Susan B. Anthony, and Albert Einstein as examples of what a person can accomplish through hope and belief.

He called for hope following an election that he and many others believe deeply divided the nation down the middle.

“At a time like this, I think if you look back and look at some of the people who really gave us hope, and then look at our present society, hope is actually all around us,” Burns said. “Hope fuels the human heart, as they say.”

He discussed the hope that he sees in the refugee families coming from the Middle East to live in the U.S. He pointed to BC’s heritage as a school for Irish immigrants, and drew a parallel between Irish and Italian immigrants that came to the U.S. in the past, and the refugees from the Middle East that are coming to America today.

“The people, Italians and Irish, in the 19th century, are not very different from the Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans, who want the same dream as them,” he said.

In one of his classes at Harvard, Burns asked his students to send him an email telling him what gives them

hope for the future. Many students responded by mentioning the millions of people that have been lifted out of poverty over the last century, technological advances in society, and the potential eradication of world diseases such as polio. He stated that many of the most promising advances in the world are coming from colleges and universities across the country.

“The ideas and innovations produced at BC, at the University of Texas, Harvard, MIT, CalTech, University of Utah, those ideas produced here are linking up with private equity and venture capital, and they’re transforming the world,” he said.

Burns then transitioned to a discussion of the Catholic Church and the Jesuit mission, in which he praised the hope that Church brings to the world.

He mentioned the Jesuit Peace Corps and Catholic Relief services, the latter of which he worked with in the West Bank during his time in Israel. He lauded Pope Francis and his “luminous, poetical humanity” that he believes inspires Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike.

Burns touched upon the Jesuit spiritual belief in the “Magis,” which means “more” in Latin. The distinguishing aspect of BC, Burns said, is its call for students to do and to be more, and this is what he believes will allow the University to continue to make a difference in the world in the future.

“It’s why BC will continue to be a beacon of hope for generations to come,” he said. n

Orcutt Urges Students to Find, Follow Passions

By Heidi Dong Asst. News Editor When he was 9 years old, Jim Orcutt learned that receiving is harder than giving. Growing up, Orcutt and his six siblings received food and assistance from the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. One day, a man named Mr. O’Brien from St. Vincent de Paul brought his son, Billy, with him to deliver food to Orcutt’s house.

Billy was in Orcutt’s class in school, and although O’Brien was trying to teach his son the right thing, Billy made faces behind his father’s back and, at school, would call out to Orcutt saying, “if you need more food, call us up.”

My Brother’s Keeper, founded in 1988 by Orcutt and his wife, delivers food and furniture to families in need, no questions asked. The charity has since grown from an initiative in the couple’s basement to a nonprofit with over 3,000 volunteers, 11 workers, making 8,500 deliveries every year. Orcutt spoke to students on Thursday afternoon in the latest of the “Lunch with an Entrepreneur”

series hosted by the Shea Center.

“To the extent that it’s true that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive, it is equally true that it is more difficult to receive than it is to give,” he said.

After his experiences with Billy, Orcutt would not underestimate the difficulty of receiving.

“Nobody gets through life without pain,” Orcutt said. “You can take that pain and look somebody in the eye and utter the most powerful words in the world, ‘I know how you feel, I’ve been there.’ That’s what My Brother’s Keeper is all about.

Volunteers and staff from My Brother’s Keeper pick up furniture from donors (they do not allow dropoffs), inspect the furniture, either decline or accept the donation, and deliver it to local families who need it. When families indicate that they need furniture, My Brother’s Keeper doesn’t ask for a justification or proof of need.

With this policy in place, some people take advantage of the organization, Orcutt said. When he sees signs that his services are being taken advantage of, however, he rejoices

and regards it as “good news.”

He told a fictitious story of a Joe Blow who took advantage of My Brother’s Keeper’s services and was left in awe when no one asked him any questions when delivering a kitchen table to his door.

“If the price of bringing Joe Blow the love and hope of Jesus Christ is a used kitchen set we don’t even pay for—pretty cheap price,” he said.

Orcutt pointed to how Jesus saved the sinners, and said that the “Joe Blows” of the world are the ones who need the love and hope of Jesus more than anyone. As such, Orcutt is more than happy when his services are taken advantage of.

“I make less money than I’ve ever had in my life,” he said. “We’re comfortable. Sometimes we squeeze through the month. But when I wake up in the morning, at 76 years old, my eyes open at 5:30, and you know what I say? ‘Gotta get going! Gotta get in there!’”

His biggest fear for students is for them to wake up at age 42 and dread going to work. His career advice is for students to simply find what will get them up in the morning, and

follow it.

“The heart of entrepreneurship, and life, is finding and following passion,” Orcutt said. “If you love what you’re doing, you’re going to be good at it.”

When asked how to find passion, Orcutt said to pray on it. Orcutt urges students to first ask God to guide them.

“It doesn’t matter what it is, follow it,” he said. “If you ask God to use you, he’ll use that particular passion for his work.”

My Brother’s Keeper has an explicit policy that does not allow the accumulation of money. This means that all funds in excess of their annual operation expenses have to be spent promptly on the people that ask for their services.

Orcutt feels that by not accumulating money, it leaves the charity dependent on God, not dependent on their bank accounts.

“I’m in charge of delivery, God is in charge of supply,” he said. “In the last 29 years, we have not run out of anything. If the money doesn’t come in, I will assume the God no longer wants this done.” n

9:05 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious circumstance at Duchesne East/West.

Friday, March 24

POLICE BLOTTER: 3/22/17 – 3/24/17 Wednesday, March 22

Thomas More Rd.

8:04 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at the Flynn Sports Complex.

12:24 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Gasson Hall.

Thursday, March 23

5:01 p.m. - A report was filed regarding an arrest made for trespassing at Duchesne Hall.

12:44 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a fire alarm activation at 90 St.

6:22 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Campion Hall.

10:21 p.m. - A report was filed regarding found property at Gasson Hall.

3:28 a.m. - A report was filed regarding an intoxicated party at Vanderslice Hall.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

CORRECTIONS If you could rewrite the alphabet, what letter would you start it with?

“E Because it’s the most commonly used letter.”

—Marisa Romanelli, MCAS ’20

“C because my name is Caroline.”—Caroline McCormack, MCAS ’19

“C since it’s the first letter of my name.”—Cain Laikind, MCAS ’19

“Z because that’s the coolest letter.”—Colton Kinney, CSOM ’20

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

The Heights

Monday, March 27, 2017

A3

Professors Meet With Pope to Discuss Work in Theological Ethics Pope, from A1 course,” Keenan said. “We emphasize reaching unity without uniformity and recognize the role of diversity in the Church.”

Keenan met the Pope first, who firmly shook his hand in both of his. When all were seated in the library, Pope Francis joked with committee member Linda Hogan, a professor at Trinity College, Dublin, about granting dispensations to drink beer and whiskey on Saint Patrick’s Day. An integral member of CTEWC, Rev. Lúcás Chan, S.J., could not be present at the meeting. In 2015, Chan unexpectedly died of a heart attack. Keenan said that Chan would have been overjoyed to meet the pope, so at their meeting, he presented a memorial card commemorating Chan’s life to Francis.

“After I gave him Lúcás’ memorial card

he said, ‘This is a very gracious gesture,’” Keenan said.

At that moment, many of the committee members were moved to tears, overwhelmed by the memory of their dear friend and colleague, feeling his presence in the room.

“So whereas I expected the meeting to be quite formal, I had laughed and cried within the first several minutes,” Heyer said in an email. “This gave a personal and inviting feel to the remainder of the meeting.”

Throughout their visit with the Pope, members of the planning committee discussed the goals of CTEWC and explained their ethical specializations. Heyer, whose research focuses on Christian ethics and migration, explained the work and purpose of the network’s books series published by Orbis Press. The books address issues of feminism, sustainability, migration, biblical

ethics, and the role of the moral theologian in the local church.

Thus far, the series encompasses four books: Living With(out) Borders, Just Sustainability, Feminist Catholic Theological Ethics, and Catholic Theological Ethics Past, Present, and Future: The Trento Conference.

Heyer spoke in detail about Just Sustainability, a volume of essays written by theologians from across the globe, which reflects upon climate change from various ethical standpoints. The book’s 25 contributors consider the implications of climate change in light of location, political structures, and theological values. Just Sustainability was published three months prior to the release of Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’, which reflects on climate change and advocates for action from both local and global vantage-points.

“[Just Sustainability’s] international essays reflect the authors’ diverse contexts, from Micronesia, to Kenya, to Brazil, in ways similar to how Pope Francis draws upon wisdom from local bishops’ conferences from around the world in Laudato Si’,” Heyer said.

Both Just Sustainability and Laudato Si’ address the relationship between social exclusion and environmental degradation.

Both texts call for solutions that address all voices and communities from a perspective of justice and equality. Additionally, CTEWC offers scholarships to African women interested in completing their academic, professional and basic training in moral theology, social ethics, and theological ethics.

“We like to support new voices,” Keenan said. “We want the church to have more people talking, and women are key.”

On the first of each month, CTEWC

sends out a newsletter called FIRST that features five essays written by theologians from each of the five continents that make up the network. Moreover, the network has helds nine conferences across the globe since 2006, ranging from Bogota, Colombia to Nairobi Kenya. The next conference will be held in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 2018.

In order to empower the peripheries of theological ethics, CTEWC has arranged re-publication of the network’s book series within India and various African nations, ensuring the books are available to more people at lower prices.

“Throughout our extended time together, [Pope Francis] remained very engaged, interjecting between each person’s presentation with questions, candid commentary, and interest in and appreciation for our work,” Heyer said in an email. n

Columbia Economist Sachs Explains Development of Anthropocene Sachs, from A1 “It was an economy that could develop world-scale trading systems backed by mass slavery—and cruel, massive social destruction—but it was not an industrial age.” Sachs said. “Then came James Watt.”

Watt invented the steam engine in 1776, a year Sachs jokingly said was notable for the invention of the steam engine, the publication of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, and the founding of the United States—in that order.

Sachs said that the second period of the

anthropocene—stretching from around 1800 to roughly 1950—saw the Industrial Revolution cause an economic transformation as fundamental as the Neolithic invention of agriculture.

“In the organic era, before coal, the amount of energy that could be mobilized was an extremely small amount of energy compared to what a modern economy needs,” Sachs said. “The economy before fossil fuels was an inherently self-limiting economy.”

Economic growth is an entirely modern phenomenon. Before the early 19th century, productivity generally remained nearly static, changing only gradually over hundreds of years. The advent of powerful

energy sources allowed, for the first time, consistent increases in productivity which constitutes economic growth.

Sachs called the third phase of the anthropocene—dating from around 1950 to the present—a period of “decolonization, convergence, and the American century.”

Sachs said that after 1950, most of the developing world, for the first time, had the chance to industrialize—particularly since mass education was no longer being discouraged by the colonial powers of Europe, and technology was finally flowing out of the West.

In 1990, 37.1 percent of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty. By 2015 that figure had fallen to 9.6 percent,

Sachs said, but only as a side effect of larger economic trends.

“Poverty is such an absurd anachronism that, if we cared a whit, we would be saving millions of lives per year, we would easily be able to ensure universal access to health coverage, clean water, sanitation, education, and we’d never notice the economic costs,” Sachs said.

According to United Nations calculations, less than 2 percent of gross world product would suffice to end both carbonbased climate change, which, along with thermonuclear warfare, poses the greatest threat to humanity, and to end all human poverty in every form.

“We’re so rich that it’s only [due to]

our complete disdain for the poor that we don’t solve the remaining problems of global poverty,” Sachs said.

Sachs argued that in the face of globally “intractable” selfishness—and the unwillingness of wealthy countries to eradicate easily preventable human suffering—the moral doctrine guiding all actions should be that private property rights are “important, but never inviolate,” and that individual rights must be subordinated to the “moral purpose” of the economy.

“The essence of the ethics of the anthropocene is, fundamentally, a choice— the choice of pro-sociality, of supporting humanity, versus the choice of uncontrolled greed,” Sachs said. n

Guerrero Awarded 25th Archbishop Oscar A. Romero Scholarship Romero, from A1 version of themselves,” Guerrero said.

“The fight will continue, and I know we will rise, because our language will become the language,” he said.

Lopera could not attend the ceremony because his wife was having their first child, but his sister accepted the award on his behalf. His speech, titled “I Was Not Supposed to Be Here,” recounted the sheer luck

Lopera often had on his journey to success.

For example, papers that gave him political asylum in the U.S., required for a college student, arrived just days before the deadline for deciding to go to BC. The two runners-up were Adonis Bonilla and Sacha Hauc, both MCAS ’18.

Rev. Tony Penna, S.J., the director of Campus Ministry, introduced Bonilla, who he said takes great pride in his role in organizations like the Dominican Association of

BC and Hispanic Heritage Month.

“Love, peace, patience, and humility are pillars that I carry around everywhere I go, and that guide my everyday life,” Penna read, quoting Bonilla.

Karen Kiefer, the associate director of the Church in the 21st Century Center, introduced Hauc, who works in C21 doing Latino outreach. Hauc, a double major in biology and philosophy, dreams of returning to his native Columbia to work in public

health in his community. He is the president of the Public Health Club at BC, and spends his Fridays working for St. John’s Project, delivering food for Boston’s homeless population. Kiefer met him in September of his freshman year.

“We made a faith connection and I soon realized Sacha’s faith in God was at the forefront of everything he does,” she said.

The event opened with a tribute to Monan by Juan Arteaga, BC ’99, who em-

ceed the event—in 1989, after six Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter were murdered at Central American University, Monan encouraged Congress to withhold aid from El Salvador until its leaders were held responsible for the killings.

“As a Jesuit whose mission it is to fight for justice and to find God in all things, Father Monan was an unapologetic advocate for creating a more diverse and welcoming community at BC,” Arteaga said. n

THE HEIGHTS

A4

MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017

Writing on the Wall: Answering Anonymous Questions in O’Neill

BY MARGARET WEST For The Heights Q: “Favorite Harry Potter fan theory?”

A: “From the Sorcerer’s Stone, we know that our dear friend Harry could have been sorted into Slytherin House, had he not advocated for being placed in Gryffindor. One of the key traits of Gryffindors is their bravery. What if all Gryffindors are in that house simply because they asked to be?”

This is just one of the questions and answers written on sticky notes and found on the omniscient “Answer Wall” placed in the third-floor lobby of O’Neill Library.

Boston College Libraries staff created the wall as a place to anonymously ask questions and receive serious answers within a day or two. The questions can range from the sincere to the silly, with topics varying from March Madness to existential dread.

The Wall has been in place since

February, and has been full of Post-its ever since. The original group of five librarians responsible for answering questions has grown to 12 and demand is only increasing.

Steve Runge, Learning Commons Manager, and leader of the group of question-answerers, called the wall “ridiculously popular.” He believes the key to the wall’s popularity is the “collaboratively created character of the wall.”

Students have not just been asking questions, but addressing the Wall directly, asking about its dating habits, friendships, and just saying thanks for existing. Runge also believes that students are responding to the Wall character’s honesty and respect. He emphasized the importance of the questions being answered with respect to the question’s intent. Whether the question is joking, emotional, or factual, the respondents work to creatively answer the questions in the same manner. It is like a library-wide Siri, available to all.

Q: “Beatles or Stones?”

A: “Since this is a subjective question, the Wall is going to have to go with our lovely lads from Liverpool. But you know I have a sneaking admiration for one of

Pink Floyd’s albums …”

Out of the 140 or so questions they have received, only five gave them any pause, according to Runge, and only one was actually pulled, and it wasn’t the question itself but a drawing added later, probably by a different student.

“Libraries are not in the business of censoring,” Runge said. “They only redact personal, potentially identifiable information, like names. Occasionally, a student has answered another’s question on the wall, creating an interactive dialogue not just between the students and adults.

Q: “How can I become cool like you Mr. Wall?”

A: “I have always found the coolest people are those who are honest with themselves and try not to be like anyone else. If others don’t think you’re cool, find some different people to be around, because you’re pretty cool already.”

Writing through the same collective lens of this omniscient character has brought the people on the other side of the wall together as well. The group of librarians that has come together as the Answer Wall is a varied bunch, coming from departments from all over campus.

The wide range of departments means that any question will be answered by someone interested in the subject. From music, to stress management, to foreign languages, BC Libraries has every topic covered. Many posts direct people to other campus resources when needed, letting them know the help doesn’t have to end in a wall.

Carli Spina, the head librarian and one of the project leaders, was surprised at the personal direction the Wall had taken.

“It’s become sort of a library mascot,” she said.

Q: “Who are you …?”

A: “I think you mean ‘what are you?’

I’m the Answer Wall. I manifest myself as both a whiteboard in O’Neill Library and a blog. I rely heavily on various people and systems for support as most things (and people) do.”

The Wall has grown into something more than a collection of librarians collectively pretending to be an omniscient, inanimate object. Runge repeatedly brought up the magic of the Wall, the independent entity it has become. Many questions address the Wall itself, including tricky questions like how it writes the answers if it doesn’t have any arms.

The questions are answered seriously if needed but with a clear sense of humor.

It is the friendly library elder anyone can go to for advice or a good talk.

Q: “How to stop thinking about someone?”

A: “Daydreaming can be a useful exercise … until it isn’t … So, give yourself permission to think about that someone for 10 minutes each day … Make up your mind to be ‘A mind-maker-upper’ and the move onward and upward. Oh the places you’ll go and the people you’ll meet!”

The anonymity the Wall provides helps create an open place to be honest. The Wall is judgement free. It has brought together the students of BC, reading and sharing each other’s problems and possible solutions. Some comment on each other’s questions, clarifying or supporting.

“We try to do a lot to make it fun for the students,” Spina said. “We’re offering more than just academic support, but sort of full-life support.”

Q: “Dear Wall, what do you think is your best quality?”

A: “I try to be helpful and not expect anything in return. In so doing, I am fulfilled.” 

Sutherland Researches Student Health in Chile

BY ALLIE COON For The Heights

ZOE FANNING / HEIGHTS EDITOR

For When the Big Envelopes Arrive: Making the Correct College Choice SHANNON KELLY Hello, frequent readers. Thanks for coming back. It’s always a pleasure. My column will be a little different today, not really as a way of shaking things up—even though I am hip and with it—but mostly, this is for the younger members of the Boston College community.

