The Heights May 1, 2017

HEIGHTS

THE

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

EST. 1919

WWW.BCHEIGHTS.COM

MONDAY, MAY 1, 2017

ARTS FEST

ARTS & REVIEW

Both visibly and audibly, campus transformed for the 19th annual Arts Festival this past week.

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Uber Driver Allegedly Attacked BC Student

Two Eagles Taken in NFL Draft

The assault was in Sept., according to ‘The Boston Herald.’

The L.A. Rams chose John Johnson in the third round on Friday.

BY CONNOR MURPHY News Editor

AND CHRIS RUSSO

BY CHRIS NOYES

Assoc. News Editor

Heights Staff On Friday night, with the 27th pick of the third round in the 2017 NFL Draft, the Los Angeles Rams selected safety John Johnson. The former Boston College captain becomes the second Eagles defensive back selected in the third round in as many years, joining Justin Simmons, who was taken 98th overall in last year’s draft.

Johnson, at 6-foot-1 and 205 pounds, presents new Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips with a talented, multipurpose rookie who has the positioning and ball skills to spend time at both safety and cornerback. His size should allow him to handle larger receivers in the slot and select matchups against opposing JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

See NFL Draft, B2

Johnson, a former BC captain, was the first drafted player recruited by Steve Addazio.

A female Boston College student was allegedly raped by an Uber driver in September, and then was dropped off back at BC, according to court tapes obtained by The Boston Herald.

The Boston Globe initially reported that a woman was sexually assaulted and dropped off at BC by the driver, but the leaked tape, which The Herald did not make public, revealed that the woman was a BC student.

The perpetrator, Luis Baez, raped the student in his Uber car on Sept. 29, 2016, while she was intoxicated, prosecutors said on Tuesday. She was allegedly raped three times, in a parking lot and at several other sites, before she was dropped off at BC. She then immediately reported the incident to the Boston College Police Department.

BCPD was unable to comment im-

mediately at press time. The Office of the Dean of Students said it did not have any additional information to what was reported by The Globe.

Baez’s defense attorney, John Benzan, said his client denies the charges against him. He said he drove the woman for only 22 minutes and therefore claimed it was not possible he could have done what she alleged in that short a period of time.

The Middlesex district attorney’s office said Baez was driving under the name Pedro Valentin. He was held on $2,500 cash bail and ordered to stay away from the BC campus.

The tape obtained by The Herald reveals that Newton District Court Judge Mary Beth Heffernan cut arguments short and demanded the defendant pay $2,500 bail instead of the prosecution’s request for $100,000 bail and GPS monitoring of Baez’s location.

Baez was known to be part of the Mozart Street Gang and had been previously prosecuted and deported. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are looking for Baez but have not found him, according to The Herald. Massachusetts began using background checks in January on drivers for ride-hailing companies. 

Melinda Stoops Named New Assoc. VP for Student Affairs

She will oversee the Women’s Center and other depts.

BY CONNOR MURPHY

News Editor

Melinda Stoops, the current associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Framingham State University, will take over as Boston College’s associate

VP for student affairs starting in June, the University announced this week.

Stoops takes over a role that oversees the Women’s Center, the Thea Bowman AHANA and Intercultural Center, University Counseling Services, University Health Services, and the Office of Graduate Student Life. She will also serve as BC’s Title IX coordinator for students.

The position has been filled on an interim basis by Kathleen Yorkis since December, when Katie O’Dair left to become

the dean of students for Harvard College.

“We are thrilled to have Melinda joining the Student Affairs staff at Boston College,” Vice President for Student Affairs Barb Jones said to the Office of Marketing Communications. “She is seen by colleagues as an innovator and a bridge builder with an infectious spirit. We look forward to her bringing those skills and traits to our campus.”

In a phone interview Sunday, Stoops talked about her career trajectory up to this

point and what drew her to BC. Stoops is a licensed psychologist, and intended when she was in grad school to end up teaching.

But once she got some clinical experience and started doing some counseling, she was attracted to that side of the field. In her doctoral work, she had the opportunity to set up counseling services at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, a small Catholic college in Indiana that at the time didn’t have counseling. She also spent a year at Indiana University.

Nominee for Financial Affairs VP Voted Down This was Achampong and King’s only pick not confirmed by SA

BY CONNOR MURPHY News Editor Brian Lee, MCAS ’18, the pick by next year’s Undergraduate Government of Boston College leadership to be the organization’s vice president for financial affairs for 2017-18, was not confirmed for the position in a meeting Sunday night of the Student Assembly. The vote was 12-8 against in a blind vote conducted by ballot.

All of the other VP picks were confirmed.

Akosua Achampong and Tt King, both MCAS ’18, next year’s UGBC president and executive vice president, said before the vote that they were impressed by Lee’s interest in making sure UGBC’s financial coordinators are passionate about the areas they work for. Lee was previously a financial coordinator for the AHANA+ Leadership Council.

“We were excited to see that Brian both had the technical skills but also the passion for advocacy and sort of

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

a desire to link those two things together,” King said before the vote.

Lee said before the vote that one of his goals was to bring transparency to UGBC’s finances and make people more aware of how UGBC spends its money.

Lee also wanted to make a change to how UGBC goes about spending its money. Currently, division heads each get a Purchase Card, or P-Card, with their name on it to make most of their division’s purchases. Division heads need to download bank statements and send them to financial coordinators to help carry out transactions.

Lee suggested that the financial coordinators could have direct access to the bank statements to improve efficiency.

One concern raised by Niki Patel, UGBC’s current financial affairs VP and CSOM ’17, is that the person whose name is on the P-Card—always the division head—has to be the one to access the online account, because they are liable for the charges on the card. To involve the financial coordinators in the way Lee suggested would create another step in the process and

See Finance VP, A3

NEWS: Jesuit Hookup

Rev. Paul McNellis, S.J., gave his perspective on hookup culture.......... A2

When she graduated, she worked in the prison system for a few years, including the women’s prison in Framingham.

“I got a lot of good experience with crisis management and working with people with trauma experience,” Stoops said.

But she decided the system and her next job, in community mental health, weren’t the best long-term fits for her, and she missed academia, so she became the

See Stoops, A3

Freshmen Host Parties at Airbnbs

One group paid $600 for causing damage to a house they rented.

BY CHRIS RUSSO Assoc. News Editor

Thursday, theatre professor Scott T. Cummings interviewed her for the annual “Inside the BC Studio” segment, and then on Friday she was presented with an alumni award from the Arts Council.

Wigfield shared an Emmy with Tina Fey in 2013 for co-writing an episode of 30 Rock. She talked about her new show and how she worked her way up in the entertainment world.

Wigfield was featured on ads all over campus in the lead-up to her visit.

“It’s exciting to go back to BC and see all your old professors but it’s extra excit-

A new fad has emerged in Boston College’s freshman class: throwing parties in rental houses through Airbnb.

Two freshmen who attended a Somerville “Airbnb party” in February had such a great experience that they decided to throw their own early this month. These two students were granted anonymity to speak to The Heights.

“Most BC students have more money than sense,” one of the freshman said. “It’s totally not a foreign idea that you can just buy a house in the city for a night and throw a party.”

Freshmen at BC, especially male students, are often left on Friday and Saturday nights with no plans. Even when they’re invited to parties down in Walsh or the Mods, they don’t have the

See Wigfield, A3

See Airbnb, A3

CELINE LIM / HEIGHTS STAFF

Wigfield Launches Sitcom BC grad’s new NBC show ‘Great News’ premiered Tuesday

BY CONNOR MURPHY News Editor Tracey Wigfield, BC ’05, a former writer on 30 Rock and The Mindy Project, launched her own sitcom last week: NBC’s Great News, which follows a news producer who has to deal with her mom as a new intern.

Wigfield was on campus on Thursday and Friday as part of Arts Fest. On

FEATURES: The Last Chapter

The Mursday Effect ends with a thrilling showdown and a painful goodbye.......A5

INDEX

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

Vol. XCVIII, No. 25 FEATURES................ A4 ARTS & REVIEW............ C1 © 2017, The Heights, Inc. OPINIONS................... A6 www.bcheights.com

The Heights

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things to do on campus this week

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Steve Pemberton, BC ’89, will host a private screening of the movie version of his book, A Chance in the World, tonight at 6:30 p.m. in Robsham Theater. The screening is co-sponsored

by University Communications, Student Affairs, and Alumni Affairs.

Monday, May 1, 2017

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The Shea Center for Entrepreneurship will hold its annual year-end celebration on Tuesday night from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Heights Room. Winners of its Venture Competition will be announced at the event and awards will be distributed.

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Tony Award-winner Diane Paulus will give a lecture titled “The Arts & Engaged Citizenship: Theater as a Civic Space,” which will focus on the arts as a force for social, political, and personal change. The event will take place on Wednesday from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in Devlin 008.

NEWS McNellis Gives His Perspective on Hookup Culture BRIEFS

By Grace Gvodas

BC Wins ECO Award

Boston College Transportation and Parking, a department that is categorized under Auxiliary Services, was recognized at the 2017 Massachusetts Excellence in Commuter Options (ECO) Awards in early April.

The ceremony, held at Fenway Park , was sponsored by Mass RIDES. John Savino, transportation and parking manager, was presented with an ECO Pinnacle award, celebrating exemplar y contributions of Massachusetts employers to supporting and encouraging employees who use green, sustainable, and healthy transportation options in Massachusetts.

In late March, the Auxiliary Services’ Event Management team was honored for its work in support of the 2016 Barbara and Jim Cleary Pops on the Heights Scholarship Gala. Jason McClellan, the event management director, and Jim Mastin, the senior events specialist, accepted the award on behalf of the team at the ACCED-I annual conference in Orlando.

The event for which the award was given was this year’s Pops on the Heights, featuring maestro Keith Lockhart leading the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, guest artist Kristin Chenoweth, and several performances from BC music groups. Event Management was tasked to coordinate the 240 BC employees and volunteers from various departments as well as external vendors to transform Conte Forum from an athletics facility to a venue for an elegant dinner and performance.

“It’s a thrill to know that our BC team of Auxiliary Services is helping to raise the industry bar of expectations by our execution of event management and transportation services for our campus community,” Patricia Bando, associate vice president for Auxiliary Services, said to The Chronicle.

CSON Teaches CPR on Quad Boston College nursing students set up a table outside of Gasson Hall on Monday to teach passersby about hands-only CPR. The event was organized by the Connell School of Nursing senate.

The table featured se veral practice dummies whose chests were pressed on to the tune of the Bee Gees’ hit song from the ’70s “Stayin’ Alive.”

The nursing students explained the required steps to take in the situation of someone suffering from a cardiac arrest. One should first immediately call 911 and then push hard and fast in the center of the person’s chest. The ideal rate of pumps should be to the tune of “Stayin Alive.”

Students who stopped by were provided with flyers and pamphlets for further reading on the subject. The practice on the dummies took students less than a minute to complete, but they came away with a valuable lesson, according to Sydney Conti, CSON ’19.

“Less than 46 percent of people involved in emergency situations have had bystander inter vention training,” Conti said to The Chronicle. “Offering instruction on a college campus is an easy and quick way to teach a large group of people. Learning CPR is great for the BC community and the community in general.”

Asst. Copy Editor

It was 13 years ago that Rev. Paul McNellis, S.J., a part-time professor of philosophy, first set out to tackle the concerns he had with the hookup culture at Boston College.

“I was seeing pain and suffering all around me in my students,” McNellis said. “And I thought that [the hookup culture] was the cause of much of it, and that it would be irresponsible if I didn’t try to address it.”

In a talk on Thursday night at 7 p.m. in McGuinn 121, sponsored by Sons of St. Patrick, St. Thomas More Society, and Gratia Plena, McNellis addressed the topic once again. The two main questions of the night were, “Is hookup culture the new norm?” and, “Is it here to stay?”

Although he did not delve into either question in significant detail, McNellis took the discussion in a different direction, addressing his main concerns with the hookup culture, which included the vagueness of the term “hookup,” the assumptions people make when hooking up, and how men shouldn’t take advantage of women a manner absent of feelings.

Many of us are left puzzled at the variety of options available when a friend tells us they “hooked up” with someone, McNellis said. He drew the attention of those in attendance to why the term “hookup” has replaced more specific ones like making out, casual sex, shacking up, one-night stand, friends with benefits, cohabitation, and others.

For McNellis, the lack of specificity is exactly why it has caught on.

Not only does the euphemism “hook up” obscure a whole host of questions that are difficult to discuss but important concerns of ours, it also encourages people, especially men, to boast about their exploits and even fabricate them entirely. He compared them to Augustine, who in Confessions says, while struggling with his own desires discussing his friends, “I hear them boasting of their exploits and the louder the exploits, the louder the voices.”

“Often one who says ‘I hooked up last night,’ purposely leaves it to the imagination of the hearer to interpret what he really means,” McNellis said.

“He implies he’s ‘getting some,’ when in fact the ‘hooking up’ was bumping into someone at a party. And the ‘getting some’ was nothing more than getting an answer to the question, ‘What’s your major?’”

McNellis first addressed the problems he saw within the hookup culture in 2004 at a talk titled “Chastity and Courage.” The following semester, in 2005, Marina McCoy, Kerry Cronin, and Mary Troxell gave a talk on “Bringing Back the Date,” which McNellis noted is what Cronin’s talk has since grown from.

McNellis also addressed a quote from Thomas Kaplan-Maxfield’s hookup culture talk back in February, which asked, “What if random hookups were a way of countering all these examens you’re doing?”

McNellis rendered this not just a misunderstanding of hookups, but of

Christian prayer.

Although McCoy, Cronin, and Troxell took the issues in a different direction, McNellis argues that each spoke for similar reasons: the unhappiness that this culture was causing and the desire to suggest legitimate alternatives.

“Both back then and today, many would deny that there’s any downside to the hookup culture,” McNellis said.

“And who are we to tell them what to do? But we weren’t trying to tell them what to do, but rather suggest that there were real alternatives that could lead to a deeper, long-lasting happiness.”

McNellis noted suggestions of legitimate alternatives, such as asking someone on a date from Cronin, and chastity, which he differentiates from celibacy. He recognized, however, the reasons why many people do engage in the hookup culture and deem them equally, if not more, legitimate than the alternatives.

He pointed to examples like it’s a time for self-discovery, it’s fine as long as it’s consensual and courteous, it’s pleasurable, it’s realistic given busy schedules, and, for women especially, it’s empowering.

McNellis articulated, however, that these suggestions maintain one fundamental misunderstanding.

“It presupposes that what I do with my body has no affect on me, my soul, unless I want it to,” McNellis said. “My body isn’t really me, it’s just something I use or have. And therefore what I do with it doesn’t mean anything unless I decide it does.”

The idea that people can disconnect their bodies from the rest of their being, and participate in something, presumably, without meaning is, to McNellis, not only harmful to human nature but simply impossible.

