The Heights will return on March 15, 2012. Enjoy your Spring Break! eagles hold on
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On senior night, men’s basketball team picked up a win over Georgia Tech, A10
BC strengthens ties with St. Columbkille school through music program, B10
Analyzing the success and failures of actors who stray from their comfort zones, B1
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Vol. XCIII, No. 13
THE SEARCH CONTINUES Woods College senior Franco Garcia still missing after more than a week; four police departments continue the search around Boston College and the Chestnut Hill Reservoir BY DAVID COTE | NEWS EDITOR, TAYLOUR KUMPF | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, AND LINDSAY GROSSMAN | MANAGING EDITOR
M
ore than a week after the disappearance of Franco Garcia, police officers continue to search throughout the Boston College area for any clues about his location. Since his disappearance last Tuesday, the BC community and four separate police departments have searched tirelessly for any sign of the Woods School senior. No evidence relating to his disappearance has been found, police say. Search efforts over the past three days have been focused on the stretch of land between Mary Ann’s, the bar in Cleveland Circle where Garcia was last seen, and the BC campus–with the most energy going into a full-out search of the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. In an attempt to aid police efforts, over 40 members of the BC community joined Garcia’s family in an on-foot search of the area on Monday afternoon. Fourteen teams of two to five people met at the reservoir and took shifts in the hours before sundown searching the area between Lake Street, Washington Street, and Beacon Street. “We are looking for anything that might lead us somewhere else,” said Rachele Reis, a friend and bandmate of Garcia and A&S ’12. “If he dropped his phone, wallet, glasses, the Mardi Gras beads he was wearing–anything suspicious or helpful in dumpster areas, trash cans, and alleys.” The police’s investigation of the reservoir also began
on Monday, as divers were brought in to scour the body of water with the help of sonar equipment. On Tuesday and Wednesday, divers were dragged slowly through the water column to search for clues, according to Reis. They searched for anything floating in the water below the surface that they would not have found when searching the reservoir floor. “They found nothing on the [reservoir] bottom
that would be considered in any way relevant to this case,’’ State Police spokesman David Procopio told The Boston Globe. “By the time we got here they had already found a dead duck so it speaks well to the fact that the sonar
See Garcia, A4
graham beck / heights editor
Communication dept. loses more classes, PR and ads gone Journalism moved to American Studies By Andrew Millette Assoc. News Editor
The course offerings of the communication department will go through a series of changes starting in the Fall 2012 semester. Advertising, a class that has been been offered for years by the department, will not be offered at Boston College next year. Public Relations and Advanced Public Relations classes will be moved out of the communication department, but will still be offered by
the University. “Public Relations classes will be offered as University courses for the fall semester and will be available to students from throughout the University,” said University Spokesman Jack Dunn. The cancelled Advertising and moved Public Relations classes are the result of a restructuring of the communication department. “The department is moving toward a greater focus on the research strengths of full-time faculty members,” said Lisa Cuklanz,
See Communication, A4
Eagle EMS member revives local man after heart attack By David Cote News Editor
graham beck / heights editor
Nick Cochran-Caggiano (above) resuscitated a man after he collapsed from a heart attack.
Not all Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) can say they registered a “save” in the first year of their certification. Nick Cochran-Caggiano, Eagle EMS EMT and A&S ’14, is one of the few who can. After dinner in Newton Center on Tuesday night, Cochran-Caggiano and his father went to J.P. Licks for ice cream. As Cochran-Caggiano’s father later noted, it’s a good thing they didn’t choose coffee instead. Immediately after CochranCaggiano had bought his ice cream, an elderly man collapsed in the store. The
cause was later reported to be a serious heart attack. “I had just had dinner with my dad, and we went to J.P. Licks in Newton Center,” Cochran-Caggiano said. “It was really a series of ironies, because I was wearing my [EMT] jacket, and then I went in and there happened to be an EMS discount. So I showed them the patch and it was $3 off or something. They handed me back my credit card and as I was picking up my ice cream I heard a little girl say, ‘What’s that, daddy?’ and heard a guy say ‘Oh s— ...’ So
See Cochran-Caggiano, A4
Administrators weigh in on the rising cost and questionable benefit of a college education By Darren Ranck Heights Senior Staff
One of the most hotly debated topics in politics focuses on the worth of the college degree. While a bachelor’s degree can open vocational doors, the question remains: does receiving a college degree necessarily mean anyone learned anything? “This is a big topic, and it’s a very popular topic with politics and Boston College faculty,” said Patrick Rombalski, vice president of student affairs. “Both sides of the aisle tend to cheapen this argument. They don’t really get
into its depth.” Social scientists and researchers in higher education continue to churn out studies that put the ambiguous concept of learning at the forefront. These studies range from the academic to the cultural. Rombalski considers Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s book Academically Adrift to be the instigator of higher education’s recent questioning. “That book is one of the most popular ones on this topic in years,” Rombalski said. “It’s gotten a lot of attention.” These two sociologists posed the question as a thesis and used standardized testing as
a marker of validity. After an analysis of the results of more than 2,400 undergraduate students at more than 24 institutions, they found that 45 percent of students made no improvement during their first two years of college. Arum and Roksa’s study found its way to Janelle Nanos, BC ’02, who used the study as a springboard for a piece in Boston Magazine titled “Is College Over?” which was published last October. Nanos spoke with higher education professionals throughout the United States, including Rombalski, and shed a harsh light on her own experiences at BC by calling the idea of college “a fairytale.”
“She does alert the reader to some legitimate concerns that are happening in the academy,” Rombalski said. “I think the fairytale is this naive sense that you can just go away to college with the assumptions built into fairytales–a good ending, all good things happen in college, students learn, they come out of it mature adults and responsible citizens. I think she’s trying to challenge those assumptions with the reader.” Nanos’ contribution only augments the nation-wide discussion, and the faculty at BC is left to unravel the question. The landscape of college and academia as a whole changes
over time, and these changes have altered the perception of what is considered learning, Rombalski said. He cites cost, diversity, and the different levels of faculty as factors that have changed greatly since the boom of collegiate learning. “There’s been a lot of experimentation in higher education through technology and the different types of institutions, everything from community college to private to public to HBCU to land grant,” Rombalski said. Changes in curriculum, such as the addi-
See Higher Education, A4