Dear prospective members of the Class of 2021, Congratulations on your acceptance to this fine university over the past few weeks. I’m sure you all have questions. I have answers.

Well, some. I am relatable because I too have gone through this process before—twice in fact. What classes should you take? What should your major be? Should you even come here? Well, I don’t have all of those answers. But I can help.

When I was 9 years old, spurred by the magnificent storytelling of Cinderella Story starring Hilary Duff, I decided that Princeton University was the place for me. I was going to be a writer—the next J.K. Rowling, to show my age even more than I already have—and Princeton even had a Quidditch team.

The one unfortunate thing was that the Tigers’ colors were orange and black, and I had some serious reconciling to do with the fact that it was not the Gryffindor red and gold. Though eventually that did not factor into my college decision, it seems like even then I should have known.

By the time I reached high school, I was a little bit of a mess.

Geometry honors had shaken me to my core. My English teacher hated my portfolio of interpretations on the Tao Te Ching. I was, all things considered, not the type of student

that Princeton would allow within its hallowed halls. So I did what every other teenager would do in that situation: I gave up. I now approached college with the anxiety and confusion of a lost puppy. Did I want to go to the South, where I had visions of a sea of perfectly worn-down brown cowboy boots against lacey white dresses and floppy hats, far away from the noise of a big city? Or was I better suited going even farther, across the Atlantic Ocean to Trinity College Dublin, to experience the country that my family came from?

And what was I even going to major in? I had heard the cautionary tales against majoring in English—zero career prospects and only the achievement of having read a lot of books.

I had no idea what I was doing. But there was one person who wanted to help.

My brother has had type 1 diabetes since he was 2 years old, and the disease brought with it another task for babysitters to deal with. Most couldn’t take the heat—the way it was going, it seemed like my siblings and I were the modern-day von Trapps, sabotaging anyone that came through the door. Caitlin, who had diabetes herself, stuck with us. Not only did she provide the service my parents needed, but she was cool, even for tweens and teens that didn’t want their peers to know that a babysitter still came to their house every night.

She quickly became more of a sister to myself and my two sisters. When the topic of my future years came up, Caitlin had nothing but optimism: she would Google prestigious universities and awards that I could apply for, a presidential scholarship Bill Clinton received at the University of Virginia.

My feelings of academic failure did not make sense to her. You would’ve thought that I was a genius.

We didn’t just talk about college, though. Over my first high school Spring Break, she took me to Bloomingdale’s to find my very own pair of

7 jeans, a brand prized by elite high schoolers and celebrities, as memory serves. She picked out a pair, light washed with the right amount of flare for 2011, and dragged me into a dressing room. An old woman stuck pins around the waist and ankles, and the perfect pair of jeans to fit my 5-foot-1 frame had appeared out of thin air. At the end of the day, the jeans remained on the rack at Bloomingdale’s—I protested against her paying for such an expensive piece of clothing.

Caitlin treated me like a sister, too.

She gave me her hand-me-downs, despite towering over me. I received her last package the year after the 7 jeans excursion—several T-shirts, a sweater, sweatpants from grad school at Vanderbilt University, her latest adventure, and a well-worn Kelly green shirt that said “Irish by chance.

Eagle by choice” with Baldwin’s face in the middle. A pink Post-It declaring that it was for when I arrived at BC was lost in the trash soon after, but I remember it even now.

Caitlin died a couple weeks later, sending my 15-year-old self into freefall. I tried to keep up the optimism that she held for me—that I could get in somewhere great, that I would just know where I belonged.

I spent my freshman year at Notre Dame, where I just didn’t fit. The night I arrived at BC for move-in my sophomore year, I unpacked my pajama shirts first, squeezing them into the bottom drawer. In the mix was the green shirt: Irish by chance, Eagle by choice. I wore it to bed.

Dear Class of 2021, Congratulations on your admission to Boston College. We are so happy to have you here. I’m sure you have a lot of questions. Should you come here? I don’t know. But you always end up exactly where you’re supposed to.

Shannon Kelly is the asst. features editor for The Heights. She can be reached on Twitter @ShannonJoyKelly

Five thousand miles from Boston College lies Pontificia Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile. Though the campuses are separated by a roughly 13-hour plane ride, they both have a prestigious reputation within their countries, an emphasis on Catholic values in education, and now a shared faculty member—Melissa Sutherland, an associate professor in the Connell School of Nursing.

Sutherland arrived at PUC in early March, after receiving a Fulbright Award in September of last year. Her project, entitled “Collaboration is the Future of Health Care: A Chile/United States Nursing Exchange,” will allow her to research and lecture at PUC through July.

Sutherland’s plans in Chile include expanding the research work she does at BC, which focuses largely on sexual health and sexual violence among college students, especially young women. For now, she is focused on teaching work at PUC, and is co-teaching a global public health class with Lillian Ferrer.

Sutherland’s interest in public health began during her time at nursing school at Binghamton University, and she built upon it through her work in the Sexually Transmitted Disease program in a New York public health department. She later worked as a family nurse practitioner, obtained a Ph.D. in nursing science, and came to BC as a professor, where she has taught for eight years.

It is largely through nursing that Sutherland became involved in the Fulbright Scholar Program, as it was two nursing colleagues that encouraged her to apply for the scholarship. The Fulbright Scholarship itself was established to promote “international good will” through educational exchange in a variety of fields.

Given the globalization of our world and the ease of interaction between remote countries, public health is a field for which “international understanding” is extremely important. Each country can only be as “healthy” as those surrounding it, so exchange between countries is essential.

BC and PUC began their own educational exchange in 2015, when the two were established as partner institutions.

The idea of using education as a tool to

increase good will and rapport between such distant universities is one especially relevant to Sutherland.

In an email, she said that she saw the Fulbright Award, “as a mechanism in which to build upon an existing collaboration.”

PUC has a robust public health education program, and its Catholic background and familiarity to BC were also appealing to Sutherland.

Continuing to build the relationship between BC and PUC could be beneficial not only to expanding and broadening the scope of CSON’s research, but could also provide further opportunities for international exchange for CSON students and faculty.

Sutherland’s background as a nurse practitioner has served her well since arriving in Chile, a country that has a lower nurse-to-patient ratio than the U.S. The Pan-American Health Organization has called for the introduction of advanced practice nurses. Her daily work includes meeting with educators and others interested in working to improve nursing in Chile.

Since Sutherland is a family nurse practitioner, her expertise is in great demand and her experience has drawn interest.

“There is a great interest in nurse practitioner and since I am a family nurse practitioner, there has been an interest in my experiences,” she said.

Despite the differences in nursing practices, Sutherland says that Chile and the U.S. are quite similar in terms of public health, and that her experiences so far have not changed her perspective on public health or how she views public health programs.

“Similar to the U.S., Chile is experiencing many of the same PH problems we are—obesity, smoking, and environmental threats (to name a few),” she said.

Still, only three weeks into her Fulbright Program, Sutherland has a lot she is hoping to to discover and learn. She, along with Ferrer and Lisette Irarrazabal, both of whom also study sexual and public health, has plans to study the health behaviors of Chilean college students, but these will have to wait for approval by PUC. Sutherland’s research will hopefully provide insight on student health, something which could further academic exchange and the ideals of the Fulbright program itself. 

THE HEIGHTS

MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017

Eagle Date Sydney Bernal

A5

Kyle Garrett

Year: 2019 Major: Communication

Year: 2019 Major: Computer Science

Heights: What did you do for your date?

Sydney: I got us tickets and we went to, in Cambridge, this theater [sic] that does breakfast and cereal and Saturday morning cartoons.

So we went to that and it was a breakfast bar with all kinds of milk …

It had all the cereals you weren’t allowed to eat as a child.

Heights: Did you do anything to prepare for your date?

Sydney: I bought the tickets. I was going to go already, and so then I just bought an extra ticket for him because I asked if he was interested and he said, “Yeah, sure that sounds fine.”

Heights: What was it like when you first met your date?

Sydney: So it was kind of confusing to find a place to meet because I was super vague. But then we met. We called the Lyft and went over, and we talked in the Lyft and we were there a little bit early, so then we got tea before ... that was good. I love tea.

Heights: What did you talk about?

Sydney: I’m sure we talked about dancing because that was all I talk about ever. We just kind of talked about life, school … not a ton of details were divulged, so it was pretty surface level, but just kind of small talk.

Heights: What do you think the future holds for the two of you?

Sydney: I think we could be friends. I think it’s always nice to meet people you don’t usually come into contact with and gain different perspectives on things.

Heights: What did you do for your date?

Kyle: We went out, we got tea, we explored Cambridge a bit.

We went to a theater. I don’t remember the name of it, but it was some old TV shows thing.

Heights: Did you do anything to prepare for your date?

Kyle: I dressed up nice, tried to fix up my hair, all that. Nothing too special since I wasn’t sure what we would be doing. I just tried to be presentable.

Heights: What was it like when you first met your date?

Kyle: Seemed to go pretty well. We had already spoken a bit via text message, and I had already tried to set up the Lyft, so we chatted a bit. It didn’t go too badly, I didn’t think.

Heights: What did you talk about?

Kyle: We talked about our experiences coming to Boston College, our opinions of the city and school. She told me a lot about her friends, her interests, dancing, and all that. Other than that, it was pretty much just whatever.

Heights: What do you think the future holds for you two?

Kyle: I’m not sure if there was much chemistry there, but I’d like to think we’d at least be friends and such, because she seemed interesting.

To sign up for EagleDate, email features@bcheights.com

The Mursday Effect Chapter 8: The Spy Who Annoyed Me RUTHERFORD SHIRETON IV “The Mursday Effect” is a humor piece created pseudonymously by two authors, with each devoting him or herself to an alternating chapter each week. The newest installment in the serial will appear in each Monday issue of The Heights. It can also be found online with the previous chapters.

During Retrograde’s harrowing journey to Nova Scotia, a journey filled with improbable killer whale sightings and complaints by pretentious Boston College students, Joanna Oxford and I were in quite the pickle.

If you’ll remember from my previous chapter, one which was impeccably written, intensely evocative, and perfectly plotted, Joanna was left standing on a car, bow and arrow in hand, as a massive wave of monstrous beings from dark and fallen worlds descended upon her.

In an act that maybe, in retrospect, some might call heroism, she held off the monsters and allowed Retrograde and his three young companions to escape to the harbor.

At the time, I happened to be hiding inside of an SUV. This was not because I was afraid, but because I knew that hugging my knees and rocking back and forth in the trunk of an SUV was the best strategy possible in this situation. Trust me, the real hero in this situation was and always will be Rutherford Shireton IV. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee,” I shrieked heroically and with great manly vigor. The scene around the car was complete chaos, wild tentaclecreatures bounding between cars, a pizza-tear in the sky opening a portal to another world.

A loud noise, which might be textually approximated as VROOOOOOOOM, drew my attention and I glanced over the backseat and out the window. Waves of black motorcycles, ridden by shapeless, armored soldiers wearing entirely black flew by the window.

Tires screeched as the motorcycles skid to stops within the massive, bloody traffic jam and the soldiers hopped out. I turned around and looked over the back window to see another wave of these mercenaries, this time wearing entirely Nantucket red. In a well-choreographed move, they all leapt from their motorcycles, clicked their heels together, and charged at the approaching monsters.

I turned back to the front and saw Joanna standing on a car, nocking another arrow in her bow. She paused to look at the mercenaries streaming past her car.

A knock on the back window startled me.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEE, OH BISCUITS OH BISCUITS NO NO NO NO NO NO PLEASE KILL JOANNA NOT ME I’M TO PRETTY TO DIE,” I screamed with great courage and fortitude.

The face peering in at me from

the back door was one I recognized from my pre-mission research.

When Joanna and I first drove out to Massachusetts, prepared to investigate the earth-shattering ramifications of Mursday, I reviewed some files and found that one of the primary suspected directors of the program responsible for this breach in reality was one Athena Wilson, a BC professor. It was the same face from the file, gray-eyed and owlchinned that stared at me, smirking.

Using a small laser, she cut through the glass and pushed the detached pane into the trunk, where it landed on my toe. To this day, I carry the bruise of that wartime injury.

“You’re Tim,” she said. “I admire your work. Let’s talk.”

This is a perfect place to abruptly shift the scene. Not to avoid potential embarrassment or self-implication in an evil plot and subsequent betrayal, but instead because the narrative demands it.

For pacing, you fools.

Joanna stood on the car, watching dumbfounded (which she often is), as Athena’s mercenaries fought the twisted monsters.

“Drop the bow,” a gruff and yet tender voice from below said.

Joanna turned to see one of the Nantucket-red mercenaries standing next to the car, looking up at her and aiming his rifle in a way that was threatening and yet gentle. She looked around quickly and judged her possible avenues of escape. Unfortunately, she is in

no way quick-witted or heroic, like Rutherford Shireton IV, and was unable to handle herself in this situation.

“Hey, you,” someone else growled.

Joanna looked up and saw a tall, handsome, and well-dressed man standing behind the mercenary. The mercenary turned, in a manner that was intimidating and yet graceful, and aimed the rifle at Rutherford’s head. With no hesitation, only a will of steel and muscles of totes-jacked-swoleness, the noble Rutherford advanced on the soldier and began karate chopping the air in a show of strength.

“You don’t want to mess with Big Ruth,” I said, positively oozing charisma and indomitable awesomeness.

“Big Rooth?” the mercenary said.

“No, Ruth,” I said. “Like Rut, but with an h.”

“Okay, but like the way you spelled it is pronounced Rooth, like the old lady name.”

“Hi-Ya,” I screamed, landing a karate chop right to the neck. The mercenary may not have reacted, but that was only because I had stunned him so thoroughly.

“All right, please stop that,” the mercenary said, trembling with fear. “I have stuff to do and you’re getting on my nerves.”

“Leave Joanna alone,” I said, raising a fist. “Or this mama-jama’s coming right at you.”

The mercenary’s walkie-talkie

buzzed.

“Leave them,” a female voice said. “He’s on our side now.”

“All right, whatevs,” the mercenary said, walking away.

“HA,” I said. “Just another fool who thought they could take on old Ruth.”

“What did that lady say on the walkie-talkie?” Joanna said.

“No time for questions. We have to get to Nova Scotia to stop the evil plot and save the world and all that.”

And so Joanna and I took off running for the airport, where a private plane waited for us.

Back on the highway, Athena watched her mercenaries fighting and spoke into a cellular phone.

“The reporters won’t be any trouble she said,” she said.

“Did you just say ‘she said’ at the end of your sentence?” the mysterious overlord of evil plots said.

“Typo, don’t worry about it.

What’s important is that we’ve set up some future betrayals, some torn allegiances, and a large multicharacter confrontation.”

“Ah yes. Now it all unfolds. Haha-hoo-hee-hi-higgidy.”

The mysterious overlord has always had a bizarre laugh. It led to a great deal of cruelty from his grade school classmates, which may perhaps have led, in part, to his eventual decision to pursue “mysterious overlord of evil plots” as a career path.

But anyhoo, we shall see more come next week.

The Heights

A6

Monday, March 27, 2017

Editorials

Romero and MLK Scholarships Promote Diversity Th i s p a s t S atu rd ay, Ste ven Guerrero, CSOM ’18, was awarded the Archbishop Oscar A . Romero Scholarship. The scholarship is given annually to a Boston College student based on academic achievement, leadership, community service, and involvement in the Latino community.

The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship is another grant that is given annually. The criteria for the award are academic achievement, community leadership, service to others, and commitment to the principles and mission of King.

Both of these scholarships help to promote racial diversity on campus.

These aw ards , which are generally given to Hispanic and African-American students respectively, represent a commitment to the advancement of the interests of minority groups.

At a school such as BC, where Hispanic and African-American students are historically underrepresented, programs like these two scholarships help to create a more inclusive university.

This is evident in the characters of both of the namesakes of the two scholarships. Archbishop Oscar Romero was an influential leader and social activist in El Salvador during the country’s violent civil war that lasted more than a decade. He was a staunch promoter of peace, and was killed while celebrating

By sponsoring scholarship programs, these committees are helping to develop future leaders.

Mass a day after he asked Salvadoran soldiers to refrain from killing civilians and escalating violence.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is perhaps the most influential civil rights activist in American history. His “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered during the March on Washington, is one of the most important calls to justice the world has ever known.

His bravery and fearlessness in the face of oppression continues to inspire people around the world today.

These scholarships complement the efforts of students during a time in which many groups on campus, such as the AHANA Leadership Council, are attempting to promote diversity on campus.

These awards serve as a way for the University to recognize the achievements of minority students, and offer legitimacy to groups of students that might otherwise feel ignored or overlooked by the BC community.

The committees that give out these two scholarships each year also help to foster diversity on campus. The Archbishop Oscar A. Romero and Martin Luther King, Jr. Committees both help to combat discrimination, create understanding, and promote equality at BC. By sponsoring scholarship programs, these committees are helping to develop future leaders that will carry on the missions of Romero and King to make the world a more just place for all.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

- T. S. Eliot A Guide to Your Newspaper The Heights Boston College – McElroy 113 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467

Editorial

Business and Operations General Manager (617) 552-0169 Advertising (617) 552-2220 Business and Circulation (617) 552-0547 Classifieds and Collections (617) 552-0364 Fax (617) 552-1753

Editor-in-Chief (617) 552-2223

General (617) 552-2221 Managing Editor (617) 552-4286 News Desk (617) 552-0172 Sports Desk (617) 552-0189 Metro Desk (617) 552-3548 Features Desk (617) 552-3548 Arts Desk (617) 552-0515 Photo (617) 552-1022

editorial resources News Tips Have a news tip or a good idea for a story? Call Connor Murphy, News Editor, at (617) 552-0172, or email news@bcheights.com. For future events, email a detailed description of the event and contact information to the News Desk.

Metro Events Something going on in Boston that you think needs to be covered?

Have an event that BC students might be interested in? Contact Madeleine D’Angelo, Metro Editor, at (617) 552-0515, or email metro@bcheights.com.

Sports Events Want to report the results of a game? Have an athlete you think should have his or her story told? Call Riley Overend, Sports Editor, at (617) 552-0515, or email sports@bcheights.com.