“Anything I do with my body I do with all of me,” McNellis said. “Therefore what I feel is not merely what I wish for but also the result of what I do. I don’t have a body. I am a body.”

McNellis finished his talk by addressing the men in the audience, asking each of them to consider whether they would be okay with someone treating their sister or mother they way that they currently treat women.

He said the most important question each of them will ask themselves during their time at BC does not concern their major or their future career, but what kind of father they will eventually want to be. Being a good father, according to McNellis, requires all the virtues—courage, wisdom, prudence, compassion, and understanding.

He urged the men to not say “I love you,” unless they are prepared to back it up with deeds—to respect women enough to say no and to live a chaste life, which McNellis describes as what it means to love someone the way they deserve.

Despite the claim of “real life doesn’t begin until after graduation” that many BC students seemingly live by, McNellis contended that there is no time to waste.

“Don’t participate in the hookup culture,” he said. “Replace it with something better. Have the courage to be a better man.” n

Geographic Info Systems Course Added for Fall

By Cole Dady Heights Staff What do accident analysis, volcanic hazard identification, and pest control in agricultural production all have in common? They utilize Graphic Information Systems (GIS), widely applicable database management systems used to describe the social and physical environment with high detail.

Next fall, the Boston College economics department is offering a brand new course related to this field called “Geographic Information Systems for Planning and DecisionMaking.” The point of the course is to utilize GIS data to teach students how to examine change across a specific place and over time, as well as to discern what could happen at that location in the future.

This kind of analysis ultimately hopes to begin to teach students the process of finding useful information, how to display this information in a

computer, and to see what patterns arise from it. In addition, they will learn how to visualize this information to see how the patterns look spatially.

The course will be taught by William Cohen, a professional urban planner who has been working in his profession for four years. He originally wanted to become a teacher in college and was captivated by urban school issues. He expected he would teach about urban school reform and organizational change one day, though his plans eventually changed.

“I always knew I liked cities back in the day, and I figured that I would like to work in a field that deals with thinking about issues that cities face on a regular basis,” Cohen said.

Previously, the economics department did not offer any urban planning or design courses. Urban planning is an applied field, which many universities do not offer any programs in. While this course does

not necessarily signal the start of a complete urban planning program at BC, it could be the potential first step toward creating one.

Cohen received the opportunity to teach this course by Neil McCullagh, the Executive Director of the Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action.

The center is an interdisciplinary group that combines social issues and issues about real estate with mission driven work. McCullagh realized that a course based on GIS would be a valuable asset for BC. The use of information to find patterns and the ability to learn how to make maps and see what they show is a skill set that is beneficial in a variety of fields. While the course will appeal to students who have an interest in urban planning, the applications of the course stretch far beyond urban planning.

For this reason, the course is cross-listed with the economics department, the School of Social Work,

and the Carroll School of Management. There are many ways in which business people, social workers, and undergraduates of any liberal arts field may want to see how GIS relates to their own work.

For example, the School of Social Work already does work to this effect related to epidemiology. Additionally, business school students interested in real estate could benefit from the course as well, in that they can gain skills to help them better understand the community surrounding a property and recognize the value of comparable properties.

Cohen does not expect students to have any sort of graphic or analytic capabilities going in. Given that the course is open to graduate and undergraduate students, students could potentially have a wide range of skill sets going in.

“I think the reason for taking the course would be simply because you have an interest in taking it in the first place,” Cohen said. n

POLICE BLOTTER: 4/26/17 – 4/28/17 Thursday, April 27 12:26 a.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious person at 2150 Comm. Ave. 1:08 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious circumstance at Higgins Hall.

3:24 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical transport at Duchesne East.

6:18 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Stokes Hall.

5:41 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at BCPD headquarters.

7:24 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a trespass warning that was issued at Campanella Way.

6:18 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a medical incident at Gasson Hall.

8:12 p.m. - A report was filed regarding assistance provided to another department at the Chestnut Hill Reservoir.

9:25 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious person at 2000 Comm. Ave.

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

CORRECTIONS Do you prefer final papers or final exams?

“Final exams because it’s easier to memorize material than write a paper.”

—Meghan Ravis, CSON ’17

“Exams because they take less time to prepare for than writing an entire paper.”—Shane Mallee, MCAS ’19

“Final exams because I’m not good at writing.”—Romina Garakani, MCAS ’20

“Final papers because you can work on it at your own pace.”

—Elizabeth Voss, CSOM ’20

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

The Heights

Monday, May 1, 2017

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BC Alumna Talks Rise to Success in Entertainment Stoops Is Wigfield, from A1 -ing when it’s like a Trump rally and your face is plastered everywhere,” she said.

The Emmy gave her a little bit of street cred, Wigfield said, and helped her when she was looking to pitch her show to network executives. Eventually people rise to a certain level in a show that they start to develop their own, which they tr y to convince networks to make during the annual “pilot season.”

“It’s such a waste of money, they’ll make a million episodes and then pick two to be on TV,” she said. “Some people can pitch a show as a staff writer and then get it made, but you want to make sure it won’t be taken away from you.”

Wigfield first pitched the show for about 20 minutes to Fey and her production company, and then to the studio, and then NBC. Then she wrote a script, had it greenlit, and made the pilot, which then also has to be greenlit for a full season.

The network also signs off on each episode of the show. Wigfield serves as the head writer and the showrunner of Great News, and also plays a recur-

ring character, a weird meteorologist.

She has final approval of practically every detail.

“So few shows ever get made, and of the few that do so few become hits, so you have to manage your expectations,” she said.

In the writer’s room, with her staff of about 10, Wigfield lays out every scene on a notecard and then builds around it, gradually putting together an episode.

Great News follows about a decade of built-up experience for Wigfield, whose first job was as a page on The Late Show With David Letterman.

Her mother’s cousin’s husband was an accountant with the show, and he passed along her application.

“In entertainment, that is a lot of how you get assistant jobs—just a person knows a person who can hand your resume in,” she said.

The joke on Letterman, which ended in 2015, was that the interns couldn’t talk to the show ’s host.

Wigfield told a story (unsubstantiated, she said) about an intern who once introduced himself and shook Letterman’s hand in an elevator and was promptly fired.

The story formed the basis for the first episode of Great News, which

features a hotheaded TV anchor who’s always firing interns.

The executive producer of Letterman, Rob Burnett, made a show that was cancelled after nine episodes that filmed in the same building as 30 Rock.

After she was a page, Wigfield went to work for the show, The Knights of Prosperity, but started handing out her resume to the other shows in the building when she started to feel it would be ending early.

Burnett gave her a recommendation for 30 Rock, and she spent two years as a writer’s assistant, becoming a writer in her third year. Writer’s assistants, she said, just take notes in the corner.

Sometimes in a joke pitch meeting, there’ll be a quiet moment when people are stumped, so she said ambitious assistants can jump in with their own jokes and potentially work their way up from there. Nobody’s looking to help them out, though, so it takes a lot of initiative.

Boston College played a big role in Wigfield’s career—she chose between BC and the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and said BC provided a good safety for her creativity. Another famous TV comedienne,

Amy Poehler, graduated in 1993 and is also close with Fey. “Any good memories of the Mods?”

Cummings asked her.

“No, I have no memories of the Mods,” she laughed.

Cummings also asked about Wigfield’s friendship with Fey and Mindy Project star Mindy Kaling, both of whom went to her wedding last summer.

“They both are the funniest person in any room that they’re in,” Wigfield said. “[Fey] is very calm and softspoken in a way I think people find surprising, and she’s very good about listening to quieter voices in the room.

I know when I was a staff writer she was the one who’d often be like ‘Wait, what did you say?’ when I would whisper something under my breath.”

Kaling is a little different, with a strong vision for her show that she lays out in the writer’s room. Now that she’s in charge of the room, Wigfield is seeing it from the perspective of her mentors, and is starting to get used to being the go-to decision-maker.

“I’d be in the writer’s room and I’d be like, ‘Why isn’t anyone talking?’” she said. “And then I realized, ‘Oh, it’s me. I’m the one that’s supposed to be talking.’” n

New AVP Stoops, from A1

director of the counseling center at Framingham State, after which she became the assistant dean of students, with oversight of the counseling center and also offices like campus ministry and the career center. In 2008, she became the dean of students, in which role she also administered academic issues, allowing her to collaborate a lot with faculty.

“I think what initially drew me to BC was the role itself sounded very interesting,” she said. “The offices that I would be overseeing are a really nice fit for my background.”

In addition to her psychologist credentials and background in counseling services, she completed her undergraduate degree at Smith College, and much of Stoops’s graduate school work dealt with women’s issues.

At Framingham State, she had oversight of the multicultural center.

“The idea of serving others and focusing on the whole person is something, that as a psychologist, really fits with my professional background and my interest personally with looking at people as the whole person,” she said. “That’s something that I’ve enjoyed at my current institution and I really prioritized it wherever I was going.” n

Frosh Party With Airbnb Airbnb, from A1 experience they’re looking for.

“You can go to Walsh and the Mods, but it’s not yours,” one of the freshmen said.

The two freshmen, along with a few of their friends, searched for a house on Airbnb for their friend’s birthday. They looked for listings that did not include “no parties”—a setting house owners can check if they do not want guests hosting parties in the temporary accommodations. They found several owners who listed no rules at all and ultimately decided on a house in Roslindale, Mass., 5 miles from BC. They spent $475 to rent the house, plus some extra money for alcohol and accessories. The house had two floors with several bedrooms.

They created a private Facebook event for the party, inviting dozens of their freshman friends. Over 50 people attended the party that night. The guys said that, besides a cracked ice cube tray and a broken plastic sign on the front lawn, they left the house in good condition.

“I think we left that house cleaner than we found it,” one said.

The freshmen who hosted the earlier party in Somerville would not say the same. They were hit with a $600 cleaning fee and were banned from using Airbnb because of the permanent damage they caused, according to the freshman who rented the Roslindale house.

Airbnb hosts who feel their home has been damaged so significantly that they require compensation are able to make a claim on their security deposit through Airbnb’s website. If they make a claim within 14 days of their guest’s checkout date, the guest can pay for the damages through Airbnb. If a guest declines or fails to respond to a payment request, Airbnb will mediate the process.

Hosts are also provided with Host Protection Coverage, free of charge, through Airbnb. The claim will provide up to $1 million in liability or property damage. Airbnb is not responsible for the guest’s property, however. If a couch or television is damaged, for example, the company will not cover it.

Eric Friedberg, a homeowner who has been an Airbnb host for over three years, rents out three different houses in Newton. To protect his homes from potential damage, Friedberg takes additional steps beyond the “no parties” setting.

He has a two-night minimum on the homes he rents out to prevent parties from happening. He also has his own screening process in which he researches people who request to rent his home online beforehand, looking at the reviews on their Airbnb profiles.

If Friedberg accepts a rental offer, he meets the renter at the house to give them the keys.

“If I see it’s a college kid, I won’t actually give them the keys until I see

an adult,” he said.

If this situation were to occur, the guest would receive a full refund on their stay.

Friedberg recently received a reservation request from a student at Emerson College, who indicated that they plan to graduate in May. The student said he would like to stay in the home with his parents, who will be travelling from their home in Connecticut, during his graduation weekend. Friedberg said he will not rent his home to the student until he speaks to his parents. Friedberg was in touch with the student’s mother on Sunday afternoon and has since confirmed the reservation.

Due to his vigorous screening process, Friedberg has not had to deal with any damages to his homes since renting through Airbnb.

He said he does not rely on the company’s Host Protection Insurance Program that will reimburse hosts up to $1 million.

Stories of Airbnb rentals gone awry have been in the news in the last few years. On New Year’s Eve 2016, there were several reports of Airbnb rentals with significant damage across the world, including in London, Montreal, and Oakland, Calif.

These cases, however, are relatively few in comparison to Airbnb’s total volume. In 2016, out of the more than 30 million trips booked, there were just 2,700 cases of significant property damage, according to Jeff Henry, press secretary for global trust and risk management for Airbnb.

“The overwhelming majority of Airbnb hosts and guests are good neighbors and respectful travelers, but when issues happen, we work to make things right,” Henry said in an email. “We have no tolerance for this type of behavior and we immediately ban guests from the platform. We want to do everything we can to help our hosts be good neighbors in the places they call home.”

Once the freshmen who hosted the party in Roslindale heard about the fee and potential trouble they could face, they made sure that their party would not turn down the same destructive path. They asked everyone to leave at midnight to avoid complaints from neighbors or run-ins with the police.

They also did not allow anyone except a few of their close friends to sleep over at the house. The next morning, they cleaned up and were out of the house by noon.

“I think this thing taught me that hosting a party is so much less fun than going to a party,” the freshman said.

“I grew up five years that night,” he added.

Despite these unexpected stresses of hosting their own party, the duo plans to host more parties through Airbnb in the future.

When asked if they would recommend for next year’s class to host Airbnb parties, the guys were frank.

“It’s a rush, just go for it,” one of them said. “You’re in college—do it.” n

Amelie Trieu / Heights Editor

In Last Meeting, SA Passes 3 Resolutions Mile makes four recommendations on sustainability.

Frazier sponsors two on gender identity, pronouns

By Heidi Dong

By Heidi Dong

Asst. News Editor

Asst. News Editor

The Undergraduate Government of Boston College’s Student Assembly, during its last meeting under the current UGBC leadership, voted unanimously to pass a resolution of four basic recommendations to move Boston College toward more environmentally sustainable practices. The recommendations came out of a semester-long effort by the Environmental Committee of UGBC in conjunction with the Environmental Caucus. The benchmarking document, and corresponding resolution, were sponsored by Anxhela Mile, MCAS ’17.

“This is not to discredit BC in any way, shape or form,” Mile said. “What this document is saying is that BC can and should be doing a lot more.”

Mile’s goal is to propel BC forward in the aspect of sustainability, and to help educate students on what they can do to help.

The first recommendation that the group presented is for BC to establish and implement goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Within this point, it is recommended that BC set a baseline year, identify a target year to reach the goal, and develop means to reach their goal.

The second recommendation is for BC to “investigate the possibility of establishing solar/renewable energy on campus to cut costs.”

“Maybe upfront, the cost might be a lot, but considering how much BC’s endowment is, it’s a matter of priority,” Mile said.

The next recommendation is to update the Office of Sustainability’s website to include more content, more programs, and more opportunities for students and faculty to get involved with sustainability initiatives.

The final point is education-focused, recommending that the University consider adding climate change or other environmental classes into the University’s core course requirements, and expand research facilities and opportunities for students to get involved. n

On Sunday night, the Undergraduate Government of Boston College’s Student Assembly passed two resolutions on the topic of gender identity—a resolution concerning transgender and gender nonconforming students, and a resolution concerning gender identity, gender expression, and the notice of nondiscrimination. Joshua Frazier, MCAS ’20, sponsored both resolutions.