Features Stories Is there a person at BC you believe has a story that should be told?

If so, contact Archer Parquette, Features Editor, at (617) 552-3548, or email features@bcheights.com.

Arts Events For future arts events, email a detailed description of the event and contact information to the Arts Desk. Call Caleb Griego, Arts and Review Editor, at (617) 552-0515, or email arts@bcheights.com.

Photography Are you interested in photography? Do you want to take pictures for an event? If so, contact Julia Hopkins, Photo Editor, at (617) 5521022, or email photo@bcheights.com.

Letter to the Editor A Response to “Former President of Ireland Talks Climate Justice and Human Rights” On March 13th, former Irish President Mary Robinson spoke in front of a crowd of Boston College students, faculty, and community members about the necessity of ethical leadership and of civic action.

Retelling her own story, President Robinson demonstrated how a life of principled activism and responsible leadership can improve our world in very real ways.

She never aspired to the presidency, nor towards any real power.

Instead, it was a series of morally upright actions and passionate pleas for justice that paved her path to eminence.

This story was not told simply to inspire abstract civic duty, but rather to demand that the BC community further the cause of justice. Specifically, President Robinson asked that Father Leahy’s administration take steps to divest from fossil fuels. President Robinson asked that all those who would protect the climate to start actively working to defend it.

From her speech, it became clear that passive support for divestment and environmental protection should no longer be tolerated. Instead, we must demand the active and aggressive defense of our planet.

While President, Mary Robinson worked towards Ireland’s divestment from fossil fuels—something which has now become a reality—and later served as the United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Change.

In both offices, President Robinson recognized that human rights issues are deeply connected with climate change, and that communities across the world suffer when we

continue to use fossil fuels.

Therefore, investing in fossil fuel companies is not only foolishly shortsighted, but morally egregious.

With Boston College’s sister school, Trinity College, selling its holdings in fossil fuels just last year on those same grounds, it is hard to imagine that Leahy’s administration has a defensible ethical or economic argument for maintaining its support of fossil fuels.

From President Robinson’s speech, it was clear that she viewed Leahy’s refusal to divest as an affront to environmental justice, human rights, and indeed, to BC’s own stated mission of social responsibility.

If we are to learn anything from the wisdom shared by President Robinson, it should be that the era of apathetic consent must now come to an end.

In both her stated opposition to our administration’s current policy, as well as in her life’s work, it is plainly obvious that we have an obligation to demand divestment from fossil fuels.

Organizations like Climate Justice at BC have worked towards this goal for nearly five years only to be met with silence, and this impassioned plea of such a respected and successful political figure ought to spark a resurgence in the fight for divestment.

Put simply: We are faced with a crisis, and on March 13th, a former president told us exactly what to do about it.

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.

Matthew Barad, MCAS ’20

customer service Clarifications / Corrections

The Heights strives to provide its readers with complete, accurate, and balanced information. If you believe we have made a reporting error, have information that requires a clarification or correction, or questions about The Heights standards and practices, you may contact Michael Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, at (617) 552-2223, or email eic@bcheights.com.

Delivery

To have The Heights delivered to your home each week or to report distribution problems on campus, contact Avita Anand, General Manager at (617) 552-0547.

The views expressed in the above editorials represent the official position of The Heights, as discussed and written by the

The

Heights Established 1919

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

Michael Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief Avita Anand, General Manager Taylor St. Germain, Managing Editor

Advertising

The Heights is one of the most effective ways to reach the BC community. To submit a classified, display, or online advertisement, call our advertising off ice at (617) 552-2220 Monday through Friday.

The Heights is produced by BC undergraduates and is published on Mondays and Thursdays during the academic year by The Heights, Inc. (c) 2017. All rights reserved.

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

Editorial Anthony Rein, Copy Editor Alec Greaney, A1 Editor Abby Paulson, Creative Director Connor Murphy, News Editor Riley Overend, Sports Editor Caleb Griego, Arts & Review Editor Archer Parquette, Features Editor Madeleine D’Angelo, Metro Editor Leo Confalone, Opinions Editor Julia Hopkins, Photo Editor Max Roth, Online Manager

Business and Operations Steven Everett, Layout Editor Madison Mariani, Layout Editor Meg Dolan, Graphics Editor Zoe Fanning, Graphics Editor Joan Kennedy, Assoc. Copy Editor Grace Gvodas, Asst. Copy Editor Chris Russo, Assoc. News Editor Heidi Dong, Asst. News Editor Annabel Steele, Assoc. Sports Editor Anders Backstrom, Asst. Sports Editor

Jacob Schick, Assoc. Arts & Review Editor Isabella Dow, Asst. Arts & Review Editor Shannon Kelly, Asst. Features Editor William Batchelor, Asst. Metro Editor Amelie Trieu, Assoc. Photo Editor Lizzy Barrett, Asst. Photo Editor Hannah McLaughlin, Social Media Director Francisco Ruela, Jr., Multimedia Editor DJ Recny, Executive Assistant Barrette Janney, Editorial Assistant

Jack Powers, Business Manager Meagan Loyst, Advertising Manager Kelsey McGee, Outreach Coordinator Kipp Milone, Collections Manager Will McCarthy, Account Manager Mike Rosmarin, Account Manager Chris Chilton, On-Campus Ads Manager Griffin Elliott, Systems Manager

The Heights

Monday, March 27, 2017

A7

The Value of Becoming a Mentor Disruptive Kelsey Connors A Necessary Defeat - They had seven years to figure it out. Seven whole years. When the time came, however, and the right suddenly realized they needed to figure out how to do more than just talk, they weren’t up to to the challenge.

In an important victory for the health of millions of Americans, the GOP walked back its plan to replace Obamacare in Congress after realizing they would not have anywhere near enough votes to see the legislation through. In an era of polarizing political dichotomy, in which a harrowing pit of hellfire seemingly exists in the aisle, Republican defectors who vowed not to support the bill represent a calming return to morality in politics. This departure from staunch adherence to party politics should become an established precedent for future debate and policy making in Congress. While this shift is not likely, the kicking of Paul Ryan’s proposed plan to the gutter is a triumph for the left, morality, and the good in general.

The College Condition - So we’re all here, on earth, together, and that’s just the way it is. Time goes on, people live and die, and at the end of it all, what’s left? Let’s zoom in a little closer. There’s a freshman in college, and he’s trying to figure it all out. Everyone around him has it down it seems. They’re either completely engrossed in the superficial and the short-lived, or have figured out how to completely remove themselves from the perfunctory realm. Curiously, both are able to inspire envy. The first is fun, no doubt. To be so unconcerned with the future, to be wrapped up in the social politics of right now, certainly has its perks, especially if you’re doing great at it. The second is good for other reasons. To be free from the pressures of social expectation, hurt feelings, and the fear of missing out must be amazing. To have fully arrived at the logical conclusion that pretty much everything happening right now won’t matter at all in three to four short years must be entirely liberating. Some people, however, find themselves stuck in the middle. It’s hard to not be caught up in everything that takes place in the present. It’s what everyone is doing, so it has to be the only thing that matters, right? What greater standard exists to say otherwise? And if no one cares about said standard, does it even exist? Is it even worth considering? It’s also hard to fully commit to the future.

Life is short, college is supposed to be a time for fun. What’s it worth to work hard, but to not have fun along the way? But, what is fun? Does fun have to be what everyone else says is fun? Is fun relative, or is it a pressure we all subscribe to, and create a culture where there is really only one way to have fun? Are we all so caught up that we shun those who beg to differ, while not realizing we ourselves are missing the point too?

Or is the superficial all that really matters anymore? I don’t know, but it sure feels that way. How do we build anything meaningful if all we are is all about what’s next? How do we find fulfillment when sober reflection is an afterthought? Are we meant to separate this campus from the rest of the world for all of these four years? How are we supposed to talk to anyone, when everyone is shrouded in the veil?

Let me know.

When I joined Stylus my freshman year of college, I was hoping to find people I could relate to in a way I had never been able to before. I knew the club would be filled with people who enjoyed poetry and literature as much as I did. In addition to attending weekly meetings, I began submitting poem after poem in the hope of being published.

Week after week, my pieces were rejected, and I struggled to speak up at meetings because I perceived all of the older members around me as more knowledgeable and qualified to talk about the work than me. I got my breakthrough when I composed a poem unique and abstract enough to maybe have a shot. Sure enough, it got in.

Even though part of me felt that it might have been a stroke of dumb luck, I felt I had earned a small place among the ranks of more senior members. After my acceptance, I spoke up at meetings a little more often.

After the fall magazine came out, featuring one of my poems, I was approached by a senior editor who congratulated me on my acceptance to the magazine and asked me to get lunch with her.

This encounter left me equal parts excited and unsure. This senior, for the past semester, had intimidated me more than anyone else in the club. All of her writing that we reviewed was always accepted nearly unanimously, and she spoke with the articulation of a highly intellectual adult.

When the day came for our lunch date, we met in the Rat, where we talked about school, life, and Stylus.

She asked me about my work and what had inspired it, and I expressed admiration for her own work.

Eventually, she revealed her design

to me.

“When I was first published in the magazine,” she began, “a senior member of the magazine asked me to come to lunch with her and she offered to read over, edit, and critique my work whenever I felt that I needed it. She became my writing mentor, and I want to pass the tradition down and offer the same to you.”

I was incredibly excited and flattered, not only to have this senior take interest in me and my work, but also to be a part of this unique Stylus tradition.

The next semester, I sent her a poem, to which she offered possible edits and suggestions. With her help and some tweaking, my second poem was accepted into the magazine.

Beyond magazine acceptances, she helped me to become more comfortable with older members of the club.

I was no longer so reluctant to

As I transition into my senior year, I will be on the lookout for that new Stylus writer. speak up at meetings. Before I knew it, everyone recognized me and remembered me by name. I was a part of something I loved. So much, in fact, that I applied to the editorial board that spring.

At the end of the semester, I thought nothing of it when my new mentor asked me to get ice cream one night, but when I walked into White Mountain, I found a dozen or so Stylus members there.

That night, they surprised me and a few other general members and announced that we would be a part of next year’s E-board. I was overjoyed, and I likely could not have come so far so quickly were it not for my new mentor.

I would never have had the guts to ask an older member of Stylus to look

over my writing, or even just to get lunch with me my freshman year, so I was incredibly fortunate that a senior took me under her wing.

Of course, it was much less intimidating for her to reach out to me than vice versa.

She was older and already must have known that I would love some help with my writing and with navigating my first year of college in general. It is much easier to decide to become a mentor for someone than it is to try to find an older mentor for oneself.

I have not sent her my poetry in a while now, but if I did, I know I could expect an enthusiastic and speedy response.

Transitional years can be especially tough, but having an older member from my organization reach out to me encouraged and facilitated my growth into a more confident and successful member of the club and of the BC community as a whole.

While clubs like Ascend and Freshman League come with a promise of mentorship, more organizations should expand to include mentorship, be it through formal programs or informal understandings among upperclassmen.

If juniors and seniors reach out out to the younger members of their clubs more intimately and more often, the transitional process would be significantly easier for many freshmen. This would also allow for more positive transitions into the school community for first year students. I know that this was the case for me.

As I transition into my senior year, I will be on the lookout for that new Stylus writer, who is rejected, maybe, as often as I was, who doesn’t always speak up at meetings, but who, every week, keeps coming and keeps trying.

I wonder if, when I ask her on a lunch date, she will be just as surprised as I was.

Kelsey Connors is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

Overcoming Our Fear of Abroad Karen Choi This week, I don’t think that there was anything more disconcerting than finding out that I had gotten into my study abroad program of choice in England and then learning about the horrific attacks at Westminster. I floated on excitement and disbelief, but dropped quickly to a nebulous state of worry upon hearing the news.

Immediately, I thought of my two friends who are studying in England and frantically checked their snap stories, hoping that they were busy frolicking around in Germany or Belgium. Nothing. I ended up messaging them and could only truly relax when I received responses that they were okay.

I have experienced many emotions during the study abroad application process. Frustration at the Office of International Programs and its meticulous procedures for applying to study abroad. Stress while gathering all the materials I needed for the application.

Anticipation for the host college’s decision. Happiness when I found out that I had been accepted, celebrated by silent screaming in the hallowed center of Gasson. Sadness of the existential sort when it finally hit me that I wouldn’t be seeing my friends for an entire year. Anxiety of the freshman type that I would struggle to acclimate myself in a new environment, make new friends, and handle a rigorous course load.

Fear, however, was a new one. In psychology, we learned that anxiety is a vague sense of apprehension, a worry about some imprecise or even imagined threat. Fear contains a sense of “aboutness.” It is an emotional response to some known or definite threat. It is an acknowledgement that

danger is real, definite, and immediate.

Terrorism is a real fear for study abroad students, one that resurfaces whenever I forget that safety while abroad is not guaranteed. Many of us lived through the Brussels and Paris attacks safely behind the fluorescent glow of our phone or laptop screens while the reading the news. Many of us may have wanted to study abroad in those places, and the sheer thought of being in such a horrific situation might have changed our minds. After hearing about the Westminster attacks, I felt fear.

The thought of rescinding my application, however, never crossed my mind, because the fear of not going outweighed the risks I would have avoided by staying in the United States.

Everyone has a different level of risk tolerance, but there are many valid reasons why the fear of the risks should not stop someone from going abroad.

Strikingly, even though terrorist strikes have cast an overwhelming shadow over international travel and lead students to think twice about going abroad, colleges and universities are reporting that the risks have done little to slow the popularity of international study. The number of U.S. students studying abroad rose 60 percent between 2004 and 2014.

It’s important to keep in mind that incidents of terrorism do not occur in a vacuum. Attacks have happened in the past and continue to happen.

They often happen on American soil.

It is a real threat that exists in society that students must acknowledge, but not let cripple and overwhelm the way they live their lives.

We must measure the risk of terrorism in the context of other risks, understanding that life itself is full of danger. You could be killed in a car crash or die of disease, but that should not stop you from living your life. Students’ fear of terrorism is both

rational and irrational. It is rational in that there is an ever-present threat of a terrorist attack occurring , but irrational in the probability assigned to that potential event happening.

We’ve acknowledged that it is okay to be afraid. What now? Terrorism, as defined by the FBI, “is the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

The aims of terrorist attacks are to induce fear, especially among civilians, within a society. They are a form of psychological warfare. Perhaps one of the best ways to deal with this threat is to push past the fear.

The recent attacks in Europe should not deter people from studying abroad. Rather, they should rejuvenate our desires to learn and grow through experiencing a variety of cultures.

Instead of walling ourselves away from new experiences and people, we should travel and build bridges and form meaningful connections between others and ourselves.

Studying, volunteering, and teaching abroad—these are the activities that students should engage in to transcend the vices that plague society, and to help usher in a greater sense of global humanity.

As I imagine myself a year from now, walking through the city of Oxford and making my rounds to my favorite café to write yet another soul-crushing but gripping essay, fear is not a looming presence in my mind.

Rather, it’s Shakespeare and Faulkner, the new friends that I have made, and overwhelming gratitude.

I never forget that the fear is there, but it sits in its rightful place in the corner of my mind, a small and meek shadow.

Karen Choi is an op-ed columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@bcheights.com.

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

Technology

Ryan Duffy Regardless of what sort of economic restoration or returns to national greatness politicians have been promising recently, the coming years will be ones of profound disruption and displacement. The macroscopic trends taking hold all around the world—ones that are certainly here to stay—won’t be undone. These changes, ushered in by technology’s growth in leaps and bounds, promise to make the rest of this century an interesting one.

We are, so to speak, weak in our efforts to prop up protectionist policies and counterproductive measures that will serve only as temporary plugs in the fractures of a dam that’s about to burst.

To continue the metaphor, this embankment can be said to be our current way of living, thinking, and being, while the 21st century changes are the flowing and growing currents that threaten the integrity of the whole foundation.

In Thank You for Being Late, Thomas Friedman tackles these inexplicable changes head-on. He argues that humans’ ability to adapt and cope is being beaten out by a “supernova” predicated on a trio of technology, the market, and climate change, which have put us squarely in an “Age of Accelerations.”

Moore’s Law—that computing processor speeds double every two years—is the key here, for technology. Gordon Moore, an Intel co-founder for whom the law is named after, couldn’t have known how accurate his conjecturing would be: computers are much higher performing, more energy efficient, and cheaper just four decades and change later.

This sort of hyper-growth is happening with all technology. As of 2015, there were about 4.9 billion devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT), a term that refers to the interconnection of common objects—cars, washers, and other smart devices—with each other and the Internet. By 2020, that number will be 12.2 billion, meaning there will be more internet-connected devices than humans.

The most profound disruption will come at the hands of what seems futuristic now, but will be real soon enough.

Artificial intelligence will outpace all of mankind’s millennia-long maturity within this century. At this point, the hypothesis goes, computers will become so super-intelligent that we cannot comprehend what sort of implications it will carry for human civilization. Stephen Hawking is not upbeat about what it means for us. Nor are Elon Musk or Bill Gates; the latter ominously warning: “I don’t understand why some people are not concerned.”

And this is to make nothing of the near term. When we marvel over the newest self-driving cars and über-smart refrigerators, we forget what this means for our livelihoods. “They’re taking our jobs!” a central animus that propelled the candidacy of Donald Trump is a straw man. Automation was the central reason for a decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs, not immigration or trade. Even more highbrow professions—doctors, lawyers, and accountants—are in the crosshairs of technology.

But, as Friedman also notes, these trends can offset and upend each other for good. For example, technology has extended lifespans and allowed mankind to bring global poverty levels to unprecedented lows, despite climate change and a climbing world population.

Furthermore, robots could step in to pick up some of the slack left behind by the hollowing out of our work force.

Futurists and many in the technology industry are optimistic that ‘Singularity’, when computer smarts best human smarts, can be harnessed for good.

What’s certain is that these changes will bring disruption and displacement.

They will test humans’ adaptability, especially since we cannot necessarily envision or conceptualize what they mean at this point in time. Despite the pretensions of some policymakers, a flip of the switch cannot put us on a course reversal. We are on autopilot now, along for the ride.

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

The Heights

A8

Monday, March 27, 2017

Mulderrig Makes Students’ First Year a Memorable One

Twenty years after his first night at college went awry, Ryan Mulderrig is helping students have a successful start at BC.

By Bernadette Darcy Heights Staff On the first night of his freshman year, Ryan Mulderrig enjoyed a farewell dinner with his parents and returned to Claver Hall on Upper Campus to find vacant rooms all around. Soon, the phone rang—his buddy from high school had just settled into Williams Hall on College Road and called to fill Mulderrig in on the night’s plans.

About an hour before, a few of Boston College’s newest undergraduates went down to Yawkey Way’s notorious bar, Who’s On First, in search of a few beers and a good time. Mulderrig and his friend went downtown to meet the crew. That night, even the best-laid plans of freshmen boys went awry. After being turned away from the bar, the boys settled in on Claver Two for the night, and stayed up late in anticipation of freshman year.

That was Mulderrig’s first memory

at BC, and it has stuck with him ever since. Now he works to give other BC students an ideal freshman year experience.

Today, a photo of the grown-up Claver men is perched on a bookshelf in Mulderrig’s office in Stokes South. For the last three years, Mulderrig, BC ’02, has worked in the Office of First Year Experience, and was recently appointed assistant director of the department, focused on student outreach.

Mulderrig was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. He attended Regis High School in Manhattan, the country’s only tuition-free Jesuit, Catholic school regarded as the best secondary school in the nation. At Regis, Mulderrig embraced the Jesuit values fundamental to the school’s curriculum, and planned on attending a Jesuit university after graduation.

BC was a natural fit for Mulderrig, who majored in economics. As a sophomore, he led a Kairos retreat. Within

Bernadette Darcy / Heights Staff

Today, Mulderrig works with first-year students on a daily basis from his office in Stokes.

the Kairos community, Mulderrig felt at home.

“I met and formed friendships with invaluable leaders,” Mulderrig said. “We reflected on family and transitional changes, the kind of vulnerable information you tend to hide from everyone else, including your good friends.”

During his junior year, Mulderrig studied abroad in Cork, Ireland. There, he connected with his Irish roots.

“I went to County Mayo, where my family is originally from, and found the home where my grandfather was born and raised,” Mulderrig said. “My last name is unique, and for the first time, I was meeting other Mulderrigs outside of my family in the states.”

For two summers, Mulderrig interned at Morgan Stanley. He planned to work for the company after graduation, but the company’s offices in the World Trade Center were destroyed because of the terrorist attacks of Sept.

11, 2001. His post-graduate plans had dissipated.

“The events of 9/11 made me ask myself, ‘What is home?’” he said. “The idea of going back to New York after graduation was stressful to me. On graduation day, I didn’t know what to do next.”

Ultimately, Mulderrig decided to stay in Boston, where he worked at an insurance company for three years.

Soon, he was hired to work at Fidelity Investments in Boston, and for the first time, felt proud of the work he did. Yet Rev. Michael Himes, C.S.C., a theology professor, and his famous key questions echoed in the back of Mulderrig’s mind.

What brought him joy? What was he good at? What did the world need him to be?

“I was going to work every day fighting with investors, working with people who defined success by a bottom line,” Mulderrig said. “I respected who I worked with, but I didn’t see success the way they did.”

In 2007, Mulderrig was drawn back to BC when he had the opportunity to direct a Kairos retreat. He and his team spent weeks preparing for the retreat, which was scheduled for the last weekend in October. When the time came, everything ran smoothly. Yet on Sunday morning, something out of the ordinary happened.

“I felt God’s presence, as though I was being held in His hand,” Mulderrig said. “I was perplexed and confused by the experience, so I reached out to Professor John McDargh, who was my capstone professor senior year.”

McDargh helped Mulderrig come to the conclusion that it was time for a life change. Mulderrig enrolled in a masters of education program at BC, and worked as a resident director in Keyes Hall after he completed the program.

The following year, he was the RD for Vouté, Gabelli, and 66, and rounded out his career in the Office of Residential Life as the RD for the Mods.

“The Mods are a headache, but they’re an amazing headache,” Mulderrig said. “I was real with my residents, and they were real with me.”

In 2014, Mulderrig began working in the office of First Year Experience (FYE), a department dedicated to helping freshmen and transfer students transition into the intellectual, social, and cultural community of BC. “All of our programs are rooted in student formation from the Jesuit lens,” Mulderrig said. “We want our students

to think about their experiences and see what patterns are emerging in their lives.”

FYE is in charge of several first-year programs. From summer freshman orientations, to 48Hours retreats, to the cross-campus journey of Convocation, FYE works diligently to ensure that BC’s newest Eagles are supported and inspired from the moment they first set foot on campus.

Mulderrig works with students on a daily basis, including helping them with academic advising, discussing transitional challenges, and finding activities that fit student interests. He maintains relationships with students from their first day to their last, finding so much joy in the work he does that it does not feel like work to him.

“Graduation day is the most bittersweet day of the year for me,” he said. “It’s sad to think about this place without such wonderful people, but I’m reassured in knowing that a new group of Eagles will be making their mark here soon.”

When Mulderrig looks back on his undergraduate career at BC, he feels fortunate to have been instilled with the Jesuit values that helped him cultivate his whole person, and works to help current undergraduates cultivate themselves. From bonding with hallmates on the first night of freshman year, to reflecting upon what truly brings them joy, Mulderrig wants students to be authentic and attentive in their approach to college.

“We encourage students to develop habits of reflection,” he said. “We want them to adopt a conscious and intensive approach toward their four years on the Heights.” n

First-Hand View of the Terror in London London Attack, from A1 ment, to find it empty. She noticed one police officer walking through, patrolling the area.

“The first thing that came to my mind was that the shooter was in the building,” she said.

She ran into a bathroom, locked herself in the last stall, and sat on the floor. The stalldoor was large and went from the floor to the ceiling, so she felt protected.

She tried to call her father, her mother, and her internship supervisor, but none of them picked up their phones. This was the moment, Quadros said, where she began to fear for her life.

She then texted her internship supervisor in a panic.

“Ian ... there’s been a shooting. I’m locked in a stall. Where should I go?”

Quadros was only in the stall for about a minute, but it felt much longer. She left the bathroom when she heard police officers outside the door. Once in the hallway, an officer quickly escorted her to a large committee room where many of the other staffers were being kept. Quadros remembers trembling, trying to piece together what was happening.

The signal in the room was not good, so she began to send voice messages to her mother through WhatsApp explaining that there was an attack on Parliament, but she was safe. She asked her family to turn on the television and tell her what was happening because many people in the building had trouble getting a signal on their cell phones to watch the news.

“Nobody knew what was going on,” Quadros said. “[But] they were all really calm, nobody was in panic.”

Quadros then received a message from her brother that said the officer was stabbed, not shot. At the same time, her mother was sending her voice messages, trying to keep Quadros calm and collected.

There was an air of confusion in the room, as people began to wonder if the attack on the bridge was performed by the same person as the attack on the Parliament. People questioned whether the attack was made by one or two people.

After about 20 minutes in the room, Quadros was told she could go back to her office to retrieve her things. When she arrived back in the office, she looked out her window at the Westminster Bridge. Bodies covered in blankets were scattered along the bridge. She saw several ambulances with blaring lights and pedestrians tending to other people. This sight was far different from her usual view of the picturesque

bridge.

Just as she was about to grab her things, an officer entered the room and told everyone inside to quickly move to another room in the back area of Parliament. The building was going on lockdown. Quadros was still trembling and felt lightheaded, but kept her composure.

“I wasn’t scared,” she said. “I knew everything was going to be okay.”

Over the next few hours, people inside the building tracked the news and began to learn the details. They learned the attack was made by one person who injured 30 people on the bridge and stabbed an officer in the head.

The attacker was later identified as Khalid Masood, age 52. His attack on Westminster Bridge and in Parliament was over within 82 seconds, according to police. Four people, including Masood, were killed, and over 50 were injured during the attack.

At around 7 p.m., the people inside were let out of the building through a back entrance of Parliament. Quadros saw Lucas, her MP, who asked if she was alright and told her that he expected to see her in the office the next day. He said that people cannot be intimidated and must continue to live their daily lives.

Although inspired by Lucas’s words, Quadros was too shocked to go into work the next day. She spent Thursday locked inside her dorm room, monitoring the news and giving interviews to radio stations in her home country of Colombia. She left her room once that day to attend the vigil at Trafalgar Square, just a few minutes from where the attack occurred.

As Quadros reflected on the events of the previous day, she realized that the place where the officer was stabbed, an entrance for employees, was a place she walks through most days. On the first day of her internship she took a picture of Big Ben from that spot. Little did she know that it would one day be the location of an attack.

Quadros went back into the office on Friday at the instruction of her parents and internship supervisor. As she entered the building, a security guard approached her. She expected the guard to ask for her pass, but he instead asked her what flavor of coffee she was drinking with a smile on his face. Quadros was surprised by how normal the people of London were acting just two days after the attack.

“Witnessing a terror attack was a horrible experience, and yet truly eye-opening at the same time,” she said. “It makes you realize life is not just the safe bubble I was use to living in.” n

Amelie Trieu / Heights Editor

Libraries Honor Monan’s Legacy Monan was crucial to buying the millionth book for BC Libraries.

By Ashley Stauber For The Heights Hundreds of students filter in and out of O’Neill Library everyday at a staccato pace, fueled by caffeine and impending deadlines. Immersed in the business of their lives, these same students may have not noticed a rare gem planted on display in the middle of the third floor O’Neill lobby: the millionth book acquired by the Boston College Library, a copy of the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX printed in 1473.

The late Rev. J. Donald Monan, S.J., the 24th president of BC, was integral to the library’s quest to acquire and purchase the book and offered his support throughout the process. During his combined 45 years

as president and chancellor, he worked extensively to improve BC Libraries.

After his passing, BC Libraries has put together a commemoration to the life and legacy of the president who did so much to build BC. The commemoration does not stop at O’Neill. The second floor of Bapst Library features an exhibit dedicated to Monan’s legacy called Si monumentum requiris circumspice, which translated to English means “if you seek his monument, look around.”

Staff from various departments browsed through University Archives in order to find documents and photos that accurately represented Monan’s great contribution to the University. The pictures and documents featured illustrate the accomplished and knowledge-hungry life of the man they commemorate. The display will be featured in Bapst throughout the week in order to honor Monan’s memory.

Amelie Trieu / Heights Editor

Items from Monan’s tenure sit in a display on the third floor in the back of Bapst Library.

“We wanted to show off all he did for the libraries and demonstrate all he did for the campus as well,” Carli Spina, head librarian for assessment and outreach, said.

Along with working to purchase BC’s millionth library book, Monan played a crucial role in the construction of O’Neill, the renovation of Bapst, the establishment of the John J. Burns Special Collections Library, and the construction of the Law Library on the Newton Campus.

“We know through his comments published by BC magazine that he enjoyed seeing the libraries in use,” Amy Braitsch, head archivist at the Burns Library, said in an email.

In terms of choosing what exhibits they want to display, sometimes the staffers will choose articles centered around a theme of commemoration. Often, however, the exhibits are planned out and organized far in advance in order to give the staff an opportunity to make sure that it has the right amount of materials and necessary components that will make up the displays. Interpretive texts are included in all of the displays that the library showcases, which take additional time to write. University Archives and Burns Library staff often are the authors of these interpretive texts depending on the exhibit.

“The BC Libraries physical exhibits at O’Neill and Bapst Libraries draw from our collections, using available published works, artifacts, correspondence, ephemera, and photographs to convey a message,” Braitsch said. “In this case, that message was documenting Fr. Monan’s profound impact at Boston College and sustained support for the Libraries.” n

SPORTS

MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017

B1

@HEIGHTSSPORTS

Cortez Breaks Home-Run Record, Eagles Take Down Pitt SOFTBALL

BY ANNABEL STEELE Assoc. Sports Editor Boston College softball enjoyed a mostly successful weekend against the University of Pittsburgh, winning twice and losing one game on Friday and Saturday. The weekend’s big news came in the form of Tatiana Cortez breaking the program’s all-time home run record, previously held by Tory Speer, in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader.

The Eagles (17-12, 4-2 Atlantic Coast) lost the final game of the series, 4-2, after allowing the Panthers (16-13, 1-8) to jump out to an early lead. In the second inning, Jessica Dreswick loaded the bases after one batter was hit by a pitch and two walked. Pittsburgh’s Erin Hershman took advantage of the loaded bases by driving a run in with a single to center field. The Panthers doubled their lead one inning later when Olivia Gray homered to center.

BC fought back, managing to tie the game in the fourth. Cortez reached base with a single, putting Chloe Sharabba at the plate with a runner on base. Sharabba hit a two-run home run to erase Pittsburgh’s lead and put the game on even footing again.

That was all the offense the Eagles could muster. BC didn’t score another run in the game, but the Panthers scored twice more to secure their victory. In the fifth, McKayla Taylor scored an unearned run to win the

lead back for Pitt. In the sixth, Marissa DeMatteo, a pinch runner, scored another unearned run thanks to an error, cushioning the Panthers’ lead and setting the final score.

The first game in Saturday’s doubleheader also finished with a 4-2 score, but this time the Eagles emerged on top of the Panthers thanks to a threerun second inning. Cortez got the Eagles started with her record-breaking solo home run. Sharabba then singled, but an error on Pittsburgh’s

SNAP STORY With the drop of a pin, long snapper Leonard Skubal capped off a stellar career at BC.

RILEY OVEREND

By Michael Sullivan Editor-in-Chief

PHOTO COURTESY OF LEONARD SKUBAL

Q

instead: he long snapped it.

The pin fell, and his teammates mobbed him.

Later, he’d appear on SportsCenter Top 10, the most unusual of places to find a long snapper. Generally, they’re on a different type of list.

“I have seen them make Not Top 10,” said star defensive end Harold Landry, “but that was crazy though. Good for him. That was an amazing thing to do.”

No one who knew Skubal could ever stop talking about him. But at last, with the drop of a pin in a Detroit warehouse, everyone knew his name.

In seventh grade, Coach will just say that the team needs a long snapper, and you have to be the guy.”

That’s typically how it happens, according to Skubal’s mentor, Sean Flaherty. It’d be a lie to say that anyone who dreams of playing football picks long snapper as their position of choice. But the position really found him.

Around the age of 10, Skubal began playing for the Paw Pro Tigers, a Pop Warner team near his hometown of Deerfield Beach, Fla. He found the field as a linebacker and center. But after noticing how good Skubal was at snapping in the shotgun, and knowing that, given the family’s lack of height—Skubal only stands at 5-foot-10—his father, John, had an idea.

“I was seeing how fast they were, and I told Len, ‘We’re going to make a long snapper out of you,’” he said.

John bought a ton of instructional DVDs on how to teach his son the most specialized of football crafts. The two often went to local parks so that Skubal could practice knocking tennis balls off traffic cones from increasing distances. He began to work with Shane Hackney, one of the best long snappers in the industry. Hackney helped him understand the significance of hitting a target that, for a punt, is the size of a tennis ball and for a field goal, just the size of a dime. John even put a poster in his room to remind him of every long snapper’s mantra: “Aim small, miss small.”

“My dad saw it in me before I did,” Skubal said.

“He knew that snapping could take me to the next level.”

Soon enough, Skubal’s team was the only one that could punt on fourth down, because no one else had a long snapper good enough to get it that far back. And Skubal loved it, sometimes even more than playing linebacker. He felt that there just existed a sense of pride that other positions cannot match. And with that pride comes an unsung responsibility, even if it lasts just under a second.

“

See SB at Pitt, B4

Bow Down to Seth Beer

FOOTBALL

uick, who’s the long snapper on your favorite football team?

Unless you’re an absolute diehard, obsessed with the intricacies of cap space and the waiver-wire, it’s probably hard to remember his name. After all, the long snapper has nothing more than a few brief cameos in any one game. It doesn’t make him any less important—if he were an Academy Award winner, he’d be Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs: appearing for just a few minutes, but having an integral role. But it’s a position that gets lost on the casual fan.

Leonard Skubal will be the first to tell you that.

The now-graduated starting long snapper for Boston College football has spent his time in Chestnut Hill living in the background. Quietly, he finished his career as the only Eagle to start—as much as a long snapper can start, that is—every single game. Players know him not for what he did on the football field, but how he impacted them off it. For five years—the first came as a redshirt, back when Frank Spaziani still wore his red zip-up jacket and visor—Skubal has been the leader of a special teams unit that has seen some highs and a lot more lows, touching the lives of the some 150 players who have passed through the program since.

But it took 51 tries, all the way to the weekend of his final game, to finally make a visible and lasting impact for the Eagles.

Okay, so that’s only sort of true. Yet ask any player on BC, and he’ll certainly agree—that win was just as big.

Skubal’s victory didn’t come at Ford Field in the Quick Lane Bowl but in a small warehouse just outside of Detroit a few days earlier. There, the Eagles and their opponents, the Maryland Terrapins, partook in a game called fowling. Chris Hutt, a local inventor, developed the beer ponginspired amalgamation of football and bowling a couple of years ago, and invited the two 6-6 Power Five teams to come down to Hamtramck, Mich. to give it a shot.

At first, the two teams just competed against one another for fun. But Hutt insisted on a game between the opponents. So both sides picked an offensive, defensive, special teams, and coaching representative for the showdown. For BC, that group consisted of defensive back Lukas Denis, quarterback Anthony Brown, offensive line coach Justin Frye, and Skubal, as chosen by John Johnson.

Both sides went back and forth, keeping the game close. But with one pin left for the Eagles, Skubal nixed throwing the ball and did what he did best

part allowed her to advance to third on the play. Lexi DiEmmaneuele hit an RBI single, driving Sharabba home and doubling BC’s lead to 2-0. Later, Taylor Coroneos hit a sacrifice RBI to send DiEmmaneuele home and give the Eagles a three-run advantage.

In the third, the Eagles scored their final run of the game. Cortez advanced to first after being hit by a pitch. Pittsburgh pitcher Brittany

“For this small time frame in the game, you have complete control,” Skubal said. “The ball is in your hands.”

When it came time for high school, the crown jewel of Florida came calling: St. Thomas Aquinas.

The school that has produced players such as Michael Irvin, Geno Atkins, and Joey Bosa—not to mention his superstar teammate, Rashad Greene— would now be taking a chance on Skubal.