The resolution concerning gender identity, gender expression, and the notice of nondiscrimination called on the University to include the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” in the University’s Notice of Nondiscrimination, which states that BC will comply with all state and federal laws prohibiting discrimination in employment and in educational programs on the basis of an individual’s race, color, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, etc.

The resolution uses the American Psychological Association’s definition of “gender identity,” which reads, “a person’s deeply felt, inherent sense of being a boy, a man, or male; a girl, a woman, or female; or an alternative gender ... that may or may not correspond to a person’s sex assigned at birth...”

“The Notice of Nondiscrimination is there for a reason, and we are leav-

ing very marginalized individuals out by not including them in our Notice of Nondiscrimination,” Frazier said. “And that doesn’t just account for students, it’s everyone here—staff, faculty, students, everyone.”

A resolution had been passed two years earlier calling for the same action—for “gender identity” and “gender expression” to be included in BC’s Notice of Nondiscrimination.

The resolution passed with one nay vote from Michael Proietta, MCAS ’19.

A resolution concerning transgender and gender nonconforming students called on the bodies within UGBC to use inclusive gender pronouns and neutral, transgender options in their identifying applications and documentations. The operative text also called on organizations, administrations, and offices around campus to adopt the use of inclusive gender pronouns and neutral, transgender options in their identif ying applications and documentation.

To clarify, Frazier noted that the simplest implementation of this resolution would be for applications and documents to include a fill-inthe-blank option for gender, and an individual’s preferred pronouns, in addition to the standard male and female options. It would, however, ultimately be up to individual offices and organizations on how they would implement this on their forms.

The resolution passed with nay votes from Raymond Mancini, CSOM ’19, and Proietta, and one abstention. n

SA Rejects Finance Pick Finance VP, from A1 could be a liability, she said. Patel thinks a better solution would be to improve communication between coordinators and division heads.

“I just think we need to be careful about understanding the way the system is currently set up before just changing it and trying to streamline it blindly, without seeing why the procedures are there,” she said.

Achampong and King will now consider other applicants, and the SA will vote

on their new choice just before the summer or once students are back in the fall.

Drew Boland, CSOM ’19, said he voted against Lee because he thinks the finance division should be more independent than Lee wanted. He also voted against Chris Kim, CSOM ’18, who was confirmed as the VP of student organizations.

“I think other candidates that applied for these respective positions were much more qualified and deserving than the ones that Akosua and Tt eventually chose,” he said. n

The Heights

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Monday, May 1, 2017

Award-Winning Senior Creates One Line of Code at a Time

By Meghan Dougherty For The Heights For Jesse Mu, MCAS ’17, motivation comes in the form of creation.

More specifically, he is motivated by sharing his creations, wanting to see them have an “immediate, measurable impact.” A computer science major and mathematics minor, Mu struggles against insignificance to make a change, both in the lives of other students through his mentorship, and through the effects of the technology he creates.

Having grown up in Nebraska, Mu found BC through his father, who is a professor at Creighton University.

He entered as a psychology major, specifically interested in language, as he learned Mandarin at home as a child, and Spanish in high school, but his focus changed once he took a computer science course in his first semester at BC. “I just kind of fell in love with it,” Mu said, “It was a really interesting blend of logic and math.”

Mu switched majors, and began trying to figure out how he could integrate his two interests. He realized that there was a lot of interesting innovation in the intersection of psychology, computer science, and language.

“A lot of cool things happening in the industry right now have to do with computers that can understand human language, process it, and speak it, like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Echo,” he said.

Mu wanted to do research during his sophomore year, but there weren’t any faculty members doing research in areas he was interested in—computer science, language, and psychology. Rather than settling on

an area he was less interested in, Mu took the advice of his mentors and looked off campus for a professor to research with. He ended up at MIT, where he worked with post-doctorate associate Joshua Hartshorne, researching language. Though Mu had traveled to Cambridge to find Hartshorne, both ended up back on the Heights, where they now work in the Language Learning Lab. “While I was working with him, he ended up accepting a faculty position at Boston College,” Mu said.

“So he ended up starting during my junior year at BC … It was really serendipitous.”

With this story, Mu applied for and won the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship, a research-based scholarship for students studying the natural sciences, mathematics, or engineering.

Each year, only 300 students nationwide are awarded the scholarship, and the average GPA for winners is in the 3.9-4.0 range. For Mu, winning the scholarship served as affirmation, helping him to realize that pursuing research was the right choice.

“When I received it, that was good verification that I was on the right career path, focusing on an academic path rather than software engineering,” he said.

Mu’s second award, the Churchill Scholarship, has helped define his path. Only a select 110 colleges can nominate students for the Churchill Scholarship, and each nominates two students per year. Winners of the Churchill Scholarship go on to research the physical and natural sciences, mathematics, and engineering at Cambridge University for a year in a master’s program. Mu will be studying advanced computer science in Churchill College next year, before

Julia Hopkins / Heights Editor

Jesse Mu won both the Goldwater and Churchill Scholarships, and plans to pursue a Ph.D program at Stanford University starting a five-year Ph.D. program at Stanford University.

Before he crosses the Atlantic to continue his studies in the United Kingdom, however, Mu will be spending the summer as an intern at Amazon, working on the Echo team—the perfect opportunity for him, since he would like to eventually return to a tech company.

“Echo is an example of where Amazon is leading a new generation of technology,” he said. “These kinds of companies are in unique positions where they have all these customers, all this data, and they’re able to make products that have a huge impact on people’s lives.”

It is this desire to have an impact on others that seems to drive Mu, yet it is clear that here, at BC, he is already doing so. For him, mentors, both faculty members and upperclassmen, have had an enormous impact on his college career and where he is heading, and he tries to pass on the same guidance to his younger peers.

“I recognize that I am a product of all these people who have helped me become who I am, so I try to pass that on as much as I can,” he said. “That includes meeting with people who might be considering doing things like I did freshman year: being a teaching assistant for a couple years, and being president of the Computer Science

Society.”

Even while so clearly affecting the lives and paths of younger students, even while looking forward to exciting opportunities ahead of him, Mu admits to some worries.

“In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m kind of stuck,” he said. “As one person, you can’t really do much.”

For Mu, to become unstuck means to create and to share, changing the lives of others, one line of code at a time.

“You can see the product of your work, and say ‘I made that,’ which is pretty awesome,” he said.

“I get really excited about the idea that you could write code and have it affect millions of users.” n

‘Quasi-Inaugural Edition’ of Philosophy Journal Launches

By DJ Recny Executive Assistant What do college students think about? Tom Lombardo, CSOM ’17, and his conglomerate of philosophyminded friends wanted to find out.

In Spring 2017, they published the fourth edition of Dianoia, Boston College’s only undergraduate philosophy journal.

Dianoia consists of seven essays, submitted by students from Boston and around the world. The first issue was published in 2012, but in 2014 interest in the journal died out.

After a three-year hiatus, Lombardo, the editor-in-chief, and his staff decided to revive the journal, publishing what Lombardo described as a “quasi-inaugural edition.”

Working from scratch presented its challenges, Lombardo said. First, they had to secure funding from the University to even get Dianoia off the ground.

Eileen Sweeney, a professor in the philosophy department provided the

initial idea of rekindling Dianoia, but it was up to managing editors Peter Klapes and Jordan Pino, MCAS ’19 and MCAS ’17, to go get the money.

Eventually, the Institute for Liberal Arts, a BC-based organization “dedicated to fostering innovative programs in the liberal arts,” provided the journal with the funding it needed.

After getting the money in the bank, Lombardo and his staff of 11 began work on the production of the journal.

Originally, the journal was only supposed to consist of essays from BC students, but Lombardo recognized a need for a Boston-wide publication that included the other esteemed institutions of higher learning in Boston, Cambridge, Medford, and the surrounding area.

“There was definitely a need for it,” Lombardo said. “Undergraduate philosophy doesn’t get a lot of focus.

But we live in the Mecca of Academia, and [we] figured that having these amazing schools sit around and have

nowhere for these students to publish was kind of awful.”

So the process began. The editors of Dianoia began soliciting submissions from across Boston, receiving submissions of every type from practically every place, making a special effort to get submissions from Catholic institutions across the nation. Ultimately, essays from Notre Dame, Boston University, Harvard, Middlebury, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute all made the cut, alongside an essay from BC. The finished product, however, conceals the long hours put into its production. Lombardo and Co. were responsible for sorting through every submission, some of which came from as far as the United Kingdom, going through four rounds of editing. They went through the process of making Dianoia available on the Open Journal System (OJS), cataloguing it as an ISSN, and sending copies to the Library of Congress to be permanently preserved.

“Our entire staff took on a lot of

responsibility,” Lombardo said. “Jordan, Peter, and myself have closed down Stokes Hall probably a dozen times this semester because of how late we were working.”

It is surprising, then, to see Lombardo str uggle for words when asked why he went through such an extensive process to produce Dianoia. At the end of the day, though, Lombardo said it came down to the fact that students needed an outlet to write their philosophical musings.

Dianoia provided a method through which students could propagate undergraduate philosophy research, which can be something that is difficult to do.

Lombardo said that the fact they got so many submissions from so many places is a testament to the need for such a journal in Boston.

“If there wasn’t a market for it, we wouldn’t be here,” Lombardo said.

“Philosophy can often be neglected by those outside philosophy circles, so it’s good that we were able to produce this.”

Not only is Lombardo proud of the production of Dianoia, but it helped him form new friendships and rekindle old ones.

The late nights and long hours took the small team of editors from acquaintances to close friends, one of whom Lombardo had known since he was Cub Scout in his hometown.

Now, he said, he has a close friend that he can grab a beer with when the stresses of the world back home pile up.

Equally as important as the close relationships he formed was the actual publication of Dianoia.

As of now, the journal stands as the only undergraduate philosophy publication in the city of Boston, something that Lombardo says is vital to understanding the foundations of our cultural heritage.

This understanding is why Dianoia is important—as a Jesuit institution it is BC’s responsibility to teach students how to think. Dianoia is simply the vehicle through which these students have done it. n

Embracing BC’s Traditions, but Adding to My Wish List Shannon Kelly The first time I stepped on campus as a student, I was already one step behind. I was a transfer going into sophomore year, repeating the same things over again: Hometown: New York. Major: Communication. Fun fact: Something about still not having a driver’s license.

Unlike many who transfer here, I was fortunate enough to know people from high school who could help me along. I learned facts that only applied to Boston College life. Main Gate was not the gate I went through to get to my dorm on move-in day—it was the one

by Gasson Hall, the building that everyone finds important. The Gate, rather, was a dorm on Lower Campus that was named Stayer in 2012, an official name that still hadn’t caught on with everyone.

White Mountain was the ice cream place over in the general direction

of St. Ignatius, I would tell my mom while I was on the phone, waving in the air at an imaginary map.

Besides compiling the mental coordinates for every building on campus, there were also social things with which to keep up. I signed up for everything at the Student Involvement Fair, chaining myself to listservs that would never remove my name. I began to feel out what the “signature events” at BC were. At my old school, there were certain things everyone attended—a cute all-male a cappella group’s concerts, a makeshift regatta on the campus lake, and the football games. Here, football was optional, Showdown was big, and the Marathon was king. I did the football thing, struggling through the 3-0 loss to Wake Forest and feeling a reprieve from the huge wave of people at the Red Bandanna Game. But besides that, I had pretty much done nothing else. All of the other sophomores had done everything else before, and they were just over it. So this year, I decided to do them myself.

I showed up to Newton Campus three weeks before classes started to train to be an RA. I lasted an entire

two weeks on the job—long enough to see my sister (Katie Kelly, CSOM ’20, for reference) walk down Linden Lane for Convocation, but not much else. My last day was Sept. 10. I haven’t been back to Newton since.

In October, I ran the Red Bandanna 5k with her, waking up too early on a Saturday morning to huff and puff around Cleveland Circle, finishing an impressive almost-dead last. I had prepared by running the Reservoir approximately three times and eating as much Panera mac and cheese as possible. The last part wasn’t part of my training, but it’s probably important to know.

I went to Showdown and cheered the whole time, all the way up at the top of Conte Forum. Despite my little knowledge of dance technique outside of musical theatre, I had plenty of opinions once the night was over—Masti held my heart, no matter what anyone said. A couple of weeks later, I went to Full Swing’s performance in the Murray Function Room and watched them precariously flip people around, with the help of BC Irish Dance and Synergy.

For one of my classes, I’ve had

to attend Bonn Studio and Main Stage productions. I saw Kingdom City, which was written by Sheri Wilner, the Rev. J Donald Monan, S.J. Professor in Theatre Arts. I tend to stick with more vibrant, songand-dancey musicals against serious plays, but it was thought-provoking in a way that made me feel like a sophisticated adult. This past Friday, I watched the theatre department put on Evita, which includes “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina,” probably one of the most iconic songs in musical theatre history. It was, coming from someone who misses the hell out of half-assed high school productions of “classic” musicals that have to be changed because of you know, modernity and common decency, amazing. And I think Andrew Lloyd Webber is a crazy person.

I didn’t succeed completely, however. I barely used my Gold Pass this year—mostly because I covered the sports I like going to for The Heights. Any of the points I may have accumulated from attending sports events went unused, since I didn’t go to the men’s Beanpot this year. I still haven’t even been present

on campus on a Marathon Monday, the biggest of BC traditions.

But then again, maybe it isn’t just about traditions. Maybe you’re just supposed to find things you love, and go to them, and not really care if you’re missing something supposedly life-changing. For example, I will not be going to Modstock—not because Louis the Child is made up of two men who are younger than me and already more successful than me and oh god what will I do—but because I have no interest in their music at all. I will be going to see The Book of Carney, though, because that nonsense seems so right up my alley. And most of my time is taken up by thoughts of receiving my very first, and likely only, mug for intramural softball, since dodgeball didn’t pan out as expected. It’s exactly the type of thing I never would have known would happen when I came to BC. But now that I’m here, I’m thrilled that it is.

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

THE HEIGHTS

MONDAY, MAY 1, 2017

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The Mursday Effect, Chapter 12: Here at the End of All Things 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.

After leaving Joanna to be imprisoned by mercenaries, I sat on my EvilAway Airplane and stared out the window. Normally, I would admire my chiseled jawline and piercing eyes in the reflection, but at the moment I was overcome by loss and self-hatred.

Out the window, I could see that we were passing the base where Regina and her cohort of malicious destruction had opened the deepest tear in reality at Well-Varied Tiaras.

Right about now, Boston College would be subsumed by the Mursday tear and the destruction would spread.

And right here in Nova Scotia, reality would fold in on itself and I would be left floating in the spectral dimension, having barely escaped (if what they had promised me was true).