But still, Skubal didn’t get playing time, not as a long snapper at least. The Raiders already had a starter at the position, Jordan Cowart, who would soon go onto the University of Notre Dame. Instead, Skubal was relegated to the junior varsity team, where he played weakside linebacker.

It turned out to be a great stroke of luck—in a local gym, he met his best friend, Cole Champion.

Skubal and Champion didn’t hit it off at first, as both thought the other just tried too hard. When they began to get to know one another, Champion realized that they had the same goal: to remove the chip from their shoulders and prove their height didn’t matter. Champion, a future captain and four-year starting defensive back at Yale University, said that every second he and Skubal trained was necessary to make the varsity team, because that’s what their coaches told them to do.

“Extra wasn’t extra for us,” Champion said. “It was expected.”

So Skubal beefed up. And he caught the eye of one coach that would change his life.

I would drive to Boston for Skubal.”

Rob Wenger was completely serious, too. The strength and conditioning coach at the University of Minnesota has been all over the place over the last two months. After four years at Western Michigan “rowing the boat,” capped off by a 13-1 season and an appearance in the 2017 Cotton Bowl, he accompanied P.J. Fleck to Minneapolis to lead the Golden Gophers. But he had no hesitation to take the time to speak about a player he loves so much.

“He’s all-time for me,” Wenger said.

Though Skubal achieved much of his career success on his own and with the help of his father, it was with Wenger’s support that he moved toward that next step. Wenger had just returned to St. Thomas Aquinas, his alma mater, from an assistant’s job at Rutgers to coach linebackers for the Raiders—he helped promote Skubal to varsity.

Given the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas competes against national teams, not to mention the tough

“

See Skubal, B3

Normally, I wouldn’t be too upset about a schedule change like the one this past weekend involving Boston College baseball, which relocated its series against No. 6 Clemson to Rhode Island due to field conditions. It happens practically every year—an unfortunate side effect of being the northernmost program in the ACC. But this was different: The move meant that fans probably won’t see the best player in college baseball before he graduates to the Majors.

For the unenlightened, I’m referring to Seth Beer, the Tigers’ right fielder-turned-first baseman and winner of the Dick Howser Trophy for the nation’s top college player.

Most people expect Beer to enter the 2018 MLB Draft following his junior season, in which case he would go his entire collegiate career without stepping foot in Chestnut Hill.

That certainly hasn’t stopped him from becoming a bonafide Eaglekiller. In the opening game of last year’s series at Clemson, Beer went 2-for-2 with a two-run home run and three runs scored against No. 22 BC. He notched another two-hit game in a Saturday win, and capped off a series sweep in dramatic fashion on Sunday. With two outs in the 10th inning, Beer broke a 2-2 tie with a walk-off blast into the trees behind the right-field fence, giving the teenager the first signature moment of his college career. Even the best of Clemson athletes like Deshaun Watson took notice on Twitter.

This weekend, he picked up right where he left off against the Eagles, beating the shift for an RBI double off ace Jacob Stevens in his first atbat. On Sunday, he delivered a solo homer in the ninth inning off Donovan Casey, capping off yet another sweep of BC with a tape-measure shot. Overall, Beer sports a .381 average with three home runs against BC in six career games. Those are Chipper Jones-against-the-Mets levels of destruction. (Jones, who batted .309 with 49 dingers against the Mets, loved playing them so much that he actually named his son, Shea, after their stadium.)

It’s hard to blame Birdball—Beer crushes just about everyone he faces. Last year, during what should have been his senior year of high school, the 6-foot-3 lefty made the best conference in the country look like JuCo baseball. Beer led the ACC with 18 home runs, hitting a nice .369 with 12 doubles and 70 RBI. In an unprecedented series of events, the 19-year-old phenom brought home both the ACC Player of the Year and the Dick Howser Trophy. It marked the first time that a freshman had won either award.

When you watch Beer at the plate, you know you’re witnessing a future MLB star. First off, he has

See Beer Battering, B2

INSIDE SPORTS

BASEBALL: No. 6 Clemson Sweeps BC MULTIMEDIA: Skubal Snaps to Form Seth Beer and the Tigers won all three games this weekend in Kingston, R.I.................................................... B2

BC’s long snapper taught Editor-in-Chief Michael Sullivan his craft in a video on bcheights.com............. B3

TU/TD.................................................... B2 SPORTS IN SHORT.................................. B2 LACROSSE............................................ B4

THE HEIGHTS

B2

MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017 BASEBALL

Behind Dominant Pitching, Tigers Sweep BC in Series

THUMBS UP

BY D.J. RECNY Executive Assistant

BOOKER’S BIG NIGHT - Suns shooting guard Devin Booker exploded for 70 points against the Celtics. At just 20 years old, he is the youngest player in league history to score more than 60 points in a game. After the game, Booker continued his hot streak by roasting Jae Crowder on Instagram. Crowder taunted the Suns for celebrating the record despite losing. Booker simply responded, “You can’t guard me.”

Clemson shortstop Logan Davidson ranged to his left and nailed the throw across his body, marking the end of the Tigers’ three-game sweep of Boston College baseball. The Eagles displayed good pitching throughout the series, but Clemson’s overpowering offense, led by all-star outfielder Seth Beer, eventually hammered home enough runs to steal three wins.

Sunday’s matinee affair at Bill Beck Field in Kingston, R.I., began with a pitcher’s duel between Tigers (20-4, 1-8 Atlantic Coast) lefthander Pat Krall and Eagles (7-14, 1-8) righty Brian Rapp. Rapp held the Tigers hitless until the top of the third inning,

while the Eagles tallied only two hits until the bottom of the fifth.

The Eagles were the first to threaten, with a single by Brian Dempsey and a bunt single from Jake Alu to put Dempsey in scoring position. BC was unable to convert, however, as Krall worked his way out of the jam, striking out Mitch Bigras and forcing freshman outfielder Dante Baldetti to fly out to centerfield.

After two more inconsequential innings, the Tigers notched the first run of the game after an Eagles pitching change.

Sophomore Zach Stromberg struggled to find the zone, walking Logan Davidson and advancing him to second with a wild pitch. Stromberg was quickly replaced by sophomore right-hander Donovan Casey.

GONZAGA’S GLOW-UP - Much to assistant sports editor Andy Backstrom’s chagrin, Gonzaga has not crashed and burned in the NCAA Tournament.

Instead, the Bulldogs have mowed down all teams in their path and are headed to their first Final Four in program history.

FLORIDA FINE’S ENDING - It took a while for March Madness to gift us with a thrilling ending, but when it came, it was perfect. Florida topped Wisconsin in a wild, overtime finish thanks to Chris Chiozza running down the court and launching a buzzer-beater three.

ALEC GREANEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Jacob Stevens struggled in his series-opening start against Clemson on Friday night.

Robert Jolly singled on a 1-0 count, advancing Davidson to third. Casey was able to get Patrick Cromwell to fly out to center, but it was deep enough to allow Davidson to tag and score. The Eagles avoided further damage that inning by recording two more fly-outs to right field.

The Eagles were unable to score in the bottom of the eighth after loading the bases, yet the Tigers were not done. Dick Howser Trophy recipient Seth Beer, the first ever freshman to receive the award, launched a solo home run in the top of the ninth to give the Tigers a 2-0 lead.

Michael Strem walked on four pitches to lead off the bottom of the ninth, but both Bigras and Dempsey went down looking.

Tigers closer Ryley Gilliam forced Alu into a groundout, sealing the win for Clemson.

Saturday’s game was an equally fought battle on the mound, seeing brilliant pitching from both sides. Sophomore southpaw Dan Metzdorf was particularly notable in the performance, notching six scoreless innings and recording three strikeouts.

The Tigers scored the only run of the game in the seventh inning, taking advantage of wild pitching on behalf of freshman pitcher John Witkowski. He walked the first two batters of the inning, who subsequently advanced on a sacrifice bunt to the right side. Clemson called on Jolly to pinch hit, who rocked a grounder to third base. The throw to the plate was not in time, and sophomore catcher Gian Martinelli could not place the tag.

The game saw a combined five hits from the Tigers and the Eagles, yet one set of walks and a fielding miscue was enough

to seal the win for Clemson in the second game of the series.

Friday night’s game, on the other hand, was far less competitive. Sophomore righty Jacob Stevens struggled against the Tigers’ high-powered offense, allowing three runs in the first. Led by doubles by Williams and Beer, Clemson began building its lead.

Utilizing hitter’s counts to mash the ball, the Tigers notched two more in the second.

Stromberg replaced the struggling Stevens, locking down the Tigers until they managed to eek one run in the sixth.

Striking out a career-high four batters, Stromberg stemmed the tide to allow the Eagles a chance to fight back.

It appeared as if that might just happen, as a cacophony of defensive miscues allowed freshman Johnny Adams to cross the plate in the bottom of the seventh, but the Tigers pulled it together to salvage the inning, leaving the score at 6-1.

Davidson and Beer scored once more each on some seventh inning small-ball, building the Tigers lead to seven. Casey was able to bring in Strem on an infield single in the bottom of the eighth for the Eagles, but the other batters were unable to emulate him. The Eagles eventually fell 8-2, marking the first loss of three in the series.

After playing three top-tier teams recently, BC is beginning to find its stride.

The Eagles displayed good pitching in the latter two games of this series, something they will need to continue if they want to beat top-tier teams. The offense still needs to improve, but solid hitters like Strem and Casey can help lead that charge going forward. 

Eagle-Killer Seth Beer Destined for MLB Stardom THUMBS DOWN

Beer Battering, from B1

ACC AGONY - The ACC is supposedly the country’s best basketball league, but you wouldn’t know that by watching the tournament this year. Eight of the nine ACC teams ranked at least No. 9 lost in the opening weekend. All of the league’s supposedly elite teams, from Duke to Louisville to Virginia, were knocked out early by inferior teams. It has been rough for the ACC, to say the least.

NO MORE THOMPSONS IN D.C. - It’s the end of an era for Georgetown University men’s basketball. The University fired former head coach John Thompson III, more popularly known as JT3, after 13 years. His father, John Thompson, Jr., coached the Hoyas for 27 years. With the loss of JT3, Georgetown says goodbye to the Thompsons and a storied part of its history.

VEGAS RAIDS OAKLAND - The city of Oakland is desperate to keep the Raiders from moving to Las Vegas, but Roger Goodell doesn’t really care. Goodell wrote a letter to Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf explaining that, essentially, there’s nothing Oakland can to do keep the Raiders, and that the league’s owners will soon discuss the Raiders moving to Vegas, perhaps voting as soon as Monday. Bye bye, Oakland Raiders!

Like Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down?

Follow us @HeightsSports

the kind of raw power that scouts salivate over. He manages impeccable hip torque and bat speed with his 200pound frame that results in a beautiful flight path of the ball. Second, his approach at the plate resembles that of a seasoned veteran, not a kid who just turned 20. As a freshman, Beer walked nearly once in every three at-bats, finishing the year third in the nation in total bases on balls. It’s his eye that saved him this season when he saw his batting average dip to .240, as he still boasts a .473 on-base percentage.

Finally, unlike Beyoncé, Beer possesses the clutch gene. Earlier this month, then-No. 12 Clemson was caught in a heated rivalry series with No. 4 South Carolina. The Tigers trailed 3-2 with two outs in the ninth inning and nobody on base, but luckily, it was Beer’s turn in the box.

With a full count and the Gamecock stands on their feet, Beer sent the payoff pitch soaring over the rightfield fence to even the score. Clemson went on to steal the win in extra innings and take the series victory over its in-state rivals. It was also the third-consecutive game in which Beer had homered.

“He sees the ball so well; he doesn’t swing at bad pitches; and he hits to all fields,” one MLB scout said after attending the 2016 series against BC. “But what really catches our eyes is how he puts a natural lift on the ball.

He naturally generates a backspin that hitters would kill for.”

Oh, and then there’s his name, of course. Beer is a one-of-a-kind walking marketing goldmine—there has been a Clarence Beers and a Scott

ZOE FANNING / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Beerer, but no Beer in the Big Show before.

Imagine the jersey sales and PR spectacle if he was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers, or even beeraffiliated teams like the St. Louis Cardinals and Colorado Rockies, which play at Busch Stadium and Coors Field, respectively.

Beer has always seemed destined for athletic success. Growing up, he was the type of kid who could have excelled at any sport of his choosing.

In fact, had he not fallen in love with baseball, he might have joined Michael Phelps in the pool for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Beer shattered the national records in the

11- and 12-year-old age groups for backstroke in both the 50-meter and 100-meter events. Those records stood for seven years before recently being broken.

Despite his aquatic accomplishments, it appears as though Beer made the right choice. As the type of player who has the potential to transform a lineup, there’s already plenty of talk about where he’ll fall in the 2018 MLB Draft. But, in spite of Beer’s national accolades, history doesn’t exactly favor his odds of hearing his name called first overall next year.

College corner outfielders and first basemen just don’t get selected

with the No. 1 pick. Only two college outfielders have ever been taken first, and they were both athletic center fielders. In the 51-year history of the draft, only three first basemen have been selected in the top five.

But don’t be surprised if he’s taken in the top-five, or even first overall, come next June. After all, he has proven time and time again that there are few comparisons for this swimmer-turned-slugger. For Beer, it would just add to the long—and rapidly growing—list of firsts.

Riley Overend is the sports editor for The Heights. He can be reached on Twitter @RileyHeights.

SPORTS in SHORT ACC ATLANTIC BASEBALL

NUMBERS TO KNOW

CONFERENCE

OVERALL

Louisville

7-1

20-2

Clemson

7-1

19-4

Florida State

6-3

18-7

Wake Forest

5-3

17-7

NC State

4-4

13-11

Notre Dame

3-7

8-15

Boston College

1-7

6-13

51

Number of games Leonard Skubal played over the course of his BC career—and the total number of BC games in that time.

3

Number of home runs Birdball pitchers have given up to Clemson phenom Seth Beer over six games.

5

Number of runs Lexi DiEmmaneuele batted in during softball’s weekend series versus Pittsburgh.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“For this small time frame in the game, you have complete control.”

— Leonard Skubal,

on his five-year career as football’s long snapper

The Heights

Monday, March 27, 2017

B3

FOOTBALL

Away From the Spotlight, Skubal Was BC’s Consistent Gem Skubal, from B1 schools in South Florida, Wenger had concern about Skubal’s lack of size. But he was blown away with the mental aspects of Skubal’s game, and the amount of effort he put into every practice.

“A lot of players memorize their assignment,” Wenger said. “He conceptualized it …

He played harder than anyone else.”

Wenger left during Skubal’s junior year to take an assistant coaching job at Allegheny College. But he returned in 2011 to serve as St. Thomas Aquinas’ defensive coordinator, inspired in large part by the potential of Skubal and his friends. When Wenger returned, he was blown away by how much Skubal had grown in just under two years apart—not just with intangible skills, but also the physical ones.

That jump pushed Wenger to have Skubal start as the Raiders’ weakside linebacker. His performance and preparation set the stage for arguably the most exciting moment of Skubal’s career.

“If you write this in this story, he’d love it,” Wenger said.

Skubal had emphasized that the best part about playing at St. Thomas Aquinas was the crowds. Unlike most high schools, those bleachers don’t just fill up with parents and cheerleader girlfriends. Once the weekend hits, Brian Piccolo Stadium, named after the inspirational former Chicago Bears running back and alum, resembles a Dillon Panthers game in Friday Night Lights. With those tens of thousands in the stands, Skubal felt ready for the biggest moments.

“In a way, I was kind of ready for the ACC environments,” Skubal said.

No game was bigger than St. Thomas Aquinas’ matchup with De La Salle High School of Concord, Calif., live on national television. After a 45-minute lightning delay, the nation’s two top high school programs battled in a tough first half. Aquinas was up 10-0 with under two minutes to go in the second quarter, but De La Salle, led by future Wisconsin quarterback Bart Houston, was driving to cut the lead and flip the momentum.

Facing 2nd-and-11 at around midfield, Wenger called WAR—a linebacker blitz in which the middle and strongside linebackers would brush the quarterback along with the defensive line. If that was successful, Skubal, as the weakside linebacker, should patrol the middle to knock down a dump to a slot receiver or linebacker. If his teammates did their job, Skubal might get lucky.

Sure enough, Champion and Tyler Drake forced Houston to make a desperation heave off his back foot to prevent a 10-yard sack. Skubal shaded over from right to left, eyeing the ball. He easily undercut the pattern in front of a De La Salle receiver to slide for the pick. As he got up, he yelled while pumping his left fist and thrusting out his chest—big enough to show his enthusiasm, but slight enough to prevent any in-your-face reactions from his opponents. And for the first time, on that ESPN2 broadcast, he heard his name.

“He couldn’t play a down at the worst public school in Broward County, and now he’s making a pick against arguably the best high school in the country,” Wenger said.

“The kid who’s done everything right his entire career was in the right spot.”

It’s always great to give some love to the long snapper.”

Sean Flaherty knows the plight of his position very well. The four-year starter at BC prior to Skubal is aware that the allowable margin of error is razor-thin in this business. But most players can afford some mistakes. Even in the recruiting process, in those simulated drills, a quarterback can miss a few targets or a

“

wide receiver can have one or two drops and not expect his stock to plummet. That isn’t the case for long snappers—you have to be perfect.

“You can find any long snapper that can throw a beautiful spiral, but if you’re going to be 1-of-10, you’re terrible,” Flaherty said. “As a long snapper, you’ve got to be 400-for-400.”

While Skubal had his prideful moments as a linebacker for St. Thomas Aquinas, his most pivotal moment was his move to the long snapper role. We could talk about those scenes of his year setting up punts and placekicks. But as with any special teams play, if you can recall a long snap, that means it probably wasn’t a good one—a plight Scott Norwood and Ray Finkle know all too well.

“The hallmark of a good snapper is consistency,” Skubal said. “You could have one bad snap, and that’s all you’re remembered for.”

Skubal never had to worry about that at St. Thomas Aquinas. But what set him apart was his past as a linebacker. Recruiters were impressed by Skubal’s ability to get off the snap perfectly, and then run down the field to make a tackle. Wenger said that coaches often try to search for a long snapper that can do both, but rarely can find one.

“You can’t get away with a guy that throws a strike and can’t cover,” he said.