Then a large suction cup slapped down against my window, causing some alarm within my bowels. The suction cup disappeared, and I saw a burly arm reach up above my window, then another, and then a face in between them, staring right at me. There was a man, wind blowing his hair wildly, a bitchin’ pair of aviators on his face, and a corncob pipe in his mouth.

Removing one suction-cupped hand, he dipped his finger into the burning ash in the pipe and smeared a message onto the window: “Let me in.”

I recognized him. Retrograde, the rogue director from BC. I paused, then breathed on the window and wrote a message into the condensation.

“I would, but we’re at a very high altitude and I fear the pressure would cause me to fly out of the emergency exit, resulting in death. Frankly, I’m astonished that you haven’t flown off of the plane by now. Those must be some truly X-tra X-tra strength suction cups you have. You should tell me where you bought them. I’m always in the market for good suction cups.

And also, by the by, if I were to let you in, I would most likely be punished by the guards patrolling the airplane as we speak. They are armed and would have few qualms shooting us both.”

He read this message in the window and then wrote one back: “Come on, man.”

Normally, I would

have pulled the sliding plastic cover over the window and been done with it, but I was still overwhelmed with sadness, and felt the strange urge to not be a smarmy anus of a human being.

I stood up and walked to the back of the plane. A mercenary stopped me as I reached the emergency exit.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“URINATION,” I said, totally keeping my cool in the tense situation.

He nodded and walked past me. At which point, overcome with exultation at my successful attempt to bamboozle the guard, I screamed, “I’M ACTUALLY NOT GOING TO URINATE, GOOD SIR. I’M GOING TO OPEN THE EMERGENCY EXIT. HA HA HA.” And I flung open the emergency exit, but not before securing a strong grip around the nearest seat with my notoriously muscular forearms. Wind whipped through the cabin, the force of the suction sending mercenaries flying out into the night alongside copies of EvilAir Magazine. Retrograde managed to suction cup his way over, get into the plane, and shut the door behind him.

I stepped forward.

“Retrograde,” I said. “My timeline in this adventure has been running parallel to yours. It is good to finally meet you.”

Retrograde paused.

“Did you pee yourself?” he said.

“What’s the next step?” I said.

“What heroics shall we perform?”

Retrograde looked out the window and took a long pull on his pipe.

“We’re going to save the world.” *** From what I’ve been told, while I was engaged in heroic battle in the air, Joanna was sitting in the homegoods warehouse discussing the finer points of nautical transportation with a guard.

“The finer points of nautical transportation,” Joanna said. “Let us discuss them.”

But it was a ruse. The guard stepped into her cell, intrigued by the promise of titillating discussion, and she chopped his neck in a fashion commonly referred to as karate. He crumpled to the floor and she slipped out of the warehouse and off into the night.

It just so happened that as Joanna ran out of the front doors of the

abysmally guarded prisoner facility, one Regina and one Athena were both leaving a different building and happened to be walking toward the facility to pick up a small van to drive her to her escape pod.

Joanna ducked behind a conveniently placed crate of papayas and listened to their discussion.

“Did you kill those annoying BC kids?” Athena said. “God, I hate teaching there.”

“No,” Regina said. “I’m just going to let the tear in reality, located only a few short miles away in the middle of Cinematic Finish Field, suck them in.”

“Solid plan. Let’s get out of here.”

“Yes, let us indeed get out of here.

Because even if someone manages to stop our evil plan, we will still have escaped and be lurking in the wings ready to strike again in the future.

You can get away from us for a while, but we will always be somewhere out there, constantly haunting the back of your mind and reminding you of the futility of your every waking moment.”

“Much like death.”

“Yes, exactly like death.”

“We are a metaphor for death.”

“Isn’t that fun?”

And with that they both entered a large van, drove away, and were never seen again.

Joanna stepped out from behind the crate of papaya and took off running for Well-Varied Tiaras. *** “I just feel like I put myself out there, and like, she just didn’t even care,” George said as Darren held him.

“Bro, look at me,” Darren said.

“Like, you’re going to be fine. You’re going to get over her, and like, you’ll be even better. She doesn’t deserve you.”

“But my heart, Darren. It hurts so bad.”

“I know, man. I know.”

“I just didn’t want to kiss him,” Bridget said from across the room, throwing her hands up in exhaustion.

“I thought we had something real,” George wailed.

Bridget turned away, shaking her head.

“And everything isn’t going to be fine,” Bridget yelled back at them. “The world’s going to end.”

“Just like you ended our love,” George hollered.

At which point, the front door burst open. Joanna Oxford came sprinting in, slid to a halt in the center of the room, looked at each of the students dramatically and took a deep breath.

“Follow me, kids,” she said. *** “Joanna just sent me a text with a little pin drop thing where the tear in reality is,” I said.

“I didn’t know you could do that on your phone.”

“That a new iPhone?” Retrograde said.

“Yeah, I just got it.”

“Nice.”

“It really is. Have you ever tried adding effects to messages?”

“No, how’s that work?”

“This is so cool. Let me show you.”

But the conversation had to be postponed, as I showed Retrograde where the tear in reality was and he got all stoic again. He ran into the back and then came back with two

parachutes. He shoved one at me and took the other.

Before I could protest, he strapped the parachute around my back and kicked me out the emergency exit. *** “And btw, you’re the worst,” Joanna typed. “But if you can plug up the tear, please do, because otherwise we all die. I’m going to try to get some kids as far away as possible, so that my last moments aren’t meaningless.”

Joanna marshalled the four school chums outside and they took off romping through the fens and spinneys of Nova Scotia, subtly referencing Frasier as they went. *** I landed gracefully on my posterior in the middle of a field.

Retrograde landed seconds later, ran over, and took my phone.

“Half a mile east,” he said. “Let’s go.”

We took off running, just as Joanna and her compatriots were a few miles in the other direction. Soon, we had reached Cinematic Finish Field, where an unnatural blue glow emanated from the middle of an otherwise abandoned field.

“No guards?” I said.

“They must have realized what’s happening here,” Retrograde said, before sprinting straight for the heart of the tear.

I ran after him.

“Wait,” I screamed. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“Yes there is,” he said. “I can pull it shut.”

“What? That makes very little sense.”

“It’s time for the sacrifice.”

“No, Retrograde.”

“Tell Amanda I love her.”

“You have a love interest? I always thought you were the strong, silent guy with a shady past, like some sort of tragedy or something.”

But it was too late. He ran straight for the glow. I could see the pit in the ground, but went no closer. The sun was setting in the distance, for dramatic effect, as Retrograde ran straight for the pit and jumped in.

Everything was silent for a second.

Then a loud, strained yell.

“Retrograde,” I said.

The yell got louder, and then suddenly I heard it different. He wasn’t yelling. He was laughing.

“I got it,” he screamed.

And the light disappeared.

Then nothing.

My heart was pounding. I checked the time. The world should be ending soon.

A rumble shook the ground. Suddenly bright light filled the sky and a crack ripped through earth. I flew into the air, tumbling for miles through the sky, lifted on an unnatural wave.

Somewhere below the earth, Retrograde had shut the tear, and now the seismic distress was ripping through the earth. But at least it wasn’t ripping through reality. *** Miles away Joanna fell to the ground as the earth shook. She grabbed the students and huddled together.

The shaking stopped minutes later.

And the world still stood. *** “Everyone break into groups and just quickly discuss whether you think globalization is an effective means of promoting human rights norms,” the professor said.

Bridget let out a long and slow breath through her nostrils. She low-

ered her head to the table.

“Group discussion,” George said.

“Cool, cool. I’m liking this class already.”

“So am I, man,” Darren said. “It’s like, not English, but still like, learning.”

“You are so right.”

“God, we click on so many levels.”

Bridget looked to her left at George and her right at Darren. Six months ago, she had made it back from Nova Scotia bruised but alive, had spent the summer recovering from her ordeal, had faced the biggest spiritual crisis of her entire life, questioned everything she had ever believed and her entire path in life, pushed through a hopelessness so deep she never thought she would see the end of it, and somehow she ended up back in Gasson Hall with these two.

“So, human rights,” Darren said.

“Like, so as humans, like, we have, like, rights.”

“For sure,” George said. “Exactly.

Like, if we hadn’t saved the world, no one would have those rights.”

“You should bring that up. Raise your hand, dude. She’ll be so impressed about the world-saving.”

Bridget sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. For a few seconds, which she would later deny ever occurred, she found herself smiling. *** In my tank top and boxer shorts, I stumbled through the farmhouse and over to the front door.

“Bill, I already told you that squirrel was on my property, and I’m entitled to do with it what I will,” I yelled.

But when I opened the door, I saw a face I hadn’t seen in half a year.

“Tim,” Joanna said. “Hello.”

“Hi,” I said.

We stared at each other for a few seconds.

“I heard you saved those kids’ lives,” I said.

“The building they were in collapsed during the quake,” she said. “So I guess I did.”

“Nice.”

“And you were there when Retrograde saved us all?”

“Nearby.”

“Cool.” “ … why are you here?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Is it to forgive me?”

“No.” “Okay. You want a croissant?” “ … I’ll take a croissant.”

So we ate croissants.

Afterward, she left, stole my car from the driveway, and I haven’t seen her since. I suppose I should still be angry but I’m not. I’ve read her chapters of our tale, and it’s almost as though she’s communicating with me.

Maybe someday, we’ll meet up again and report more stories, have more adventures, but for now it’s just me and my farmhouse.

It gets lonely out here at night, after days on days of speaking to no one, of complete isolation, but it’s what has to happen after everything I’ve done. Someday, I’ll be redeemed for betraying the only person who cared about me. I know that now. And until then, I think it’s time to reflect on the Mursday happenings, to look up at the sky and know the fragility of the universe in these late days of human existence.

Also, to eat muffins. Because they are what keep a sad sack like Rutherford Shireton IV going these days.

THE HEIGHTS

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EDITORIALS

QUOTE OF THE DAY

BC Should Incorporate Career Development Into Arts Fest Arts Fest 2017 was a resounding success. The three-day showcase of the artistic talents of the Boston College undergraduate student body was well advertised with ample flyers, pamphlets, large easels, and other digital elements that reflected the artistic appeal of the festival itself. This well-executed promotion was integral to the success of the event and is something that the arts department should look to replicate in the future.

While Arts Fest was certainly successful, there are still ways in which the festival could be improved. In particular, the arts department should expand the event to make it a career-building and networking opportunity for students interested in careers in the arts and media, similar to the Career Center’s annual Career Night for the Arts. This could be facilitated in multiple ways through a partnership with the Career Center.

MONDAY, MAY 1, 2017

Arts Fest puts the best that the arts community has to offer on display. It is a prime opportunity for recruiters and alumni from relevant industries to come to the University and assess potential candidates for hire. There is perhaps no better way for creative students to demonstrate what they have to offer employers than an event that showcases their work such as Arts Fest.

In a similar vein, Arts Fest represents a way for alumni in the arts and media to promote their personal work as well. By coming back and speaking to students about their careers and struggles in industries such as television, music, film, and fashion, these alumni will gain a new audience for their work and benefit by giving back to the BC community.

Events at Arts Fest this year demonstrated the potential of this idea. The Industry Insider Panel featured prominent

“When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”

- Jonathan Swift

BC alumni in the television industry.

Tracey Wigfield, BC ’05, who recently launched a new sitcom called Great News, and Philip Gilpin, Jr., BC ’03, who is the executive director of the Independent Television Festival (ITVFest) were among those featured on the panel. BC has a growing number of alumni in industries such as television that could potentially teach current students how to get their feet in the door.

It is no secret that the University offers extensive opportunities for students considering careers in business and finance to meet with potential employers and alumni, such as visits to campus by recruiters from Fortune 500 companies.

There are many students at BC that want to pursue careers in the arts and media industries as well, and the University should seek to increase the opportunities available for these students to do so.

GASSON GOOFS

BY PABLO CARDENAL

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The Heights

Monday, May 1, 2017

A7

Finding Inspiration in Nonprofit Work Political

Karen Choi Hello, My Old Friend - When I told my friends and family that I would be going to school in Massachusetts, one of the first things everyone said to me was “Oh, it’s going to be cold,” as if I hadn’t considered the geography of the place where I would be spending the next four years when making my decision. I’ve always liked the cold better than the heat, primarily because you can always put on an extra sweater or jacket if the weather becomes freezing.

When it’s boiling hot, however, there are only so many layers you can shed to become more comfortable before you get arrested for public nudity. Despite my greater affinity for the cold weather, I have to say that the recent warm spell has been gloriously welcomed in my mind. I’ll never enjoy becoming sweaty on my way to class, or feeling dehydrated after sitting outside for an hour, but this newfound sunshine means a lot more than just shorts and tanktops. It’s the first sign of the end, the signal that everything is coming to a close. It’s lunch outside with all of your best friends that you’ve made throughout this year. It’s a warm breeze that calms you down as the stress of finals begins to slowly creep into your mind. It’s the surreal feeling of running around the Reservoir as the sun goes down, looking up at Gasson, and remembering why you came here in the first place.

You Can Do It - This is just going to be a message for every Boston College Eagle out there. Finals will forever live in infamy for the throw up-inducing anxiety, unrelenting tears, and week-long caffeine addictions that it is responsible for, but despair not. The light is bright at the end of the tunnel, and there is no exam or paper so great or insurmountable that will keep you from making it out the other side. Put your head down, stay focused, and know that you will get through this, and it will be glorious.

As I prepare to leave Boston College for the summer, I realize that the list of things I will miss about this school has grown each day—even though I will only be 20 minutes away during break.

I will miss Harmony Bowls from Eagle’s Nest, one of the only things for which I will wait in an enormous line. It’ll be strange not walking past Gasson on the way to class and fighting the urge to Snapchat that beaut. I’ll long for the English classes that have helped me develop as a writer. I’ll even miss Roncalli and all the times its proximity to my classes afforded me extra minutes of sleep. Most of all, I’ll miss my friends who have made my experience here all the more worthwhile. Interning in Boston this semester has already reserved a special place of nostalgia and appreciation on my list, even though I still have a week left in it.

I started working at GrubStreet at the beginning of January, literally the day after New Year’s, because I was that excited to start working there. And no, GrubStreet is not a restaurant. It is a nonprofit creative writing center that serves as a supportive community for teen and adult writers. It’s a hidden gem along Boylston Street, camouflaged within the strip of buildings that make up Emerson College’s campus. It shares a building with Steinway & Sons Pianos, and its fifth floor nook comes alive every evening with aspiring writers, piano music, opera singing, and the view of the electric glow of the Boston skyline past the Common.

It’s really the simple things that make me appreciate how lucky I am to work there, such as watching the sunset as I’m working, having constant access to a Keurig, and playing with an employee’s dog. As my time at GrubStreet is winding down, I want to reflect on the things that I’ve learned from working at a nonprofit that have made this semester the most worthwhile one I have experienced at BC. Through this internship, I have met so

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students came alive during these open mics.

Their voices ached with the pain they felt from the oppression of gender norms or the discrimination they faced due to the color of their skin. They shook with joy and relief as their fellow YAWPers snapped their fingers as they poured their souls into their poetry.

I’ve learned that the so-called “angsty teenager” is not an annoying trope—rather, it is an individual who deeply feels the injustices of the world and strives to make sense of them.

The most important thing that I’ve learned at GrubStreet is that you can be inspired by anyone. I learned about passion from the shy teenage girl who nervously trekked to the open-mic podium to deliver an amazing poem about standing up for what she believed in. I learned about dedication from a phone call with a woman who was looking for a consultation and could not stop talking about a picture book that she has been toiling over for years. I learned about kindness from the Youth Programs Manager who has been nothing but patient and earnest with me.

Nonprofit work is not always glamorous, but it makes you keenly aware and appreciative of the little things. Working at GrubStreet has made me appreciate the city in which I’ve spent the last 19 years of my life that much more. Strangely enough, working at this company has made me much more appreciative of BC as well.

I don’t always return from work in high spirits. Sometimes, my days absolutely suck.

The printer jams 50 times in an hour. An angry pizza place worker yells at me through the phone because he thinks I’m calling from GrubHub. Yet, whenever I return to school, I’m comforted by the fact that I can tell my roommate and friends everything I had gone through that day.

Most of all, working at GrubStreet has made me love people and the stories they have to share. Looking back at this semester, I wouldn’t trade anything for the often unglamorous, unpaid, but completely worthwhile experience of working at a nonprofit organization.

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

Authoritarianism in Vogue

Ryan Duffy

Misheard Lyrics - *NSYNC was a group that helped define a generation. While his time with the band certainly wasn’t his prime, pop superstar Justin Timberlake will always partly be remembered for his curly-hair-boy-band days. I discovered recently, however, that I have been entirely misappropriating one of the group’s songs. Around this time every year, as April begins to fade and May inevitably follows, I like to listen to “It’s Gonna Be May,” you know, to properly welcome in the new month. Only, I’m somewhat of an idiot, and that isn’t what the song is called at all. Upon realizing that the song is actually called “It’s Gonna Be Me,” my world felt like it had been flipped upside down. My celebratory song for the beginning of summer was not at all what I thought it to be. I had been living a lie, and enjoying it too, thinking *NSYNC was just as excited as me for school to be over. Alas, no, my beloved ballad is just another song about wanting to be with a girl. It’s still a great song, but I think I need to get my ears checked.

many different people, which bolstered the idea that nonprofits are founded on a sense of community. I felt constantly empowered as an intern because Grubstreet’s culture understands that each person’s contribution is invaluable. I was trusted with responsibilities that were designed to not only further our organization’s mission, but also to challenge me. I loved the sense of sincerity that dominated GrubStreet’s atmosphere. Even the smallest tasks I performed—going grocery shopping or printing out instructor materials—were met with genuine appreciation.

I also felt that my higher-ups and fellow interns took the time to get to know me as an individual. Getting to meet like-minded individuals, people who are passionate about literature and writing, people who wanted to know what my favorite book was, people who wanted to know what I was learning when I was not at GrubStreet, made me feel welcomed and supported at work. The people I worked with were generally older than me, even the interns, and being able to find friends and mentors among them allowed me to grow, learn from my mistakes, and practice collaborating with others.

My title at GrubStreet is “Young Adult Writers Program Intern” or “YAWP Intern,” which means that I primarily work with teens. Sometimes the job is as unglamorous as the job title itself. I’ve had to lug bags of groceries from Downtown Crossing back to work in preparation for our Saturday events for teens. I’ve had to scour the Internet for gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan pizza delivery options to feed 40 hungry teenagers.

I’ve had the heartbreaking task of sending rejection letters to the many talented teens who applied to our Fellowship program.

Yet going to the teen events was one of those things that never failed to take my breath away. At the end of each event, we would hold an open mic for the teens to share anything they have been working on in their YAWP classes or in their spare time. I saw that these teens cared deeply about the issues in today’s world, and they channeled this passion through their poetry, prose, and voices.

I remember greeting the students when they first entered the building, feeling as if I had said something wrong when they seemed to shrink away from me. But these

We’re seeing it online, in our inboxes, at the newsstands, and on the nightly news, yet it doesn’t seem like it has hit home yet: all across the world, illiberalism and authoritarianism are on the rise while democracy and liberalism are on their way out. We are living in a time when the world is bullish on strong men and shiny new armaments and shorting multilateralism and cooperation.

As the world chafes at the atrocities and absurdities of the most extreme and dynastic of dictators, a deeper, more troublesome undercurrent seems to be flying under the radar. Sure, the likes of the Kim Jong-Un and Bashar al-Assad regimes in North Korea and Syria serve as the most ready examples of unrepresentative and unaccountable government, and bring the worst to mind when we contemplate their perils and pitfalls. But this theme is taking root far beyond the Korean Peninsula or the Levant.

Let’s start with the obvious—the known knowns. There are the proud monarchies like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States, countries which the United States considers among its closest allies in th e Middle East. In China, autocracy has been a mainstay since the state’s inception. There are also leaders that pay lip service to a veneer of democracy, such as Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt. Al-Sisi’s Egypt is far from a tolerant, liberal, or democratic state.

Then there is president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, who has undertaken nothing short of a full-on power grab. He has systematically dismantled political opposition, strong-armed the free press, purged the government of anybody suspected of being associated with the movement of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, and wiped away the entire tradition of democratic norms in Turkey. His

ploy for constitutional reform, which has significantly strengthened his powers, is the textbook definition of mission creep.

Erdoğan has taken a page out of Vladimir Putin’s playbook. He is ruling over his people with an iron fist and squashing out dissenters before they can do so much as lift a finger in protest to good-ole Sovietstyle totalitarianism. In addition to Big Brother at home, Putin is posturing abroad.

He’s done his best to establish client states on Russia’s periphery, meddled in the U.S. election, rolled tanks and shuttled troops into the Crimean peninsula of sovereign Ukraine, and possibly supplied separatists with a missile that downed Malaysian Airlines Flight 17.

In recent weeks, protests in Venezuela have shed light on the illegitimacy—and inadequacy—of South America’s most notorious dictator, Nicolás Maduro. This is a man that has presided over a country that was once the most prosperous in the continent, but now is in dire straits. What once was a revolutionary movement with Hugo Chávez is now a defunct, dictatorial, and repressive left-wing regime holding onto its power as a lifeline in Caracas. Very senior officials in the administration are kingpins in the narco trade, showing how bad things really are.

There are more of these types scattered around the world. In the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte has presided over a spate of extrajudicial—and objectively horrific—killings. In Africa, dictators Robert Mugabe and Paul Kagame with 30- and 17-year rules in Zimbabwe and Rwanda, respectively, cling to power.

And fresher faces such as Joseph Kabila in the “Democratic” Republic of Congo refuse to step down, despite him having reached the end of his constitutional twoterm limit last year. Many African countries under dictatorial rule are fragile, having just recovered from or remaining in the midst of devastating civil wars and stifling poverty.

These men, and yes they are all men, have numerous traits in common. They are jingoists and chauvinists, reliant on chicanery and demagoguery, and big on machis-

mo while short on respect for human rights or democracy. In their countries, they have loyalist armies and militias, often with the judiciary in tow and kangaroo courts to boot. They wield power in what appears to be pre-modern arrangements of power, to varying degrees of stability and legitimacy.

In cases like Erdoğan’s, the leader has the backing of his country, at least on paper, whereas autocrats like Kabila are patently illegal in their insistence to continue ruling.

In most instances, these men have ripped apart the fabric that keeps a state intact.

The rise of illiberalism is nothing new, but its resurgence is a tour de force, and a scary one at that. And as President Donald Trump has just received his 100-day report card, we would be wise to consider his similarities with the aforementioned cohort. He shares with these men a disdain for the free press, uses his office to enhance his personal wealth, and is off-puttingly vain in character.

The U.S. is not similar to most of these countries. We still have a full-fledged democracy with an independent judiciary and legislature, civilian control of the military, a healthy Constitution, and democratic norms at its root.

That being said, it bears mentioning that we were recently downgraded from “full” to “flawed” democracy by the Economist Intelligence Unit, putting us in the company of Poland, Mongolia, and Italy. I’d be remiss to not note that this is not due to Trump, as the report notes that “Popular trust in government, elected representatives and political parties has fallen to extremely low levels in the U.S ... [a result of] a long-term trend.”

But this unsettling development—coupled with Trump’s proclivity for pseudodictatorial rule and fondness for many of the dictators mentioned above—is not good. With the salvoes against democracy firing in America and Europe, this trend is a bad sign, and it should keep us on our toes.

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

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

Education

Kelsey Connors At Boston College, we often refer to the “BC Bubble,” an invisible barrier that keeps us mentally focused on and concerned with day-to-day life on our suburban campus. Until recently, I had thought this phenomenon was only harmful in that it could make us focus excessively on college social life and academia, disconnecting us from further-reaching problems. Following a recent experience on campus, however, I came to see that the “BC Bubble” has a political facet as well, and it may be preventing students from seeing the full picture of American politics.

On April 19, professor and author Christina Hoff Sommers came to campus to speak on modern feminism. Her lecture was titled, “What Has Gone Wrong With Feminism.” I was intrigued by what I thought would be a critique on more controversial feminist movements like “Free the Nipple” or Slut Walks, so I attended the lecture with a friend.

I didn’t know until Sommers began to speak that she would actually argue against many of the ideas that we on this campus simply consider to be commonly held beliefs. Sommers disagreed with many aspects of modern feminism and argued for a return to the “equity feminism” of Mary Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She believed in only one feminism and argued that by acknowledging multiple feminisms, we are actually causing division and creating a culture where we have to walk on eggshells to avoid insulting one another. Sommers emphasized that intersectionality does more harm than good and that, in the United States, a patriarchy does not exist.

I felt myself growing both angry and uncomfortable as I listened to her speak.

My friends and I soon realized that we were in a room where nearly all of the other students seemed to concur with her beliefs. For the first time, perhaps ever on BC’s campus, I held a minority opinion.

All at once it was frustrating and upsetting, enlightening and eye opening.

During the Q&A period, I decided to speak up and ask a question, despite having the unpopular opinion and experiencing, for the moment, some anger and annoyance. I questioned Sommers about her failure to acknowledge people’s inherent disadvantages. My tone was obvious—her beliefs upset me. I received my share of hostility from the crowd once I made my opinion known. At the time, I didn’t regret having spoken up, but looking back, I wish I had asked something different and attempted to better understand her perspective rather than argue it.

When it comes to politics, people tend to be very set in their beliefs, so arguing as if I could change the minds of anyone in that room was an unreasonable goal. In the moment though, my instinct was to call out a flaw I saw in her argument and to try to convince others of this flaw. In retrospect, I should have known that this was an unproductive aim.

Although our first instincts are to argue, dismiss, or ignore the solutions to political problems lie in listening, and asking questions with the goal of gaining a fuller understanding.

The campus culture at BC and at many other liberal arts universities tends to be dominated by left-wing political ideals.

A walk around campus the day following Donald Trump’s election was significant proof of this. Students were hugging and crying, and the atmosphere was gloomy.

Events and lectures on campus can offer multiple political perspectives. As students surrounded constantly by liberal ideology, it is important for us to take advantage of opportunities that can help us become more politically informed and better versed in all angles of an argument.

Listening to the other side rather than simply rejecting it or trying to argue against it can be difficult for people who are emotionally invested in or passionate about their beliefs. But this type of aggression is what has fueled and continues to fuel the intensely bipartisan national atmosphere. In the end, we all want many of the same things for our country: safety, prosperity, and freedom. Listening to one another will help us get there.

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

The Heights

A8

Monday, May 1, 2017

Wells Delivers Yearly Campus Well-Wishes The communication prof. hunts down BC’s heroes to pass on “thanks” from her students.

By Chris Russo Assoc. News Editor Late in the spring semester, Celeste Wells hunts down Boston College faculty and staff across campus, delivering thank you notes from over 100 of her students.

As the academic year winds down, Wells takes a half hour out of her class time.

She places stacks of colored stationery in piles on the table at the front of the lecture hall. People tilt their heads and murmur to each other about what all of this could be. She tells everyone to come down and grab a card and an envelope, making sure to say that the colors don’t have to match.

Students shuffle down and grab them, and Wells tells them they can take more than just one.

“I ask the students to think about the people they have never thanked at BC but that have played a real and meaningful role in making their day-to-day experiences positive, better, or happy,” Wells said.

Students write thank you notes on the notecards, and Wells delivers them to people across campus. Those included are often dining staff, custodians, and other administrators.

Delivering the cards is easy when a student knows the person’s name, but proves to be more difficult when they don’t. Wells sees the process as a “Sherlock Holmes adventure,” as she uses the limited information provided by the student and pieces together the puzzle to get the card delivered.

“Those cards are harder but I tend to find everyone (with the great help of many people here at BC) eventually and always feel victorious when I do,” she said.

Wells is an associate professor of the practice and the director of the honors program in the communication department. Along with Rhetorical Tradition, she teaches Research Methods, Popular Music and Identity, Argumentation Theory, and Introduction to Honors.

When she is not in the classroom, Wells is knee-deep in research, which focuses on how individual interactions and messaging choices impact the lived experiences of people in the world. She does this at an organizational level, looking at experiences of nation, race, and gender.

She has also published works about how educators can teach complex communicative topics in order for students to better understand the importance of issues in society. For example, every semester, Wells invites a former student, Danny DeLeon, BC ’15, to come to class and perform his spoken-word poetry so students can better understand citizen oration and its importance in today’s world.

Wells is currently studying how undergraduate thesis research benefits communication majors after graduation, and

recently sent a piece out for review for publication.

“I have been enjoying this research because I am excited about understanding more deeply how we can better prepare students for their personal, professional, and scholarly lives,” she said in an email.

Although she enjoys conducting research, Wells thrives in the classroom setting. Even at the end of the semester, Wells keeps her same upbeat attitude with her introductory classes comprised mostly of tired freshmen and sophomores.

“How is everyone?” Wells asked last Thursday, as she casually sat on a table at the front of the lecture hall, swinging her legs back and forth.

Groggy-eyed students murmured to each other as they began to settle into class.

“Good?” she asked, pushing for a response.

Wells will repeat this question at the beginning of each class until she gets some sort of confirmation that her students are okay. If she does not get a verbal “yes,” she will ask students to nod their heads.

“Use your nonverbals!” she exclaimed, as students slightly nodded their heads, indicating they were indeed all right.

The “How are you?” question, which is often tossed around each day between students walking across campus, may have lost its meaning to some. But Wells really means it. She truly cares about her students’ well-being, both in and out of the classroom.