But with those skills, Skubal caught the eye of two in particular: Ryan Day and Sean Desai. Day, the wide receivers coach at BC, offered Skubal an official visit. Desai, the director of football operations for the University of Miami, took even more interest. But when Day took the offensive coordinator job at Temple University and Desai left for Chestnut Hill as special teams coach, BC lined up as the best option.

On his trip to Chestnut Hill, Skubal stayed with Flaherty, a redshirt senior entering his final season at BC that fall of 2012. Flaherty’s first judgment of Skubal was the one he had been getting all his life: “Hey, that kid is kind of small.” But when Skubal bent over and got into his motion, Flaherty was blown away. He noticed Skubal’s quick hands and good instincts, how focused he was when he got into his stance. And, of course, Skubal had unparalleled consistency.

“You’re only as good as your last snap,” Flaherty said. “Len has never had any bad snaps, so he never had to worry about this.”

Skubal, however, needed insurance from then-BC head coach Spaziani that he had a place on the Heights. Most long snappers come into school as a walk-on, and have to earn a scholarship along the way. But Skubal, who had other offers, wanted more security than that, especially given the calls for Spaziani’s head by the BC media. His father remembers Skubal challenging Spaziani, asking him point blank: “What is your future here?” But Spaziani reassured him, regardless of his own career.

“I remember [Spaziani] saying, ‘If you do your job, you’re going to be my snapper for the next four years,’” John said.

So Skubal accepted the winter weather and the maroon jacket to become the first person in his family to go to college.

Most freshmen in practice don’t get the opportunity to hone their skills, especially when they are bound to redshirt like Skubal. But given that most teams only carry two long-snapping specialists at most, Skubal didn’t have the opportunity to sit and watch. He immediately became the second-stringer, and never missed a snap in practice.

“It was his first day and he never messed up,” Flaherty said. “He proved himself to

Photo Courtesy of Leonard Skubal

During his career as an Eagle, Leonard Skubal (53) started every game, including the 2014 upset win over No. 9 USC. the coaches, and to his peers, that he can do it.”

Skubal just didn’t realize he’d have to prove himself again.

These new [coaches] come in and you’re just another number on the roster.”

Despite those reassurances in spring ball 2012, Spaziani was fired after a 2-10 campaign that year. Naturally, Skubal worried about his future at BC. I had happened to run into Steve Addazio last month in a Conte Forum elevator when I brought up this piece on Skubal. The head coach of BC football has a busy schedule between recruiting trips and spring practice. But he would make time to talk about Skubal: 12 p.m., in his office on the third floor of the Yawkey Athletic Center the next day.

Turns out, Skubal’s fears were unfounded. Addazio had known about Skubal from Day, who came with him from Temple to be BC’s offensive coordinator.

One day, Addazio’s special teams coach, Sean McGowan, saw Skubal working in the offseason on the ramp of the Beacon Street Garage in the rain. Skubal was practicing snapping uphill, something Hackney had taught him to help get off blocks easier. Once he saw that, McGowan knew Addazio had his guy. Not long after, Skubal got that coveted scholarship. Champion recalled Skubal telling him this story as the prime example of how much he cared.

“Working as hard as you can when nobody is watching,” Champion said.

“That’s Len.” Skubal handled high-pressure situations with ease—the places where you can’t

“

Photo Courtesy of Leonard Skubal

Leonard Skubal (53) celebrates with teammates after last season’s win at Wake Forest that clinched the Eagles’ bowl eligibility.

hear yourself think, that’s where he thrives.

Plus, from those days at St. Thomas Aquinas, stepping into Doak Campbell or Lane Stadium wasn’t much of a difference.

His freshman year, Skubal even notched the best pre-fowling snap of his career—as hard as that might be for him to differentiate. The Eagles had clinched bowl eligibility the week before against North Carolina State—a shocking, one-year turnaround—and had Maryland on the ropes in the two teams’ final ACC matchup. At Byrd Stadium, the teams were deadlocked at 26 with no time on the clock. Addazio sent out Nate Freese, who at that point had not missed a kick all season, to try and win it with a 52-yard field goal. The snap and hold were good, but Freese pushed it to the left.

Special teamers don’t usually get multiple chances. Randy Edsall gave them one.

The Maryland head coach tried to freeze Freese—something Skubal asserts is impossible—and failed by calling timeout.

When the unit lined up again, Freese drilled it, and the Eagles walked away with a win.

“As a specialist, you’re used to having one shot, but when we got another, I knew Nate was going to put it through the uprights,” Skubal said.

BC wouldn’t have that much success on special teams during Skubal’s next three seasons. The Eagles were plagued with inconsistency from the kicking position following Freese’s departure. In 2014, BC struggled to convert extra points, the highest profile of which came in the Pinstripe Bowl—Skubal, however, knew his snap was good for that one. The next year, BC struggled with field goals, losing at least two games—3-0 to Wake Forest and 9-7 to Duke—as a result.

BC has also cycled through special teams coaches. McGowan left to become defensive coordinator at Yale after the 2014 season. Coleman Hutzler came in for a year before jumping ship to South Carolina. In 2016, Al Washington stepped up to take the role. This fall, BC will debut Ricky Brown, the program’s fourth special teams coach in as many years.

But as BC couldn’t avoid all of these struggles, Skubal adjusted his own role on the team. Despite the revolving door of coaches, Addazio’s system for special teams has largely remained the same.

Skubal gradually grew from a contributor in his small niche to a leader of the special teams, a de facto captain without the “C” on his jersey. And as time went on, he built the respect of all of his teammates and coaches by understanding that he had to do more than just his own job. Despite these hard times, he has worked with players, like kicker Mike Knoll, to raise their confidence and work on technique. He won’t

take full credit for it, but Knoll’s breakout 2016 campaign, in which he provided the most field-goal consistency since Freese, was in part due to his influence.

“I think the downs show you more about who you are than the ups,” Skubal said. “I’ve always taken a lot of pride in my guys.”

What a way to go out.”

Flaherty remembered only having that simple reply to Skubal, his protege and friend, after getting “the big text” about the fowling snap. At the turn of the next hour, he flipped to ESPN to catch the video. But what struck Flaherty wasn’t the snap itself, but rather the way the team began to jump around him, cheering and celebrating.

“He’s not the center of attention—he’s the long snapper,” Flaherty said. “That says something about what kind of leader he is.”

While he loves being the leader, Skubal prefers not being the center of attention.

For BC, all he wanted was to contribute in his own little way without taking much credit. He believes that long snapping was the perfect role for him, where he could control the game without people knowing.

Skubal pays it forward, too. He has helped Jimmy Martin and Alec Lindstrom, the latter of whom is an early enrollee, learn the trade so that they can take over for him.

He has also volunteered a considerable amount of time with a long snapper recruit that you might see one day playing college football, perhaps even at BC. The best moment of his playing days came a few days after fowling. The Eagles would win the Quick Lane Bowl, 36-30, over Maryland, the same team over whom Skubal claimed his most memorable win back in 2013—it was the program’s first bowl win since 2007. As always, Skubal didn’t play much of a factor in that victory—Knoll actually wasn’t on his game, as a shanked field goal and two missed PATs kept the Terrapins in the game for longer than Addazio felt comfortable.

But for one day, Skubal relished his personal victory in fowling.

As he went back to the hotel that day, he called his father to let him know he would be on SportsCenter in the Top 10.

Skubal told him that he was surprised he hit the pin. But his dad reminded him of who he is, how hard he has worked, how good he is at his craft, and how consistent he had been over his time at BC. John told his son, “Len, why wouldn’t you hit the pin?”

And as he listened to his name for the first time on ESPN as the whole country heard it too, Skubal smiled.

“You know what, dad?” Skubal said.

“You’re absolutely right.” n

“

The Heights

B4

Monday, March 27, 2017

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Eagles Make Program History, but Split Weekend Matches

By Andy Backstrom Asst. Sports Editor Over the past two years, consistency has escaped Boston College women’s tennis. The Eagles have failed to string together at least a pair of ACC matches since the 2014-15 season. But as soon as BC picked up its first-ever victory over Miami on Friday, it looked as if head coach Nigel Bentley’s group had a very good chance of ending that streak. After all, the Eagles were hosting Louisville on Sunday—a team that they defeated 6-1 last season.

Yet, for the third time this year, BC followed a conference victory with another loss. The Eagles won three singles matches, but without the doubles point, it wasn’t enough to edge the Cardinals, and BC fell 4-3.

Louisville (13-4, 2-3 Atlantic Coast) took the first two singles bouts, jumping out to a 2-0 lead. Aleksandra Mally downed the Eagles’ (8-8, 3-5) Asiya Dair in two sets—the second of which Mally won 6-0. With the loss, Dair is now 1-5 in her last six matches. Soon after that,

Mariana Humberg came back from one set down to outlast BC’s Lexi Borr in three sets.

Kylie Wilcox narrowed the Louisville advantage with a two-set sweep over Abbie Pahz. Immediately, the Cardinals responded. Elle Stokes defeated Dasha Possokhova, snapping the Eagles’ leading wins leader’s three-match winning streak. Meanwhile, Louisville cleaned up in the doubles department, as both Pahz and Humberg and Ariana Rodriguez and Stokes won their respective matches.

While the contest may have been out of reach, BC finished strong, tacking on two singles victories to close out play.

Elene Tsokilauri joined Wilcox as the second Eagles freshman to record a win on the day, with a 6-2, 6-1 rout of Olivia Boesing. Emily Safron tallied BC’s third and final point, defeating Tiffany Huber.

But it was the Eagles’ match on Friday that grabbed headlines.

Led by a trio of freshmen—Possokhova, Wilcox, and Tsokilauri—BC came away with five singles matches and the doubles point against Miami, earning its first win (6-1) over the Hurricanes in

program history.

Right off the bat, the Eagles took the doubles point. The freshmen tandem of Possokhova and Wilcox defeated Maci Epstein and Dominika Paterova. But the No. 37 Hurricanes (4-8, 3-4) countered with a Ana Madcur and Estela Perez-Somarriba victory, forcing a third doubles match. Dair and Tsokilauri topped Sara Culbertson and Silvia Fuentes in a 14point tiebreaker, giving BC a 1-0 match lead.

Possokhova extended the Eagles’ early advantage with a 6-4, 6-0 win versus Epstein. But seconds later, Miami swiped a singles point, as Perez-Somarriba put away Dair in two sets. Unfortunately for the Hurricanes, that’s the only one they would record all day.

Borr notched another point with a win over Paterova and Wilcox proceed to secure the match, taking down Madcur.

Tsokilauri and Safron added to BC’s point total by beating Culbertson and Fuentes, respectively.

Friday was the first time Miami fell to an opponent ranked outside of the top50 since it lost to No. 73 Florida State in

Photo Courtesy of bc athletics

Freshman Elene Tsokilauri went undefeated in singles play over the weekend. the ACC Championship quarterfinals in April 2015.

BC has shown that it can hang with any team in the nation. Still, it has yet to prove

its ability to do so on a match-to-match basis. The Eagles have three more matches on their homestand to take another stab at tying together a few conference wins. n

SOFTBALL

DiEmmaneuele Drives in Five as BC Goes 2-1 Against Panthers SB at Pitt, from B1 Knight then walked Sharabba on fourstraight balls. Allyson Moore failed to reach base, striking out swinging for the second out of the inning. But DiEmmaneuele capitalized on the situation, hitting another single and sending Cortez home to give BC a 4-0 lead.

The Panthers stole a run back in the bottom of the third, breaking BC’s shutout. Jordan Weed walked twostraight batters, putting runners on first and second for Pittsburgh. Then Hannah Edwards stepped up to the plate. Four pitches went by, but none were right for her—she fouled twice, watched one strike, and avoided one ball. On the fifth pitch, she connected well, driving the ball to right field for a triple and sending Alexee Haynes safely home. Gray attempted to reach home, too, and halve BC’s lead, but was called out at the plate. The Panthers failed to capitalize on Edwards’ position at third base, and the Eagles escaped the inning without any further damage.

The Panthers scored again in the

fifth. Dreswick replaced Weed on the mound and immediately surrendered a double to Haynes. Gray grounded out, but advanced Haynes to third base. Edwards laid down a bunt that Cortez, at third base, mismanaged— her throwing error allowed Edwards to take second and Haynes to reach home. Neither team managed to score again, and the Eagles escaped with the win.

In the first game of the series on Friday, BC fell to an early deficit, but rallied to win 3-2. Gray hit a solo homer off of Dreswick in the first, but Dreswick managed to escape the inning without giving up any more runs. The Panthers scored again in the third to double their lead. Taylor advanced to first after being hit by a pitch. Then Kaitlin Manuel laid down a bunt. Thanks to an error, Manuel reached first and Taylor advanced to third, putting runners on the corners.

Valerie Ortega singled, sending Taylor home and giving Pittsburgh a 2-0 lead.

BC refused to give up, tying the game in the fourth. Sharabba and

ZOE FANNING / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Moore hit successive singles, putting runners on first and second. A passed ball allowed each runner to advance one base. DiEmmaneuele poked a single into center field, sending both Sharabba and Moore home to erase Pittsburgh’s lead.

For the next inning and a half, neither team broke the deadlock. Then the Eagles finally scored again in the sixth to take the lead and, eventually, the win. The inning started out rough for BC—first Jordan Chimento flied out, then Cortez grounded out, putting

the Eagles in a two-out hole early in the frame. Then Sharabba singled, stole second, and advanced to third on a wild pitch. Moore walked, and then DiEmmaneuele hit another RBI single, sending Sharabba home to claim the lead for BC. n

LACROSSE

Despite Halftime Lead, Eagles Fall Short of Upset in Chapel Hill

By Andy Backstrom Asst. Sports Editor For the first 29 minutes and change on Saturday, Boston College lacrosse looked like the better team. Led by Kayla O’Connor and Kate Weeks, the Eagles mounted a 6-3 lead against North Carolina. Head coach Acacia Walker’s group disrupted the defending NCAA champions’ seventh-ranked offense, forcing three turnovers and several inaccurate shots.

But a mental error in the final seconds of the first period shifted all of the momentum.

Instead of holding out for the last shot of the half, O’Connor made her move with 16 seconds left on the clock. The senior forward approached the net and whipped up a shot, but Caylee Waters made the save. Waters cleared it, and in no time, the Tar Heels pushed the ball into BC territory.

With time winding down, Sydney Holman received a feed and penetrated the Eagles’ defense. Before she could get a shot off, she was fouled by Carly Bell.

Only 2.1 ticks remained, but it was all Holman needed. She beat the horn with a free-position shot, taking her team into halftime down just a pair of goals.

In the first 13 minutes of the second half, UNC would pick up right where it left off, outscoring the Eagles 8-2. Despite staging a late comeback, the Tar Heels’ scoring spree proved too much for BC to overcome, and UNC escaped with a 15-13 victory.

It didn’t take long for No. 19 BC (8-4, 1-3 Atlantic Coast) to get on the board.

Less than two minutes in, O’Connor— coming off a career-high five goals against Louisville—tallied both the Eagles’ first shot and goal of the game. But a mere 33 seconds later, Ela Hazar answered with a goal of her own.

A lull in scoring ended near the 23-

minute mark. BC goaltender Zoe Ochoa scooped up a ground ball, but turned the it over in attempt to check it down to a teammate near the net. Ela Hazar capitalized, corralling the loose ball and flinging it into the twine.

The No. 2 Tar Heels’ (9-1, 2-0) lead wouldn’t last. Weeks located Laura Frankenfield on the left side of the field.

Frankenfield took the ball inside, hurled a shot, but missed wide. Yet, in a matter of seconds, Emma Schurr ripped a shot of her own. This one reached the back of the net, equalizing the game at two goals a piece.

Weeks, who entered the game as the nation’s fourth-leading scorer, recorded back-to-back goals to give the Eagles some breathing room. Marie McCool single-handedly reduced the UNC deficit to one. But that was temporary.

Over the course of two minutes, BC capped off two more scoring plays. First, Weeks connected with Hart, who rolled

around Weeks’ backside and sent a shot past Waters. Soon after, the Eagles turned a Holman turnover into instant offense.

Again, it was Weeks with the finish.

Just before halftime, Holman redeemed herself with a free-position goal.

The Tar Heels’ scoring was just getting started.

A tad less than 20 seconds into the second period, Molly Hendricks brought UNC within one goal of the Eagles. For the next three and a half minutes, both sides traded goals. BC maintained an 8-7 lead, but eventually UNC’s pace was too fast for the Eagles to keep up with.

The Tar Heels dominated possession time for the next eight minutes. As a result, UNC tacked on five unanswered goals, stealing the lead from BC. McCool, Sammy Jo Tracy, Holman, Maggie Bill, and Caroline Wakefield all scored, regaining and widening the lead to four.

Sam Apuzzo stopped the bleeding halfway through the period. The nation’s

points leader lurked behind the net, spun and hesitated, breaking her defenders’ ankles, before wrapping around for the score. Dempsey Arsenault would tally another Eagles’ goal on a free-position shot minutes later.

Yet the Tar Heels proceeded to quell BC’s surge with one of their own. A McCool free-position goal and a pair of Hendrick scores put UNC back up five.

As a last-ditch effort, Weeks, Hart, and Arsenault rattled off three goals in the closing minutes, but it was too little, too late.

While BC outplayed the Tar Heels in the first half and even hung with them for a portion of the second, it was the Eagles’ physicality that came back to haunt them.

The team racked up 36 fouls—four of which led to free-position goals. BC’s attack is as good as any in the country, but its defensive play will determine how far the Eagles can rise in the ACC this season. n

amelie Trieu / heights editor

Combined, Kayla O’Connor (left) and Laura Frankenfield were held to just three points against No. 2 North Carolina, and the Eagles could not overcome the Tar Heels’ second-half scoring spree.

CLASSIFIEDS

Thursday, January 17, 2014 Thursday, April 7, 2016

The Heights TheTH heeights Heights

B5 B5

Monday, March 27, 2017

Community Condo For Rent TWO-BEDROOM CONDO FOR RENT Brighton, Cleveland Circle off Comm o n w e a l t h Av e . H u g e t w o - b e d room condominium available for rent 9/1/2017. 15 minutes to BC, modern eat-in kitchen, foyer, modern bathroom, hardwood floor. Heated, owner, NO FEE, $2,500. 617-256-3306.