As students filed into the classroom in Higgins 300, Wells played music from a Pandora station. Typically, artists like The Chainsmokers or Maroon 5 are playing, but on that day, she chose classic rock.

Wells paced back and forth across the room, smiling and greeting students that entered. She gave one student a high-five after he turned in his paper.

She then pointed to a student in the crowd.

“Hey—are you feeling better?” she said, giving the student a thumbs-up.

Somehow, in a room of over 80 students, Wells has managed to create a small, personal environment in which she can consistently engage one-on-one with her students. She often shares personal anecdotes with her students—some that make them laugh, and others that make them reflect on their lives and think about their futures.

While some professors strictly stick to the material, Wells goes the extra mile, sharing pieces of herself with the class that many others would hesitate to tell.

Wells does not have a typical story of completing her undergraduate education.

In fact, her path is not one that most people would assume a professor would take.

After attending the University of Utah

Photo courtesy of celeste wells

Despite her serious expression above, Wells is all smiles in class, high-fiving and encouraging students as they enter her room. for one year, she decided to take a break from school and work instead.

“I was having a really hard time linking the practicality of my education with the reality of needing to pay the bills,” she said.

After working as a secretary and administrative assistant for a couple years, Wells decided that she wanted a different path for her life, one in which she could garner more respect. She decided to return to the University of Utah and earned her bachelor’s degree in speech communication and gender studies in 2000.

“Taking time off school will be good for some people and it won’t for others,” she said. “There’s no predictable way to determine which path is better suited for any individual other than that individual themselves.”

Wells said she shares stories like this with her students because humans are storytelling beings that enjoy listening to the anecdotes of others. She often shares stories that link to the topics she discusses in class so that when a student leaves the classroom, he or she will remember the story and associate it with the lesson she taught.

She also thinks it’s important for students to know that faculty are no different from them. This is why she casually sits in front of the room at the beginning of each class and high-fives students who walk in.

“We all face the same challenges in life—the only advantage that faculty have over students is, because of our differences in age, we have likely already faced the challenges that our students are experiencing,” she said.

This is important, Wells said, because faculty can offer insight or provide support to students based on their experience, even if it is just in the form of a story.

Besides playing music and sharing stories to make students feel more comfortable in the classroom, Wells creates activities for students to get to know each other better.

On the first day of class, as students whip out their notebooks preparing to

furiously take notes, Wells asks them to put their notebooks away. She declares that the class will play a game of “ultimate rock-paper-scissors,” in which students compete against each other, and, if they win, move on to face another student. The one rule of the game is to introduce yourself to your opponent. If you lose against your opponent, you must cheer on the person as he or she advances.

Students run around the room, erupting in laughter and loud conversation, as they compete to be the champion of ultimate rock-paper-scissors. Several small groups become a few larger groups with students cheering each other on. At the end of the game, two people face each other with massive crowds cheering on each of their names.

Mid-semester, Wells also holds an activity in which she has students shake hands with other students in class to introduce themselves. She holds this activity because she sees a discomfort in young people around making eye contact and person-toperson touch. She said it’s a skill that people are not being taught anymore.

“I think that today, more than ever, it is important for young people, particularly college students, to get comfortable with interpersonal communication,” she said. “In college, we’re not only educating you to be critical thinkers and reflective ethical people, but we’re also teaching you how to exist in the world with others successfully.”

Wells said that shaking hands is one of the first ways to bring this conversation to the surface. She wants students to see how they feel more at ease after shaking hands with someone. At the end of the class, each student has to walk up to Wells, look her in the eye, and shake her hand. She smiles at each student, gives them a firm handshake, and tells them to have a great rest of their day.

Wells puts in this extra effort to make the classroom setting more enjoyable. She hopes that students will see the people around them as potential friends instead

of absolute strangers. She also thinks that students who know each other and are excited for class come more willing to learn, communicate, and succeed.

Before each exam, Wells has her students look her in the eye and recite a selfaffirmation, which usually goes, “Professor Wells, I am awesome, and I am going to rock this exam,” or, “Professor Wells, I look great today, and I am going to do great on this exam.”

“I know students come into all exams with lower self-confidence than they do on a normal day,” she said. “A lot of how you enter an exam is how you perform on an exam. It’s not always about what you know, but your confidence in the moment of having to display what you know.”

She has students recite this self-affirmation so that they can relax, laugh a bit, and feel better going into the test. Students will be less likely to second-guess themselves during the exam as well, she said. She is extremely invested in student success and will do anything to see them succeed.

When asked what advice she would give to a student, she said she would tell them to stop fighting their days. Both students and adults wake up and look at their day like it’s a battle that has to be survived, she said. This outlook on life makes it seem less like “life” and more like combat.

She wants college students to stop looking at their lives as a series of classes, homework, and social interactions that they have to fight through. Instead, they should think about what they have to look forward to each day.

“Remember, this is the only life you have, so trying to experience it instead of just survive it is a reasonable goal,” she said in an email.

Wells will launch her thank you note project this week. Although she may not walk around with a pipe and magnifying glass like Holmes, her investigative work of delivering the thank you notes will spread a message of gratitude to dozens of BC faculty and staff on campus. n

With Fulbright, Bednarz to Conduct Research in Armenia Senior to study the political side of the Transect Project Bernadette Darcy Heights Staff As a young girl growing up in small town Pennsylvania, Natasha Bednarz, MCAS ’17, investigated all things in her path. She explored the outdoors, collected rocks, and read for hours nonstop. Now, at Boston College, Bednarz has a Fulbright Scholarship to her name. After graduation, she will combine her lifelong scientific sensibilities, love of nature, and career goals into a highcaliber research project in the Caucasus region of Armenia.

The Fulbright Program is a highly-competitive American scholarship program, which consists of merit-based grants for the international and educational exchange of students, scholars, teachers, and professionals. As a part of one of the most prestigious programs in the world, Fulbright scholars study, conduct research, and exercise their academic talents while abroad.

Bednarz, a geology major and physics minor, applied for a Fulbright Scholarship with several geological research experiences under her belt. Throughout the summer before her sophomore year at BC, she interned at the Jemez Pueblo Natural Resources Department in New Mexico. Bednarz aided earth scientists in water and sediment sam-

pling, air quality testing, and data logging and processing. Moreover, she met with Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists and Pueblo representatives regarding local earth science initiatives.

“The experiences I had during the summer showed me the intimate intersection between humans and the Earth,” Bednarz said.

The following summer, she traveled to Guatemala to work with seismologists, volcanologists, and geophysicists in field work, volcanic observation, and in-field ash sampling. The most impactful experience Bednarz had that summer was in an isolated Mayan village located on the side of a volcano.

About three years before, the village had been decimated by a volcanic eruption—the entire settlement was swept away. The government did not respond to the disaster and, as a result, villagers had to grapple with intense geological hazards on their own, rebuilding from the ash up.

“Seeing the tangible impact that geological hazards have on a wide range of communities cemented my desire to focus on geological research,” Bednarz said.

In the coming year, Bednarz will use her Fulbright to join a team of researchers in Armenia working on the Transect Project, the most comprehensive exploration of the Caucasus’ geological setting ever undertaken. The Caucasus region is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europe’s tallest peak, Mount Elbrus. Like

many other mountain ranges, the Caucasus Mountains were formed by forceful collisions of Earth’s tectonic plates.

Beyond its scenic and expansive mountain range, the Caucasus region is known for its political tensions. Russia, Armenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are connected by the mountains, but divided by centuries of political strife.

“It’s always been difficult for geologists and geophysicists to get a good look, comprehensively, at the geological system,” Bednarz said. “The political boundaries of these countries bar earth scientists from being able to explore across borders.”

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Transect Project will consist of the first large-scale, long-term investigation of geologic activity in the Caucasus Mountains. Geologists and geophysicists from the United States and the Caucasus nations will use the mountain range as a “natural laboratory.” By implementing data from over 100 new seismic stations in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, and Georgia, seismologists will work to gain a better understanding of tectonic activity, continental collision, and the nature of earthquakes in the region.

“The project is really exciting because it’s slated to produce first-order information,” Bednarz said.

Joining the Transect Project is only one part of Bednarz’s Fulbright project. Since the project involves scientists from all Caucasus countries, nations marked by centuries of disagreement, Bednarz will also act as a

political evaluator for the project.

“I hope to politically evaluate the extent to which a scientific endeavor has the capacity to overcome political strife,” Bednarz said.

As a political evaluator, Bednarz will sit in on meetings, be involved in phone calls and correspondences, and take notes on the everyday interactions between scientists from various countries.

“It’s really, really special and groundbreaking that these countries are working together,” Bednarz said. “To have an outside person come in and evaluate how it’s working—it’s very sensitive. I know I have to go about it very delicately.”

The third component of Bednarz’s Fulbright originated during a semester of research in BC’s geology department.

At the beginning of her sophomore year, Bednarz enrolled in Exploring the Earth, a geology course taught by Alan Kafka, the associate professor of earth and environmental sciences. During one of the course’s preliminary lectures, Kafka referred to one of his favorite books, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Bendarz’s ears perked up—she was in the midst of reading the non-fiction book, which intersects metaphysics and the philosophy of science throughout an epic, cross-country motorcycle ride.

After class, Bednarz spoke to Kafka about the book. Zen marked the beginning of a mentorship for Bednarz and Kafka. During the fall of her junior year,

she reached out to Kafka about conducting research.

“He welcomed me right on board,” Bednarz said. “I did independent research with him in the spring of my junior year, and I’ve done my senior thesis with him this year.”

Bednarz’s research focuses on earthquake frequency and forecasting, combining her interests in geology and physics.

Specifically, she uses cellular seismology to assess relationships between earthquakes in a given region over time.

Conceived by Kafka, cellular seismology is an analytic process in which seismologists systematically investigate the relationship between locations of past and future earthquakes in a given region. Cellular seismology aims to improve earthquake forecasting and form the basis of seismic hazard assessments, which save lives and protects infrastructure by demarcating zones of seismic danger and establishing requirements for earthquake-safe architecture.

After her Fulbright year, Bednarz plans on enrolling in a graduate program to earn an advanced research degree. But for now, she is excited to see how the Transect Project will pan out, and hopes that political and geological progress will be made in the Caucasus.

“Despite their human and political differences, these nations face common geological risks in earthquakes,” Bednarz said. “This geological phenomenon has the power to bring them together in addressing it, and that’s an incredible thing." n

SPORTS

MONDAY, MAY 1, 2017

B1

@HEIGHTSSPORTS

SOFTBALL

Cortez’s Walk-Off Homer Lifts BC Over Wolfpack Which Year Was Worse?

BY ANNABEL STEELE Assoc. Sports Editor

Boston College softball successfully engineered a comeback on Senior Day against North Carolina State—and, fittingly, the key player was senior 6 NC State Tatiana Cortez.

Boston College 7 In the fourth inning, the Wolfpack led 6-1—but they wouldn’t find home plate again. Meanwhile,

a couple of timely home runs from Cortez cut into the lead and then gave the Eagles the win with a walk off to ensure a 7-6 victory in a game meant to honor both the program’s seniors and local police departments.

NC State (17-34, 10-11 Atlantic Coast) opened up scoring in the second inning.

Haylee Kobziak reached base thanks to an error—an error that would come back to haunt the Eagles (29-19, 13-7) later. Cheyenne Balzer hit a bomb to left field, giving

the Wolfpack a quick 2-0 lead.

Lexi DiEmmanuele halved the Wolfpack’s lead in the bottom of the second. She hit a leadoff triple to center field, taking off for home when Allyson Moore, up next, hit a sacrifice fly to deep center. After surrendering the early runs, BC looked back in the game.

In the third and fourth, however, NC State cushioned its lead, and the game began to look out of reach. In the third, Tyler

Ross and Jade Caraway walked and singled, respectively, putting two runners on base.

They each advanced one base, to third and second, thanks to a sacrifice bunt from Molly Hutchison, and they each scored when Alyssa Compton doubled. Heading into the fourth, the Wolfack led the Eagles 4-1.

Balzer singled to reach base, and then Geena Autry pinch-ran for her. Molly

RILEY OVEREND

See SB vs. NC State, B2

As I watched back-to-back home runs punctuate a nine-run outburst in the ninth inning for University of Miami on Saturday afternoon, I couldn’t help but think that I was also seeing Boston College baseball’s postseason hopes vanish before my eyes.

The loss pushed the team’s record to 6-17 with six games to play. The Eagles will likely need at least four wins against their last two conference opponents, Wake Forest and Notre Dame, to have a shot at qualifying for the ACC Tournament.

I don’t like those odds.

So as I witnessed the third Miami hitter of the inning trot around the bases, I was reminded of the recent playoff struggles at BC. Lacrosse was eliminated from the ACC Tournament on Friday, men’s hockey missed its first NCAA Tournament since 2009, and both basketball teams lost in the first round of their respective conference tournaments. All of a sudden, as my sophomore year neared its close, I was confronted with a question that I never thought I’d have to ask. Has the 2016-17 season been worse than the infamous 2015-16 season?

How, you might ask, could anything be worse than 2015-16?

After all, BC became the first major conference school since World War II to go winless in conference in both men’s basketball and football.

A combined 0-26—that has literally never happened before. To make matters worse, the Eagles suffered embarrassing losses to lowly Wake Forest: first, in football, a 3-0 defeat that featured more broken headsets than points scored; then, an awful effort that saw them fall behind, 374, and ultimately lose to the Demon Deacons, 74-48.

It was frustrating to watch. But fans could find solace in the Cinderella runs by soccer and baseball, as well as the Frozen Four berths by men’s and women’s hockey. Zeiko Lewis and Simon Enstrom led BC past No. 2 Georgetown and within one game of the team’s first-ever College Cup appearance. Birdball, too, nearly danced its way to the College World Series, falling in a heartbreaker to Miami after advancing out of a tough regional bracket.

Thatcher Demko carried his squad to Tampa and capturing a Beanpot title over rival BU along the way.

Alex Carpenter captained her crew to one of the best seasons in collegiate women’s hockey history, a Warriors-esque 40-1 record, with the lone loss coming in the National

BASEBALL

JAKE EVANS / HEIGHTS STAFF | KAITLIN MEEKS / HEIGHTS STAFF | ZOE FANNING / HEIGHTS EDITOR

In a rematch of last year’s heated Super Regional, the Eagles met an old foe (and made some new enemies) as the Hurricanes won two out of three.

BY MATT PETERSON

BY RILEY OVEREND

BY MICHAEL SULLIVAN

For The Heights

Sports Editor

Editor-in-Chief

With ACC Tournament and NCAA Tournament hopes on the line, Boston College baseball entered Sunday’s series finale versus University of Miami with one goal: get 2 Miami back in the win column.

Boston College 9 Excellent defense, seven quality innings from starter Brian Rapp, and timely hitting throughout the lineup combined to earn the Eagles a big 9-2 win to avoid the sweep against a tough Hurricane squad.