Interested in placing a classifIed classifed ad? email ads@bcheights.com

FOR DAILY UPDATES,

GET YOUR BC NEWS ONLINE AT

BCHEIGHTS. COM.

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: 路 Number can appear only once in each row 路 Number can appear only once in each column 路 Number can appear only once in each 3x3 box 路 The number should appear only once on row, column or area.

Would you rather have $46,000 or a whooooole lotta take-out?

Cook your own dinner instead of ordering in. $9 saved a day x 5 days a week x 10 years x 6% interest = $46,694. That could be money in your pocket.

Small changes today. Big bucks tomorrow. Go to feedthepig.org for free savings tips.

THE HEIGHTS

B6

MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017

Frightful, Inspired Musings on Perils Beyond Earth in ‘Life’

BY PETER GAVARIS For The Heights

Life is not a movie that will make you think—and maybe that’s okay. This new space thriller from director Daniel Espinosa is remarkably derivative, as nearly every other review for this film seems to mention, in comparison, to either Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) or Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (2013). ven while lacking the sheer primal terror of Alien and the poetic imagery of Gravity, Life works, primarily, because it knows what it is—a fun, well-crafted movie that exists to entertain.

Life begins as a team of six astronauts aboard the International Space Station prepares to intercept a space probe containing samples from Mars’ surface. Soon, crewmembers David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal), Rory Adams (Ryan Reynolds), and Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson) look on as Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare)—the house biologist—begins tinkering with the sample, only to find a single-celled organism. Calvin—the

name given to said organism—grows rapidly until he becomes a translucent, flexible mass of tentacles.

The direction in this film elevates it from being a simple, obvious B-movie.

Life opens marvelously with a prolonged one-take—the camera floating through the corridors of the International Space Station. Like the astronauts floating across the frame in zero gravity, the camera too floats delicately, while still creating an air of suspense achieved from a single-take shot.

Furthermore, the camerawork displayed throughout the film was remarkably patient and controlled. Erratic shaky-cam footage is nowhere to be found in Life, as Daniel Espinosa opted for using slow pans and longer takes to achieve suspense.

The terror in this film is garnered in situations that make us uncomfortable.

Early in the film while being examined in the quarantined laboratory, Calvin strangles Hugh by the hand. Calvin—now the size of a large starfish—had become so overwhelmingly powerful that Hugh could not escape

his constricting vice. Screaming and calling for help, the five other astronauts stand by for fear of violating quarantine and contaminating the rest of the station. Arguments ensue, as some reasonably want to violate quarantine in order to save their friend, while others reasonably would rather not.

This type of situational terror is, in many ways, the most horrifying, because there exists no simple solution to a difficult, gutwrenching problem.

Calvin’s slippery, otherworldly beingness allows him to hide in the cracks and crevices of the space station, out of the astronauts’ sights. Fear of Calvin stems from not knowing where he is. The CGI utilized to create such a creature looks exceptionally believable in the film, even if the creature design for Calvin stands far behind that of other alien/monster movie character—in particular, the Xenomorph from Alien.

Calvin, rather, does not appear as menacing as the Xenomorph. As the film progresses, Calvin grows wings and begins to fly around—like a mutant dragonfly—through

FILM

LIFE DANIEL ESPINOSA DISTRIBUTED BY SKYDANCE MEDIA RELEASE MAR. 24, 2017 OUR RATING

SKYDANCE MEDIA

the corridors of the space station as he hunts down the remaining humans. This flying conglomerate of tentacles is undisputedly less menacing than the Xenomorph—the brainchild from estranged artist H.R. Giger.

Giger’s alien preyed upon basic human fear, as he designed an alien with vaguely humanlike features, unlike Calvin, who seems to resemble a menacing moth.

While Life fails to reinvent the wheel, it should not have been expected to do so.

Rather, the film succeeds because it understands the confines of the genre in which it operates, as it ultimately succeeds in entertaining. Moviegoers will not walk away with a new understanding of life, but they will be assured that the hour and forty minutes spent at the cinema was well worth it. 

Oberst’s ‘Salutations’ Beckons Gloomy Sentiments in New Individualist Album

BY TOMAS GUARNA For The Heights

Ideally, we save second chances for those who fail their first try. In Salutations, Conor Oberst convinces us otherwise. Last October, Oberst presented us with Ruminations, a 10piece album he recorded mostly by himself. Ruminations was praised for its warm, intimate sound—something most considered was achieved by the fact Oberst was playing on his own. That’s why when Oberst announced he actually intended to play those songs with a full band, most of us could think but one thing: we don’t need this.

Even if Salutations is an unnecessary record, however, it does not fall short of incredible. In Salutations, Oberst delivers his usual uncanny sound, transformed by the collaborations of The Felice Brothers and drummer Jim Keitner, who joined him in Malibu to add some flesh to the bony demos.

The album was co-produced by Oberst and Keltner, and engineered by Andy LeMaster, who worked with most of

Bright Eyes and Oberst’s music.

Salutations is a departure from the singer-songwriter’s previous work, in some sense. Oberst’s later solo work, One of My Kind and Upside Down Mountain, was often defined by a more produced, heavy sound, with contrasted with that of his former band, Bright Eyes. Salutations is a closer call to that band—slow, content-yet-melancholic songs, but with an instrumentation that is slightly characteristic to the album.

When Oberst returns to his earlier songs, he puts them in their true light.

For example, “Gossamer Thin”, the second track in Salutations (but the third one in Ruminations—reminding us that it’s not a simple rework) frames what was a sad ballad about a dying relationship in a more sincere, frank tone.

“Rain Follows the Plow,” a revisit of “The Rain Follows the Plow,” and “Counting Sheep” are good uses of the shift from acoustics that convince us that’s how the songs were always meant to sound.

“Tachycardia” is probably the most solid example of this—what was a depressing opener that consisted in an awkward

MUSIC

SALUTATIONS CONOR OBERST PRODUCED BY NONESUCH RECORDS INC RELEASE MAR. 17, 2017 OUR RATING

NONESUCH RECORDS

ensemble of Oberst’s vocals, piano and harmonica, is now an open-hearted that conveys better the emotional demolition Oberst intended, and gives the song a hint of hope.

The new additions are also solid numbers. “Too Late to Fixate”, the opener to Salutations, is a pragmatic number that sounds too much like usual Oberst—for better or for worse. Interestingly, it acts as a good introduction to the record, and marks the optimism that differentiates it from Ruminations.

“Overdue” features the whole band in its full splendor, and because of its excellent songwriting—in all Oberstian fashion—soft-core anxiety, gloomy yet happy—listeners could be easily convinced it was a left-out from the earlier record.

“Afterthought” is also a beautifully written song about not being enough for someone you love. The kind of simple lyrics he employs bring an unchallenging, but sentimentally sound song to life.“Napalm” is an unusual, more funky number, a clear exception in the record, that is still an interesting inclusion in the larger structural movements of the album.

“Empty Hotel by The Sea” uses subtle instrumentation that acts coherent to the album, while “Anytime Soon” reminds us to be thankful that we have electric guitars and percussion as the jamming becomes intense and emotionally charged.

The album closes with “Salutations,” a piano-driven ballad, which is also the darkest song in the album and a relatively weak number—arguably, a bad call. The sound of the song is too jarring in relation to the rest of the album and its use of piano fails to muster up anything other than sappy emotional sentiments.

Salutations is a strong and touching record, a shrug against a world colliding in one’s face.

It revisits Ruminations giving it its necessary touch of optimism and hope, remembering us that not all is lost—but things are really bad, anyway.By exploring his own work, Oberst takes his songs to the place they always deserved. 

1 DISNEY

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE REPORT TITLE

WEEKEND GROSS

WEEKS IN RELEASE

1. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

88.3

2

2. POWER RANGERS

40.5

1

3. KONG: SKULL ISLAND

14.4

3

4. LIFE

12.6

1

5. LOGAN

10.1

4

TRENDS IN MOVIE MONEY

The weekend of March 24-26 grossed $198 million, which is only $2 million away from a nice round $200 million. Regardless, the weekend can be considered a success, as last year’s corresponding weekend only grossed $131 million. This large amount of money can probably be attributed to 2017’s lack of such garbage like the appeal to preteen girls and middle-aged women that was The Divergent Series: Allegiant, and the Evangelist fodder brought to the silver screen so subtly named Miracles from Heaven.

Instead, 2017 has brought audiences movies that aren’t entirely trash, like Beauty and the Beast, Kong: Skull Island, and Logan. New releases this week include shameless-’90snostalgia-cash-grab Power Rangers, the-movie-Alien-but-instead-of-Sigourney-Weaverwe-got-Jake-Gyllenhall Life, and Slamma Jamma, a movie that so few people have heard of that the marketing department for this movie should certainly be fired. Take note Slamma Jamma, the marketing department of Life probably saved that movie millions of dollars. They took a blatant Alien rip-off and made damn sure that it was released weeks before a movie that actually takes place in the Alien franchise, Alien: Covenant.

Moving on, good movies like Get Out continue to earn less than they deserve (which is everything, but that’s besides the point), while awful terrible horrible dumb stupid bad movies like The Shack continue to earn more than they deserve (which … surprise, surprise … is nothing). Recommendations: go see something good and/or original.

3

2 LIONSGATE FILMS

3 WARNER BROS

In ‘Song to Song,’ Malick Weaves Unforgettable Tale of Love

BY PETER GAVARIS For The Heights

The premise of Terrence Malick’s newest film, Song to Song, seems to have stemmed from a thought whispered by Jessica Chastain in his 2011 masterwork, The Tree of Life. Warmly and earnestly, Chastain warns her sons that, “The only way to be happy is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by.”

This idea undoubtedly epitomizes much of Malick’s Song to Song, which chronicles the lives of musicians living within the Austin, Texas’ vibrantly chaotic music scene. Those looking for a film with a sturdy plot and a three-act structure should be warned that, like Malick’s other films following The Tree of Life, this film too throws plot by the wayside in favor of wispy images accompanied by voiceover narration. Faye (Rooney Mara) finds herself aloof in Austin, unable to be tied down, bouncing between partners like BV (Ryan Gosling) and the sinister Cook

(Michael Fassbender). Rhonda (Natalie Portman) also figures prominently, as she too becomes entranced by Cook’s sly charisma and impressive wealth as a music producer. Adrift, lonely, and scared, these characters spend the runtime searching for some semblance of real love, in a world seemingly deprived of it.

Malick’s film stands at odds with much of what every other filmmaker today is doing. If most films are described linearly, as a sequence of events, then Malick’s film exists more as a portrait—time seems to stop and go with the wind, and characters enter and leave the story just as unpredictably. Beautiful images saturate the screen, and leave before the mind can register what they mean. This type of experimental filmmaking should be cherished for its novelty and its riskiness—the collective feeling of having experienced Song to Song marvelously overwhelms.

Even while featuring an assortment of A-listers like Gosling, Fassbender, Mara, and Portman, the film’s stars are writer/

director Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. Malick’s grand vision is incredibly ambitious, as he brings together a medley of philosophical ideas with the beautiful images provided by Lubezki’s wandering camera.

Often, a character would mutter something incredibly profound—the stillness and patient beauty of the film gave viewers ample time to ponder such questions. Under Malick’s direction, characters act like real human beings, showing their love in delicate touches, playful tackles, and tender hugs. Furthermore, Lubezki’s images evoke the fleeting nature of memory: how we seem to hold dearly onto small fragmented moments that serve to define certain time in our life or an old relationship. The effect, therefore, of having seen Malick’s film is that one seems to recall the fictional relationships depicted in ephemeral moments of time as if viewers had lived through the events of the film.

Malick never steers away from mor-

FILM

SONG TO SONG TERRENCE MALICK DISTRIBUTED BY BROAD GREEN PICTURES RELEASE MAR. 17, 2017 OUR RATING

BROAD GREEN PICTURES

alizing in his film. In many ways, this separates Malick from the majority of present-day filmmakers, as he attempts to share insight through his film—a certain seriousness and true concern are exuded by his film. He portrays the limitations and longing that come as a result of living a life of hedonism.

Song to Song is not a film for everyone.

Quite often, the film screeches down to a halt and asks of its viewers to be patient.

Coming to terms with the film’s abnormalities will surely help filmgoers appreciate the imaginative vision presented. Still, the value in Song to Song lies in the collective experience of having watched it, as a newly found sense of moral understanding and clarity may arise as a result. 

THE HEIGHTS

MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017

B7

‘T2’ Sees Fervor of Youth Atrophy, Delves Into Melancholy Times

BY ARCHER PARQUETTE Features Editor In one of the first scenes of T2: Trainspotting, Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) hunches over a record player.

Deep wrinkles crease his face. The rail-thin junkie with a shaved head and earrings is now middle-aged. He lifts the needle on his old record player and slowly brings the needle down on the spinning vinyl. The raw, adrenal first chords of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life� burst out.

Twenty years ago, with this song blasting in the background, Renton sprinted through the streets of Edinburgh, took heroin in a run-down flat, and grinned maniacally after being hit by a car in the iconic opening scene of Trainspotting. This time, Renton grimaces, pulls the needle away from the record almost immediately, and the chords die just as abruptly as they began.

Trainspotting was about verve, youth, rebellion: whatever unnamed and fiery feeling overtakes people in their ’20s. T2 is about what happens to that fiery feeling after 20 years of stagnation.

At the end of Trainspotting, Renton stole 16,000 pounds from his friends after

a successful drug deal and left Scotland to start a new life. Those friends, Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Spud (Ewan Bremner), and Begbie (Robert Carlyle), never left the country and never made anything of themselves. Sick Boy runs his aunt’s old bar and makes side money with scams such as a pornographic blackmail scheme. He ingests cocaine, a drug that seems tailor-fit to his persona, as much as he possibly can.

Spud never quite kicked his heroin habit and has been nothing but a disappointment to his wife and son. Begbie, the murderous psychopath with a raw, unquenched hatred for Renton, is in prison.

And Renton, after his smiling , triumphant walk into the future at the end of Trainspotting, now works as in “stock management software� in Amsterdam. He has a heart condition, is getting divorced, and will probably lose that job soon. When he returns to visit his hometown, he learns of his mother’s death, meets up with Spud again, and quickly becomes involved in one of Sick Boy’s scams.

The movie moves at a rapid and frenetic pace, replete with energizing electronic tracks scoring the scenes and Danny Boyle’s trademark visual style. The camera

flies around, presenting skewed, overhead, distant, and many more wild and stunning shots.

Occasionally, scenes from Trainspotting will splice into the present to serve as silent remembrances. Each time, the effect is dramatic. The transformation from the person in the flashback to the person on screen now is undeniable and becomes deeply affecting as the characters acknowledge their aging and their failures.

This sense pervades the movie. Even the rush of the “Choose Life� monologue is twisted and tinged with 20 years of cruel living when it makes its return in T2.

Despite the visual flair and pulse-pounding soundtrack, many scenes are strikingly sad. The film is rife with disappointment, nostalgia, and loss, even as it unleashes self-aware criticism on its characters for these same feelings. But throughout this, it never loses the humor and life that made the original so strong. Many tender and sad moments are undercut by dark, brutal, and sometimes grotesque humor.

Much of the film’s emotional impact comes from the bringing together of the original Trainspotting team. The original scriptwriter penned it, the original director

FILM

TRAINSPOTTING DANNY BOYLE DISTRIBUTED BY TRISTAR PRODUCTIONS RELEASE MAR. 17, 2017 OUR RATING

TRISTAR PRODUCTIONS

directed it, and the original cast hasn’t lost any of its charisma. Bremner as Spud is still hilarious and heartbreaking. McGregor and Miller still make an intensely compelling pair of trouble-seeking best friends.

T2 can stand on its own as an entertaining film, but it is nowhere near as impactful if you haven’t seen Trainspotting.

Thematically and visually, the two decades of aging between films are crucial to the overall experience.

Each character’s journey seems like a natural continuation from where they were left at the end of Trainspotting, and by the end, T2 proves that a sequel to a beloved film doesn’t have to be a cash grab and can actually work when done right.

These broken characters are imbued with the same contagious lust for life as before, but Boyle never lets you forgets that the clock is ticking and the world is passing them by. ď Ž

AerodynamiK Executes, Takes Prize Cultural Winner, from B8 they’ve come.�

Coming in second place in the cultural category was Presenting Africa to You (PATU). The all-girls team is BC’s African dance troupe. The overarching narrative of their performance at Showdown was that of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar. As the dancers, garbed in African clothing, mixed traditional African dance with that of modern dance, Cleopatra and Caesar’s relationship grew more strained. He had been cheating on her, and Cleopatra was quick to dump him when she found out. The message became one of female empowerment as the women on stage displayed their skill. For their hard work and stunning performance, PATU was awarded the second-place trophy. The award acceptance, as described by Monique Edwards, co-captain of PATU and CSON ’17, was the culmination of many hours of practice. “We placed last year so we were expecting nothing less,� she said. “It was worth it.�

The award-winners were not the only cultural groups to put on a stunning show at Showdown. Vida de Intensa PasiĂłn (VIP) was the first cultural group to dance that evening. The Latin dance group had chosen for its theme a party vibe. The men were

dressed in flowery shirts, while the women wore colorful tops and flowing-white skirts.

The team danced its way through a night on the town, moving sensually and passionately across the stage. At one point, two-dimensional painted “taxis� arrived to take the team to their party destination. Spanish party music flew through the air as VIP’s male dancers spun their female counterparts into the air and around their bodies. The theme of VIP wasn’t the strongest featured by the cultural side, as the focus was simply that of a celebration, but the group’s dancing came out in full force.

Masti, BC’s South Asian dance troupe, had chosen a clearer message for the crowd as its theme of the night. Its performance was preceded by spoken words that filled the speakers and the ears of all in Conte Forum. As the voice explained, there are over 600 million people in South Asia living without access to clean drinking water. That is twice the population of the United States.

As the lights rose, an evil businesswoman could be seen dumping gasoline into the “Ganges River� that Masti had made as its background decoration.