BC (17-24, 7-17 Atlantic Coast) didn’t hesitate to jump on Gregory Veliz early, the first right-handed starter Miami (22-22, 21-11) had thrown this weekend. Capitalizing on two early walks in the first,

With the tying run in scoring position and Boston College baseball clinging to a 5-3 lead in the eighth inning, head coach Mike Gambino handed the ball to Donovan Casey for 14 the six-out save. He only Miami Boston College 5 got four.

After leading for the entire game, the Eagles watched their bullpen collapse in the final two frames. They surrendered two runs in the eighth and nine in the ninth, as the University of Miami (22-21, 12-10 Atlantic Coast) clinched a series win with a 14-5 victory on Saturday afternoon.

Following the loss, Gambino said the mistake came in allowing starter Dan Metzdorf to go back out

For the first time all season, the Birdcage was rocking—really rocking.

Although officially reported at 652, the Boston College baseball faith3 Miami ful numbered around Boston College 0 1,500, many of whom were students hanging off the roof of Shea Field on the most beautiful day of the young summer season.

This series was the one every Eagles fan was waiting for: BC’s reunion with the University of Miami. The Hurricanes took down BC in the Super Regionals last season in a best-of-three series. That series was most notable for its final game, when Miami infielder Edgar Michelangeli hit a grand slam off BC’s Jesse

See Game Three, B4

See Game Two, B4

See Game One, B4

See Year in Review, B4 LACROSSE

North Carolina Eliminates Eagles From ACC Tournament

BY ANDY BACKSTROM Asst. Sports Editor

Just like Boston College lacrosse’s first meeting with North Carolina back on March 25, it didn’t take long for the Eagles to get on the board in Boston College 14 Friday’s semifinal North Carolina 17 game of the ACC Tournament. In fact, in both contests, BC scored less than two minutes into the first half, taking an early lead. But unlike the first time around, head coach Acacia Walker’s group didn’t enter intermission on top. And it was far from doing so.

Shortly after Kenzie Kent scored the game’s opening goal, the Tar Heels’ offense exploded. In a span of about seven and a half minutes, UNC rattled off seven goals—four of which were netted by team-leading scorer Molly Hendrick. From that point on, it was

INSIDE SPORTS

an uphill battle for BC. Despite outscoring the Tar Heels by two goals in the second half, the Eagles had too much ground to make up, in order to complete the comeback. As a result, UNC booked its third-consecutive trip to the ACC championship with a 17-14 victory.

Two minutes in and Kent picked up right where she left off on Thursday. After Sammy Jo Tracy coughed up the ball, No. 12 BC (13-6, 3-4 Atlantic Coast) successfully cleared it out of its own territory. Soon after, Kent scored an unassisted goal—her 10th of the week. But it would only take No. 3 UNC (15-2, 6-1) 38 seconds to equalize.

Ela Hazar located Hendrick, who proceeded to send a shot right past BC goaltender Zoe Ochoa. Just like that, the game was tied. For the next few minutes, scoring stalled. On one hand, the Eagles were called for multiple fouls, and on the other, UNC

was just missing shots. Every Tar Heels shot attempt during the three-minute stretch was either wide, blocked, or saved.

It took a BC yellow card for UNC to get back on track. Hannah Hyatt was penalized at about the four-minute mark, giving the Tar Heels a one-player advantage. Eventually, Marie McCool cashed in for her team’s second goal of the game. Not too long after, Hendrick added to her scoring total and the UNC lead with another goal.

Down two, the game was still in the Eagles’ reach. That was until the Tar Heels tacked on four more goals in a mere minute and 20 seconds. Hendrick scored half of them, already giving her a hat trick on the day. Hazar and Carly Reed recorded the other two.

Following a ground-ball pickup and clear

by Christina Walsh, Dempsey Arsenault scored BC’s second goal of the game. Five

SOFTBALL: NC State Tops Eagles

Freshman Peyton Silverman shut down BC’s offense one day removed from allowing five runs.............................. B2

minutes later, Sam Apuzzo was fouled while scooping up a ground ball. Apuzzo—the nation’s 13th-leading scorer—was awarded a free-position shot. She took the ball to the net and scored.

But all momentum was halted when the Tar Heels fired back with three goals of their own. Once again, it was Hazar and Reed headlining the scoring plays. But Caroline Wakefield also got in on the field day. The two sides continued to trade goals until there was only about two minutes left in the half.

By this point, UNC was up 12-5.

Fortunately for the Eagles, they finished the period strong. Kaileen Hart corralled Apuzzo’s missed free-position shot and whipped one past UNC goalie Caylee Waters. And with a bit more than half a minute left in the half, Arsenault scored her second goal of the game.

Close to three minutes into the half, Kent

FOOTBALL: Johnson, Milano Drafted The Rams picked John Johnson in the third round while the Bills selected Matt Milano in the fifth......................A1

was fouled twice. Both times, she received a free-position shot. On the second attempt, she hit twine, reducing the deficit to four. But before long, it was back to seven.

Walsh fouled McCool in Eagles territory, and the junior made her pay, scoring on the free-position shot. Next, Hazar fed Tracy for her lone goal of the contest. To make matters worse, Gianna Bowe added another goal—only her fourth all season.

Even with the odds stacked against the Eagles midway through the second, they staged a legitimate comeback attempt. Kate Weeks was a major reason why. Weeks scored three of BC’s six goals in the final 15 minutes of play. She got things going when she took a Kent pass and flung it right by Waters. Laura Frankenfield and Apuzzo tallied another two goals, and suddenly the

See Lax vs. UNC, B2

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

THE HEIGHTS

B2

MONDAY, MAY 1, 2017 FOOTBALL

For Fourth Year in a Row, BC Sends Two to the NFL

THUMBS UP

NFL Draft, from A1

CORTEZ SAVES THE DAY - For a little while, it looked like Boston College softball would fall to North Carolina State on Senior Day. But Cortez, a senior herself, helped engineer a comeback for the Eagles. At one point leading 6-1, NC State ended up losing 7-6 after Cortez hit a pair of two-run homers, including a walk-off shot in the bottom of the seventh inning. It was truly a Senior Day to remember.

ISAIAH’S STRENGTH - Times have been tough for Isaiah Thomas, to say the least.

His sister, Chyna, tragically died in a car accident before the Bulls series. Right before the Celtics went up against the Wizards, Thomas flew cross-country and back for her funeral. He still managed to score 33 points in the Celtics’ Game One win over the Wizards.

DOING IT FOR GRANDMA - Takkarist McKinley, drafted in the first round by the Atlanta Falcons, immediately let the country know he’s going to be an entertaining personality in the league.

The former UCLA standout carried a large framed photo of his grandmother onstage, announced that he’d promised her he’d make it to the league someday, and then cursed repeatedly.

THUMBS DOWN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT - The Washington Capitals are up to their old tricks. The NHL’s best regular-season team barely squeaked by in the first round of the playoffs, and promptly dropped to a 2-0 deficit against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Well, there’s always the Nationals ... right?

BIRDBALL’S BLOWN LEAD - In the eighth inning of Birdball’s Saturday game against Miami, the Eagles led 5-3. It all went downhill from there. Miami tied the game in the eighth, then blew BC out of the water in the ninth, scoring nine runs to take a lofty lead. Birdball quickly went from holding a lead to losing 14-5 at home.

LAVAR’S LOUSY WEEK - It’s been a tough week for Lavar Ball. First, he failed to secure a shoe deal for his son Lonzo after making unreasonable demands to the likes of Nike and Adidas. Then, he had to defend himself from accusations that he orchestrated the firing of his sons’ high school coach.

Like Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down?

Follow us @HeightsSports

tight ends. Johnson also possesses the physicality to drop down into the box and help slow down an opponent’s ground game. Given the Rams’ lack of safety depth and the NFL’s growing propensity to play at least five defensive backs on most downs, Johnson has an excellent chance to see meaningful snaps this season.

Johnson was the 10th safety selected in this year’s draft. His maturity and leadership skills—Johnson was named the recipient of this season’s Jay McGillis Memorial Scholarship Award—have helped him throughout the draft process, casting him as an NFLready player. Over the prior two seasons at BC—where he played first strong safety and then free safety—Johnson amassed

110 solo tackles and six interceptions. His college highlights include a career-high 12 tackles in BC’s 36-30 victory in the Quick Lane Bowl over Maryland this past season, and six tackles, a forced fumble, and an interception in BC’s highly anticipated Holy War matchup at Fenway Park against No. 5 Notre Dame in 2015.

Saturday afternoon, another BC player heard his name called from the podium, as former Eagles linebacker Matt Milano was selected with the 19th pick of the fifth round by the Buffalo Bills.

At 6 foot and 223 pounds, Milano has been labeled as a bit undersized throughout the draft process. But a ferocious competitive streak and a mentality that drives him to play like a “heat-seeking missile who looks for contact” combine to make him

an appealing choice for teams on the final day of the draft.

Like Johnson, Milano is a highly versatile player. Recruited to BC as a safety, the Orlando native excelled as a strongside linebacker the last few seasons, as well as on special teams. This past season, he earned an honorable mention all-ACC nod from coaches and media, tallying 58 tackles—including 11 for loss and 6.5 sacks—one interception and one blocked punt. His ability to stuff the run, get after the quarterback as a blitzer and quickly stop screens and short passes makes him valuable in today’s NFL, where linebackers must be able to handle running backs and receivers in the area surrounding the line of scrimmage.

Due to his size limitations, Milano may

have to move to weakside linebacker at the professional level, where he can use his instincts without being deterred in his pursuit by several lead blockers. His role, at least early in his career, will likely come in a subpackage on passing downs. There, he will provide the size and physicality to defend the occasional run, as well as the ability to keep the ball in front of him and prevent short passes from turning into lengthy gains.

No doubt new Bills coach Sean McDermott—who coached Luke Kuechly in Carolina—is highly anticipating the ability to mold another BC linebacking product.

Johnson and Milano are the 10th and 11th players selected in the NFL Draft under head coach Steve Addazio—however, they are only the first and second that were recruited by the coach himself. 

LACROSSE

Eagles Outscore UNC in Second Half, but Still Fall Lax vs. UNC, from B1 Eagles were back to within four.

An Arsenault turnover disrupted BC’s scoring streak. UNC cleared the ball, and seconds later, McCool scored. But Walker’s group was not thrown.

Combined, Weeks and Hart accounted for the next three Eagles’ goals. Having outscored the Tar Heels 6-1 since the

15-minute mark in the second half, BC trailed by just two goals with less than four minutes to go.

Although UNC had practically fallen apart in the heart of the latter portion of the game, it stepped up when it mattered most. The Tar Heels drew a series of fouls and even yellow cards, while shutting down BC’s offense. UNC even scored one more goal. With time winding down, Reed

found Hazar for the junior’s third score of the day.

With the loss, the Eagles are out of contention for an ACC Championship.

Ultimately, the seven unanswered goals proved to be too much to overcome. Statistically, BC was outmatched. But for the second time this season, the Eagles truly put up a fight against the defending national champions. Only two other teams in the

conference—Syracuse and Louisville—have played the Tar Heels as close as BC has.

Now, it’s a waiting game. On May 7, the NCAA will release the 26-team field for the NCAA Tournament. The Eagles have made the tournament each of the past four years. If its national ranking and strength of schedule are any indicators, BC should earn a bid for a chance to play for a national title. 

SOFTBALL

BC Scores Six-Consecutive Runs to Win NC State Series SB vs. NC State, from B1 Martin laid down a bunt, but successfully reached first thanks to an error.

Ross singled to center field, allowing Autry to score and Martin to reach second. Martin was next to score, however, when Caraway drove her in with a single. By the time BC escaped the top of the fourth, it trailed 6-1.

The Eagles steal just one run back in the bottom of the fourth. DiEmmanuele singled, stole second, advanced to third, and took off for home when teammate Brenna Griesser was caught stealing.

It was the fifth when Cortez stepped up and hit her first bomb of the day.

Annie Murphy singled, putting a runner on base when Cortez stepped into

the box. She hit a homer to center field, driving in two runs and cutting into NC State’s lead. Immediately after, Jordan Chimento hit a solo shot to center.

Suddenly, after trailing by as many as five runs, BC was down just one, losing 6-5.

But Cortez wasn’t done hitting bombs in the game, and her second two-run shot was considerably more exciting—it resulted in a walk-off victory for the Eagles.

In the bottom of the seventh, still trailing by one run, BC put a runner on base after Chloe Sharabba singled.

Cortez stepped into the box, watched a couple of pitches, and then rode one out for the game-winning two-run homer. 

JULIA HOPKINS / HEIGHTS EDITOR

In the final four innings of Sunday’s series finale, Tatiana Cortez hit two home runs.

Silverman Stifles BC in Wolfpack’s Saturday Win

BY ANDY BACKSTROM Asst. Sports Editor

On Friday, Boston College softball got a hold of Peyton Silverman early and often. One day later, and Silverman was back out on the NC State 4 mound.

Boston College 1 According to head coach Ashley Obrest, the lefty pitched the same way she had the day before. Unfortunately for BC, its offense couldn’t have been more different.

The Eagles’ lone run crossed the plate in the sixth inning. For Jessica Dreswick, someone who has not only carried the pitching load, but has also been battling the flu as of late, one run was not nearly enough support. Consequently, BC dropped the game 4-1.

Judging by the first inning, it seemed as if Dreswick was on her way to another dominant performance. The junior fanned two of the first three batters she faced in a quick, one-two-three frame. In the back half of the inning,

Annie Murphy ripped a double into the right-center gap. But, similar to multiple innings later in the game, BC (28-19, 12-7 Atlantic Coast) stranded a player on base.

In the ensuing inning, the Wolfpack (17-33, 10-10) got on the board. Jessica Moore kept the inning alive with a twoout single to left field. Immediately after that, Cheyenne Balzer smashed one over the head of Murphy in left. The ball hit the fence, and Moore began her sprint home. Murphy relayed the ball to Chloe Sharabba, but the shortstop’s throw home was late, as Moore slid in just in time. Molly Martin popped up to end the rally, but NC State had established the first lead of the contest.

In the top of the sixth, NC State not only added to its lead, but virtually put the game out of reach.

Leading off, Tyler Ross singled through the right side. Taylor Coroneos mishandled the ball and slipped on the throw, allowing Ross to reach second on the play. Next, Jade Caraway lined

one to left field. Murphy attempted to make the diving catch, but the ball dropped inches from her glove. Luckily for BC, Lexi DiEmmanuele was there to scoop up the passed ball. But it wouldn’t matter.

By the time DiEmmanuele fired the ball to Sharabba, Ross was already feet away from scoring. Sharabba tried to get Caraway at second, but that didn’t work either. Then, Dreswick, attempting to go inside, hit Compton with a pitch, giving her a free pass to first base.

With two runners on, Moore singled down the right-field line, bringing home Caraway.

To top off the spree, Balzer slapped a pitch the opposite way to left field, scoring Compton—the finishing touches on the Wolfpack’s four-run outburst.

BC had two innings to make up ground. At first, it looked possible.

To get things going, Murphy hit her second double of the day. Right after that, Sharabba shot one up the middle for a single. Now, with runners on the

corners, Tatiana Cortez blasted one to left field. It sounded and looked like it could have been a home run, but the ball stopped just short of the fence, and Ross made the grab. Nevertheless, Murphy tagged up and scored.

But then, the offense halted. Jordan Chimento popped up into foul territory, ending the inning. And in the seventh, only one Eagle reached base—not on a hit, but on an error—in BC’s last-ditch effort to force extra innings.

Coming into Saturday’s game, BC had the fourth-worst batting average in the ACC. Obrest believes that the lack of scoring stems from the first three innings of play. If the entire lineup fails to produce on the first go-around, confidence levels plummet.

“We need to do a better job of throwing the first punch: finding ways on base, whether it’s a bunt, walk, hit by pitch, or a hit, to give some confidence to everybody else coming up,” Obrest said. 

SPORTS in SHORT ACC ATLANTIC BASEBALL

NUMBERS TO KNOW

CONFERENCE

OVERALL

Louisville

17-4

38-6

Clemson

16-8

34-11

Wake Forest

13-8

30-13

Florida State

11-12

27-18

NC State

11-13

25-20

Notre Dame

10-14

22-23

Boston College

7-17

17-24

7

Number of goals UNC scored over the course of about seven minutes in the first half of lacrosse’s ACC Tournament semifinal.

6

Number of consecutive runs softball scored in the final four innings of Sunday’s series finale to defeat NC State.

3

Number of home runs hit by the University of Miami in the ninth inning of birdball’s meltdown on Saturday.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We need to do a better job of throwing the first punch.”

— Ashley Obrest,

on BC’s season-long offensive inconsistencies

CLASSIFIEDS

Thursday, January 17, 2014 Thursday, April 7, 2016 Monday, May 1, 2017

The Heights TheTH heeights Heights

B5 B5 B3

The Heights

B4

Monday, May 1, 2017

BASEBALL

Martellini, Rapp Help Eagles Avoid Sweep Against Miami Game Three, from B1 catcher Gian Martellini crushed a one-out home run over the left-field wall, putting the Eagles up 3-0 at the end of the first.

Veliz and the Hurricanes, however, refused to break and the next two innings yielded perfect frames for both starters.

The Hurricanes smelled their chance in the fourth to cut into the deficit after Michael Burns doubled into the left-center gap to lead off the inning. Following a well-executed Romy Gonzalez hit and run, Burns opened the scoring for the ’Canes on an RBI groundout by Hunter Tackett. Rapp managed to closed the door on the inning, leaving the ’Canes down two.

As the clouds darkened and rain began to fall in the top of the fourth, the Eagles, sensing Miami’s energy, knew that they had to respond. Continuing his hot afternoon, Martellini started the top of the fourth with a leadoff single. Stepping to the plate with men at the corners with one out, Jacob Yish delivered a line drive into the left-center gap to score the sophomore catcher. But Veliz would again recover and strand two men on base at the innings end.

Feeling little pressure through five, Rapp started the sixth inning with two quick outs. But BC’s kryptonite, Hunter

Tackett, kept the inning alive for the ’Canes with a hit by a pitch. That gave center fielder Carl Chester all the opportunity he needed. Slapping an outside fastball the other way, Chester ripped a double down the right-field line to score Tackett and make it 4-2 before he ended the inning by recording the third out trying to extend the hit to a triple.

Rapp emerged from the bench to throw the top of the seventh. Despite a wild pitch, he tossed seven complete innings in what was his second-straight polished outing.

However Veliz, after pitching six full, would hand the reigns over to reliever Jesse Lepore for the bottom of the inning.

The Eagles wasted no time exploiting Miami’s move to the bullpen in the bottom of the seventh. Johnny Adams led off with a rocket double down the left-field line. After advancing to third on a Dempsey sacrifice, Palomaki drove in the RBI with an opposite-field single. Casey followed Palomaki’s hit with a single of his own up the middle.

In an aggressive play, head coach Mike Gambino called for a double steal and his top-two hitters answered.

“I gave those guys the green light and they executed,” said Gambino. “That definitely energized the team and put [Miami] in a difficult spot. They pitched Strem dif-

JAke Catania / Heights STaff

Brian Rapp allowed just four hits in his second-straight quality start, holding Miami in check for a 9-2 win on Sunday. ferent and we took advantage.”

Now with runners on second and third, the ’Canes again went to the bullpen and handed the ball to fellow right-hander Albert Maury, Jr. But the Eagles’ bats were hot and Maury, Jr. didn’t fair much better.

With the bases loaded, a red-hot Martellini launched one to deep left field to score Palomaki on a sacrifice fly and bring up a

struggling Mitch Bigras to the plate.

“Bigras has a knack for taking advantage of RBI opportunities,” Gambino said.

After an 0-for-3 day, Bigras responded to the RBI chance with a line shot to center field that extended BC’s lead to 7-2.

After a poor show by the bullpen in yesterday’s ninth-inning meltdown, John Witkowski executed a flawless three-up,

three-down eighth inning with the help of a solid BC defense spearheaded by Brian Dempsey. The Eagles would go on to score two more in the bottom of the eighth off the bat of Strem and a beautiful suicide squeeze by Palomaki. Despite loading the bases with two outs, Witkowski struck out Batista to end the game and secure the win for Birdball. n

Hurricanes Break Ninth-Inning Tie With Nine-Run Outburst Game Two, from B1 on the mound for the eighth inning. Cleanup hitter Carl Chester led off with a single and Nico Baldor doubled into the gap, prompting the BC (16-24, 6-17) pitching change.

When Casey took the rubber, he was greeted

by Hunter Tackett, who drove in his fourth and fifth runs of the weekend with a double that tied the game at 5-5.

“This one was 100 percent my fault,” Gambino said. “Metz did everything we asked him to do, gave us seven innings with a chance to win. [Casey] should’ve started the eighth, and I made the wrong decision.”

After Tackett’s two-RBI double, Casey came back with a strikeout against arch nemesis Edgar Michelangeli, who instigated a benches-clearing brawl with a bat flip and some trash talk during the Hurricanes’

Super Regional win last year. A groundout and a strikeout kept the game knotted before Miami finally broke it open in the last inning.

It started with a breaking ball from Casey that came out of his hand wrong and plunked Michael Burns in the back. Then, Romy Gonzalez went yard to deep center field to give the ’Canes their first lead of the afternoon, 7-5. Chester followed with a double and James Davison bunted one down the third-base line that hugged the chalk the entire way. With runners on the corners, Casey gave the red-hot Tackett a free pass, loading the bases for Michelangeli.

He crushed one all the way to the fence in right-center field, but there would be no grand slam déjà vu for Michelangeli. Strem tracked it down for the first out of the inning and Chester tagged up from third to extend

the lead to 8-5. The next batter, Christopher Barr, brought home two more with a single to left, chasing Casey from the game. His replacement, Carmen Giampetruzzi, didn’t fare much better, as Randy Batista took him deep for a three-run shot. Seconds later, Burns clobbered one over the fence in the exact same spot, pushing Miami’s lead to 14-5.

By the time the dust settled, the ’Caneshad nearly doubled their run total from the first eight innings, scoring nine times on six hits. BC, which had led for eight innings, was stunned. And Gambino traces it all back to that fateful decision to leave Metzdorf in past the seventh inning.

“I wouldn’t consider it a meltdown on their part,” Gambino said. “I consider that I should have done a better job managing the game.”

At the time, though, keeping Metzdorf in the ballgame didn’t seem like a bad idea. The sophomore lefty was rolling against Miami and seemed slated for another career-high outing. Before their pivotal late-game atbats, Chester and Baldor were a combined 0-for-6 at the plate against Metzdorf.

But that is little consolation for a team that fought to scrape five runs across the plate, putting itself in a great position to even the series and maybe bounce back for another series win on Sunday. The ’Canes’ ninth-inning slugfest practically erased the successes of Birdball’s lineup against opposing arm Michael Mediavilla.

Miami’s Saturday starter, whom the Eagles last saw in a 5-3 win during the 2016 Super Regional series, never really found his rhythm and struggled to make it out of the first two innings. Donovan Casey singled to

left and advanced to second on a Jake Palomaki sac bunt to start the bottom of the first.

Then, Michael Strem put BC on the board with an RBI single to right field.

In the second, the bottom part of the order started the Eagles’ rally in typical fashion. Jake Alu smacked a leadoff double, Jacob Yish walked on four pitches, and Brian Dempsey went opposite field to drive home Alu. Casey plated Yish with a sac fly and Palomaki singled to extend BC’s lead to 4-1 after two innings. In the sixth inning, Yish came around to score after a throwing error, fielder’s choice, and squeeze bunt sent him home. It felt like a classic small-ball, Birdball win—until the last inning, that is.

Rarely does a blowout feel like a close loss. But such is the reality for Gambino and the Eagles during a season where nothing has felt quite right. n

Bargfeldt Outduels Stevens in Series-Opening Shutout Win Game One, from B1

Jake Evans / Heights Staff

Miami DH Hunter Tackett smacked two homers and drove in six runs during the series.

Adams. Michelangeli’s exuberant bat flip and showboating did not sit well with former Eagles catcher Nick Sciortino, and the benches cleared in an ugly brawl.

Friday was the day that everyone circled.

Finally, the Eagles—and their fans—could get their revenge. But Miami head coach Jim Morris didn’t put the struggling Michelangeli in the lineup. Instead, the Eagles have a new man to despise: left-handed pitcher Jeb Bargfeldt.

Bargfeldt stifled the Eagles for eight innings and gave up only two hits in a 3-0 Miami victory at home. The JuCo transfer mixed and matched his fastball with a strong spin rate and great life that moved in all directions in the strike zone. Many of the hitters for BC (16-23, 6-16 Atlantic Coast) popped up balls on the lip of the infield grass or in short left-center field. According to head coach Mike Gambino, the strategy was to attack the Miami (21-21, 11-10) lefty down on balls instead of up on them.

Unfortunately for his Eagles, that was easier said than done.

“He throws a belt-high fastball, and you’re like ‘How did he get that ball popped up?’” Gambino said after the game. “That’s what Bargfeldt did … When you get carved,

it feels like you’re flat. But it’s not, it’s just a great outing.”

The Eagles rarely threatened Bargfeldt throughout his shutout performance. In the second, catcher Gian Martellini and left fielder Jake Alu both reached base, via a single and walk, respectively. Both were caught stealing at second base, helping Bargfeldt go two above the minimum in his outing.

It was only until Frankie Bartow came in for his 10th save of the year that the Eagles put the pressure on Miami. Freshman Brian Dempsey led off the inning with a single and advanced on an error by third baseman Michael Perez. Yet the Eagles couldn’t cash in.

The top of the BC lineup—Donovan Casey, Jake Palomaki, and Michael Strem—went down in order. Those three combined to go 0-for-11, with only a walk by Strem.

BC’s own Friday night starter, Jacob Stevens, pitched well in his own right, though labored and often got behind batters. He enjoyed control of his fastball, and his sinker was working well—Friday’s home plate umpire, Greg Street, gave Stevens full domain over the lower outside corner. Against Hunter Tackett, however, Stevens changed up his strategy—and it didn’t pay off.

Stevens lofted a first-pitch curveball over the heart of the inner half of the plate.

Tackett let it fly deep down the left-field

line for the game’s opening run. It was the first extra-base hit of the season for the Miami DH, and it was a pitch Stevens wanted back.

“I was throwing a lot of fastballs at the time, I just wanted to throw him something different and he was sitting on it,” Stevens said.

Defensively, the Eagles were sharp as ever, particularly Martellini. The Hurricanes were sloppy on the basepaths—twice, Martellini caught runners stealing, and two Miami runners were picked off. Martellini also made several strong plays at the plate, including one tag to save a run on a throw

by Mitch Bigras.

“They were aggressive on the basepaths, and I was just trying to see that opportunity and make a play,” Martellini said.

Gambino had more praise for his catcher, who he believes has been “one of the stories of the year.”

“If you saw Gian play in Oklahoma, you would’ve left saying ‘That kid’s not an ACC catcher,’” Gambino said. “Now, he’s turning into the prospect we all certainly believed he was.”

Yet the pressure is still on for the Eagles.

And now, with two games remaining in the series, they’ve got another reason to hate Miami. n

Why This Year Has Made Me Miss the Days of 0-for-the-ACC Year in Review, from B1 Championship.

Yes, some of us were still berated with bad BC jokes from friends and family, none perhaps worse than ESPN’s “Lost-on College” graphic.

But it felt fitting that a University with 31 varsity sports—the most in the ACC—you could find at least one to rally behind. And that’s why last year, against all odds, was better for BC sports than this year.

The marginal improvement of men’s basketball and football doesn’t compensate for the excitement provided by the smaller

programs in 2015-16—especially when students can’t even see the development. On the gridiron, head coach Steve Addazio won two ACC games, but both came on the road.

The Eagles did pull off a thrilling 36-30 win against Maryland in the Quick Lane Bowl, but once again, they excelled away from home.

Men’s basketball, too, seemed to torture students with the timing of the team’s success. BC was blessed by the arrival of Ky Bowman, who guided the young lineup to a pair of early conference victories against Syracuse and NC State. But both wins came in early January over

Winter Break without students on campus.

In fact, you have to go all the way back to Jan. 29, 2014, to find the last time either team won a home ACC matchup with students in school.

That was courtesy of Steve Donahue & Co. against Virginia Tech.

Football won three home games in 2014, but one was over Thanksgiving Break and the other two were against nonconference opponents.

Men’s basketball won back-to-back ACC home games in 2015, but both occurred over Spring Break.

To emphasize: Students haven’t witnessed a conference win at home

when school is in session in over three years. I can’t imagine there’s a longer such streak, or curse, in the country. It’s a drought that extends to three (!) classes—current freshmen, sophomores, and juniors—at BC. Briefly, if only for a moment, BC hockey, baseball, and men’s soccer provided a refuge for fans while the University’s high-budget sports were trapped in the gutter. It didn’t register at the time, but we were lucky to experience the 2015-16 athletic year. It may seem ridiculous to sound grateful for a season which featured, collectively, one of

the worst major-conference performances in history, but I am.

The fact is, I have given up on a miraculous turnaround for men’s basketball and football before I leave the Heights (and The Heights). Based on their home ACC drought and declining attendance numbers, I sense others have lost faith, as well. Seeing is believing.

And without hockey, baseball, and men’s soccer to restore that faith, this year has felt flatter than usual.

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