The team began its dance, incorporating popular South Asian music and Western songs into its performance. Most of the songs continued Masti’s theme of clean water, such as Ugly God’s “Water.� Masti made

use of sapps, a Punjabi clapping percussion instrument, to keep the beat, as well as for their visual appeal. Throughout the dance, the team continued to push its message of clean water, evidenced by three dancers “punching out� the evil businesswoman and removing all of the trash and debris from the river. The dance, as well as the message, seemed to electrify the members of Masti, and it kept them buzzing even as they left the stage. Their showdown performance, as described by Ashruti Patel, Masti co-captain and MCAS ’17, was a whirlwind of excitement and anticipation. “Honestly I’ve never felt my heart pump that hard and the adrenaline rush through my body,� he said. “I was screaming so hard but I didn’t know until I came off how hard I screamed because my throat hurt.�

The competitive nature of this event leads to these amazing displays of talent, hard work, and emotion. As the crowd poured out of Conte Forum, the air hummed with excitement. Enthused voices, striving to be heard above the noise, shouted about the thoughts and desires for next year’s Showdown performance. BC contains a wealth of cultural talent between its many groups, so no matter the contestants of Showdown 2018, the night will be as electric as ever. ď Ž

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Big Repeat Win for BCID Dance Winner, from B8 competing in the competition proper.

Nonetheless, its stunning and immensely fun swing piece integrated Star Wars in a jaunty, fast, and unforgettable way. Outfitted as rebels, stormtroopers, and heroes Luke, Leia, Han Solo, and Chewbacca, Full Swing truly employed the force as they executed moves adroitly and with a level of fluidity.

Its choice of song, with regards to the Star Wars universe fit the swing style markedly, especially the ‘Cantina Theme’ with which the troupe opened. In a raw moment, after intermission, president Dante Keeler, MCAS ’17, described the emotion and feeling coming off such a performance. “Coming off stage, I am so pumped,� he said. “I am so proud of everyone given everything we have put into i.�

Keeler also spoke about how flattering the win was in light of being a showcase, especially given the size of the audience and strong support given to all groups.

Choreographer David Huffman, MCAS ’18, described how integral the crowd was to creating that kind of performance. “It’s unreal. The energy of the crowd makes it unforgettable,� he said. “All the hours, all the effort, all the blood, sweat, and tears. So worth it.�

The People’s Choice co-winners, BCID, saw even more success that evening as it was crowned, for the second year in a row, the winners of the Competitive Dance Award. Its $500 in winnings will go to the American Foundation for Suicide Preven-

tion.

If success could be measured based on theme alone, George Lucas should receive some credit, as BCID also adopted a Star Wars theme. Clad in masks of stormtroopers—sported, remarkably, throughout the entire performance—and donning rebel vestments, BCID had a decidedly strong romp.

Exercising a kind of honed precision, coupled with its choice of costume, made the troupe seem military in execution.

The nuance of their dance, feet whipping and tapping on the stage floor, was wholly breathtaking as dancers acted out conflicts and altercations. When coupled with songs like the “Imperial March� and Kanye West’s “Black Skinhead,� the harshness of its steps were more powerful. “We are so excited to be able to make history tonight and couldn’t be happier to do it with this team,� co-president Sara McArthur, MCAS ’17, said. “Being on stage was a memorable, surreal moment.�

Its historic consecutive win is almost as impressive as doing the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

The ALC Showdown is a moment of unity within the BC dance community, but also for the rest of the student body. This years Showdown was a display of immense talent that really should serve to heighten the interests of all viewers in the eclectic and diverse dance talents of BC’s student body.

The level of passionate expression seen on the faces of dancers, as they engaged in an artform they love, is sure to inspire others to do the same. ď Ž

KATE MAHONEY / HEIGHTS STAFF

Indian Dances Invoke Gods, Goddesses

BY JACOB SCHICK Assoc. Arts & Review Editor In a performance atypical to the usual events taking place in Gasson Hall, On Devi: A Kuchipudi Dance Performance brought a taste of Indian dance and drama.

The irony of the location was not lost on the performers or the audience. Garbed in traditional Indian clothing, playing music and singing about the Hindu gods and goddesses, the performers sat in Gasson 100, a room filled with crosses, the busts of various saints, and giant paintings depicting various events in Christian history. This dichotomy, however, did not detract from the stunning performance that took place Sunday afternoon.

On Devi is the second Indian performance, and the first to have dance as its focus, that has taken place at Boston College. The performers and show were introduced by Fugan Dineen, a world music professor at BC, as he gave the audience tips on what to look for in the music and dance. Joining Dineen on the na uvangam, a two-piece metal Indian rhythmic instrument, were David Nelson on m da gam, an ancient-Indian percussion instrument, Kalyan Gopalakrishnan on violin, B. Balasubrahmaniyan on vocals, and the star of the performance, Chitra Kalyandurg as the solo Kuchipudi dancer.

On Devi began with “Saraswati Vandanam.� This piece is typically used to begin a dance, as the lyrics and dance invokes the blessing of the goddess Saraswati. The invocation is particularly fitting, as Saraswati is the goddess of the arts. The usually Judeo-Christian tone of Gasson was immediately changed as the vocals of “Saraswati Vandanam� began.

B. Balasubrahmaniyan, also known as Balu, employed his talents as a South Indian Katarnatak performer, sending lofty and lilting exaltations high into the room. This song, as well as the rest of the performance, was entirely in Hindi, but the language barrier was nonexistent.

Each section of On Devi has a short blurb in the show program describing the story of the piece. With this in mind, the members audience can easily apply the story to the singing and Kuchipudi dance choreography in front of them. As Dinnen informed the audience, Kuchipudi is a very unique type of Indian dance.

Kuchipudi began as a dance performed by a cast of all male dancers. In the mid 20th century, however, Guru Vedantam Lakshminarayana Sastry and Guru Vempati Chinnasatyam helped bring women into the art form. It was Chinnasatyam’s work that made On Devi possible. This is because Chita Kalyandurg, the solo dancer, is a student of Chinnasatyam’s

style. The next performance was “Bhama Pravesham,� a piece from Bhamakalapam.

Bhamakalapam is one of the most famous Indian dance dramas, and is written by acclaimed playwright Siddhendra Yogi.

This piece focuses on a woman in the play named Satyabhama, a very proud and arrogant character.

She is angry at the god Krishna for the lack of recognition of her apparent beauty.

The portrayal of this character, as well as others in later dances, give the audience a glimpse of the full range of Kalyandurg.

While obviously a very talented dancer, Kalyandurg’s real mastery lies in her facial emotes. She uses her smile and eyes to convey multiple emotions, apparent even to those sitting at the back of the room.

In “Palukuthenala Thalli,� Kalyandurg play multiple characters throughout her dance. The story, set to an Annamarcharya keerthana, a type of lyrical song, is that of the goddess Alamelumanga. Throughout her dance, Kalyandurg switched seamlessly between the characters and the narrator, cluing the audience in with just a change of facial expression.

Kalyandurg, along with the musicians, put on a great performance for all present.

On Devi, a celebration of Indian dance, is a welcome addition to the usual events taking place in Gasson Hall, between the saints and symbols on the walls. ď Ž

B8 MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2017

ARTS&REVIEW

@BCHEIGHTSARTS

Sex and the Cinema

Not So

CALEB GRIEGO

Far Away BC Irish Dance made ALC Showdown history as the first team to take home the competitive dance title for two years in a row.

BY CALEB GRIEGO

Assoc. Arts & Review Editor

Conte Forum was alive as air welled up with anticipation and hastened heartbeats.

As their eyes gazed downward, it was not to watch a concentrated hockey match or the grueling final minutes of a close basketball game. They remained fixated on a stage as dancers of varied skills and disciplines gave their all in a stretch of stunning performances. Boston College’s dance community came together, exuding a genial level of ardor for the chance to give a monetary donation to a charity of their choice and pen their name among the victory’s of the University’s premier arts event: the AHANA Leadership Council Showdown.

In their purposeful quests, each dance troupe of BC gave ornately themed performances that took viewers from the polluted water of the Ganges and the hued forest of the Lorax to swinging cantinas in a galaxy far, far away. Keenly integrating these themes into their unique dance stylings, each group showed dance is more than just a challenge to the body, but one of the mind to stand out on stage.

Amid rampant panting and insatiable

smiles, teams relished in the applause and the special moments with their teammates as they finished their time in the spotlight.

Fuego del Corazón member, Francisco Uzcategui Sanchez, MCAS ’17, captured the shared sentiment of the ephemeral nature of the performance for which all have worked so hard.

“It’s an indescribable feeling. It’s just eight minutes,” he said. “You don’t think, you just go. It’s just blackout, it’s crazy how you don’t feel anything.”

Though all dancers and teams gave commendable performances, some ended up on top in the eyes of the judges. For the second-consecutive year, BC Irish Dance (BCID) won the overall dance competition winner.

Additionally, new to Showdown this year was the inclusion of a People’s Choice Award, bestowed on the recipient of the fan-favorite performance. After a few terse moments of texting, the people still seemed divided, resulting in a tie between BCID and Full Swing.

Notably, Full Swing entered into Showdown only as showcase group, not

See Dance Winners, B7

BY JACOB SCHICK Assoc. Arts & Review Editor Aside from the dance-oriented aspects of the AHANA Leadership Council Showdown, the competition is a great opportunity for the larger Boston College community to see the displays of culture offered by the teams entered. Many students often miss out on the individual shows put on by these cultural groups and as such, Showdown gives the crowd a taste of the diversity at BC through dance.

The champion of Showdown’s cultural division was AerodynamiK (AeroK), a hiphop team sponsored by the Korean Student Association of BC. The theme of the winning performance was cops and robbers. AeroK’s performance was one of the most modern dances featured at Showdown, using a mix of contemporary American and Korean music. The modernity of the songs resonated with the audience at Conte Forum, as the team was met with roaring applause and cheers from the crowd and even some of the other dance teams seated next to the stage.

These numbers afforded AeroK the ability to put on impressive visuals, in which

JULIA HOPKINS/ HEIGHTS EDITOR

Full Swing won over the crowd in a spectacular song and jig from the galactic epic.

the entire stage was alive with coordinated movement. Often, while the entirety of the team was on stage, AeroK would divide its dance into thirds. Each third of the team had a different yet equally stunning routine.

This allowed for the hip-hop group to present all of the capabilities possessed by its members in the six minutes allotted for the performance.

After a select number of AeroK performers accepted the first place award for the cultural category, they poured off the stage into the waiting arms and warm smiles of their teammates. AeroK, as a team, congregated in the rink, embracing one another as well as the supportive friends who had come to see them. Many members of the dance group ran around in excitement, their faces covered in wide smiles and tears of happiness. When asked about the feeling of first place, Joyce Chang, co-captain of AeroK and CSOM ’17, pridefully described the efforts of the team.

“This entire team, we’ve been putting in so many hours since the middle of February,” she said. “A lot of our team are first- time dancers and it’s amazing to see how far

See Cultural Winners, B7

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

AeroK stole the show with its captivating theme of cops, criminals, and cash.

Bonn’s ‘Kingdom City’ Blends Theatre, Reality

BY TOMAS GUARNA For The Heights Written in 2007 as a response to George W. Bush-era censorship and support of pro-abstinence groups, Sheri Wilner’s Kingdom City still stands against censorship and oppression, and Boston College’s production reminded everyone of its relevance. Directed by John Houchin, chair of the theatre department, the play is a touching reflection about guilt, silence, and the liberating power of theatre.

After he is awarded a teaching fellowship in a college nearby, Daniel and Miriam Bloom (Brennan Boyle, MCAS ’17 and Emma Howe, MCAS ’18) arrive to Kingdom City, Mo. The couple leaves New York in failure: Miriam has been struggling to find good directing jobs and feels devastated by her office, and Daniel, although successful as an author in the past, cannot complete a draft he’s been working on for seven years. As a Jewish couple in an extremely puritan Christian city, they are undeniably out of place. When Miriam is offered a position to replace the theatre director in the local high school, she reluctantly accepts and decides to mount a performance of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in an ironic turn of doing “a play about sexually-repressed teenagers in a town of sexually-repressed teenagers”.

Here, she meets Crystal (Julia James, MCAS ’17), an obnoxious rebellious girl willing to do anything to get into Juilliard;

INSIDE ARTS& REVIEW

‘T2’

Matt (Dan Quinones, MCAS ’19), an extremely distressed teenager deeply committed to Christianity and the purity of his acts; and Katie (Sarah Lambert, MCAS ’18), his girlfriend, who is starting to doubt her faith and the decisions others have made for her. After knowing the play involves a kissing scene, Matt raises his concerns to the pastor, Luke Overbey (Ted Kearnan, MCAS ’17), who teaches the purity class he and Katie attend. The pastor, who has befriended Daniel and is allegedly attempting to return meaning to his life, then starts a campaign to censor Miriam’s production.

The characters question their place in the world, and recognize their own silence, which turns to a questioning of Kingdom City’s order that delves unpredictably in the characters’ values. The play takes a good shot at posing a reflection about the line between theatre and reality, which Wilner achieves impeccably by including excerpts from The Crucible, Saint Joan, Miss Julie, and Macbeth. The climax of this parallel is reached in the purity ceremony, which presents the play’s moment of strongest tension and best showcases Houchin’s expertise as a director.Wilner’s script is full of depth and emotion, yet it does not quite achieve its aims. In the playwright’s note, she says she attempted “not to write a ‘Red-State-Bad-Blue-State-Good-Story,’” but rather a sincere account of the personal experiences “on both sides.”

But the script does not reach fully its ambitious goal. The censors are represented

KEITH CARROLL / HEIGHTS STAFF

The play represents the struggle of personal contradictions and transformation. only by one character, Luke Overbey who, despite Kearnan’s solid portrayal, is written in a way that does little to arouse sympathy from the audience.

Rather, it best achieves an incomplete version of its objective: it represents the struggle, contradictions, and personal transformations of the silenced and the oppressed. Miriam cannot find her place in the world as a failed director, and Daniel literally cannot find the words for his manuscript. Crystal feels like a pariah in a town that will never understand her, and she is never taken seriously by her director.

Katie has never had a say in her life, and is about to take a virginity pledge pressured by her father, and finds little solace in Crystal’s bossiness. Finally, Matt cannot express his annihilating secret—an anxiety that Quinones performs excellently.

The cast delivers with impeccable portrayals. Howe as Bloom earnestly interprets a character in a midlife crisis with humor and sharpness, and Boyle artfully enacts a bland Daniel, and his chemistry on stage with Howe is

‘Life’

admirable. Lambert and Quinones do an excellent job performing the two most emotionally complex characters in the play, Katie and Matt. Lambert never ceases to sincerely display her character’s struggle, and Quinones does a touching execution of someone defeated by guilt.

James delivers a solid performance in delivering an obnoxious yet later complex Crystal, although remains slightly limited by her character’s caricatured writing.

This problem also faced, yet overcome

by Kearnan, who plays well an apparently loving pastor with perverse intentions.

Staged in a mesmerizing set designed

by Larry Sousa, the play takes an ambitious shot at playing with the characters’ disposition on the stage, and with the timing of their appearances, another display of Houchin’s mastery. Although awkward at moments, the semi-circular positioning of the audience is well-executed. On the whole, Kingdom City produced sincere and touching performances, and provided the audience with an enjoyable and thought-provoking display of theatre. 

The ‘Trainspotting’ crew is back at it again, as the mischief Drawing from the space-horror epics, ‘Life’ carves out a of a misspent youth comes back to haunt them...............B7 space of its own exploring terrors beyond earth.............B6

We are often drawn into films by interjecting ourselves into the moment.

For a while, we are the cowboy, the hero, the astronaut. For a brief period of time, we see ourselves in the shoes of those on screen. But not all people see themselves in the same characters, moments, or outcomes. I am amazed at how often men and women walk away with drastically different outlooks on film. This seems to be a difference between men and women being made manifest in our interest and recollection of entertainment.

MPAA statistics from 2015 give us some insight into these preferences.

Women account for 54 percent of box-office revenue, but, in the Top 10 grossing pictures for 2015, only accounted for the majority of viewers for one film, Inside Out, at 54 percent. The rest, including Furious 7, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Jurassic World, consisted of a mainly male audience in the seats. The idiosyncrasy of the action of the films dominated by men and the more light-heartedness of an animated comedy drama are clear to see.

When conducting analytics on its user-base preferences, IMDb.com also found differences among men and women. Though most films that were unanimously acclaimed or hated were found to be ranked comparably among the sexes, there were divisions elsewhere.

Films that were rated far differently among men and women fell along similar lines of preference and perception. Men rated films like Dumb and Dumber, Borat, and Piranha 3D, much higher than women on average. Conversely, women rated films like Fifty Shades of Gray, Twilight, and Sex in the City, much higher than men on average. In this realm of low-brow cinema, men seemingly preferred schlocky comedies, while women preferred schlocky romance.

But these kinds of differences manifest themselves not only in what we see and how we rate it, but what we remember when it comes to film.

The study “Die Hard in Notting Hill: Gender Differences in Recalling Contents from Action and Romantic Movies,” in Applied Cognitive Psychology, showed men and women one action and one romantic film, and asked subjects to recall specific things about each. It found that, on average, men were better able to recall aspects of action films (death, violence, adventure) and women were more capable of recalling aspects of the romance genre (love, relationships, melodrama).

These studies are fascinating because they attest to differences in how we, as men and women, perceive the arts. They show how larger proclivities manifest themselves, at least generally, in the sexes. Through conversation, I have found that—even within the same film—men and women could have a vastly different outlook on a series of events.

In an example of this, comedian Bill Burr describes how even a film like Titanic can be a harrowing tale from a certain perspective.

“Every girl I meet, thinks that movie is romantic, it’s irritating. ... It’s a f—king horror film,” Burr said. “See you watch it, trying to relate, ‘Who I’ll be?’ You will be that chick that floats away on that piece of luggage, right?”

“I’m watching like, ‘Who will I be?’

I’ll be that dude, the boat breaks in half.

The dude falls straight down. Bang off the ship and goes off into the water. That’s who I’ll be.”

Everyone, not only men and women, has their own point of view and looks to films and situations in different ways.

If anything, these differences offer up endless entries into conversation and looking to better understand one another.

Caleb Griego is the arts & review editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE REPORT.................. B6 ‘Salutations’..................................... B6 ‘Song to Song’.................................................. B6