The Heights - 10/02/2014

LIVING GOAL-TO-GOAL

UBER UNCOVERED CAROLINE PORTU

SPORTS

METRO

SCENE

Hayley Dowd takes it one goal and one game at a time, A8

The company is changing how students travel in Boston, and taxis cannot keep up, B8

The BC Idol winner talks music, acting, and her role model, Sara Bareilles, B1

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HEIGHTS

THE

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College

established

1919

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Vol. XCV, No. 33

Students seek to expand disability awareness at BC

ACC ADVOCATES CLOSING COST OF ATTENDANCE GAP FOR ATHLETES

BY ELEANOR HILDEBRANDT Editor-in-Chief Editor’s Note: This story is part of an ongoing series about accessibility at BC.

GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF

ACC COST OF ATTENDANCE GAPS

BY AUSTIN TEDESCO Heights Editor

It wasn’t explicitly on the agenda, but one topic came up often during side conversations at the NCAA athletic director meetings in Dallas last week. Boston College’s Athletic Director Brad Bates spoke with other leaders of college athletic programs about stipends, the cost of attendance gap, and the implications of potential reforms to provide benefits to athletes that were removed nearly 40 years ago.

“I think there’s a lot of naivete in terms of what that means and what the implications are,” Bates said last week of the approximate $2,000 to $5,000 gap not provided by full athletic scholarships in schools nationwide. “I don’t have all the answers for it right now, but we’ll hopefully know more in the next couple months.”

The answers may need to come sooner than that. The Atlantic Coast Conference released a statement on Tuesday promoting five priorities that the conference is sending to the NCAA as a part of the organization’s new autonomy structure—one of which was meeting college athletes’ full cost of attendance.

Conversations with BC’s financial aid and compliance offices this week, as well as a look into federal government and university websites for aid and athletic scholarships, have given a clearer look at the cost of attendance gap.

A full grant-in-aid—the maximum allowable amount an NCAA institution is authorized to provide to an athlete—covers tuition, required fees, room, board, and required books for classes. At BC, that adds up to around $62,000 per year for students living on campus, but that amount does not represent the full cost of attendance. The BC financial aid website lists a $2,200 “books and miscellaneous” fee as well. The University expects books to cost about $1,000 a year, according to BC’s Associate Athletics Director for Compliance Carly Pariseau. That leaves a $1,200 gap between what is provided to full scholarship athletes and what BC’s financial aid office has determined is the actual amount it costs to attend the school.

That $1,200 total consists of personal expenses such as toiletries, laundry, local travel, school supplies, and other miscellaneous expenses. The federal govern-

See NCAA, A3

Virginia Tech

$5,480

Clemson

$3,608 $3,300

Pittsburgh

$2,690

North Carolina Florida State

$2,540

Duke

$2,466

$1,000 $900

Wake Forest $1,500 $2,100

Miami Virginia

$2,080

$370

Georgia Tech $1,600 Syracuse $970

$626

North Carolina $1,388 Boston College

$1,200

Notre Dame

$1,200

Personal Costs Transportation Costs Books* *Since book and personal expenses were not separated, average book expenses were estimated here

C21 hosts ‘Jesuit Post’ co-founders

the University

Heights Editor

See Agape Latte, A3

See Disability Awareness, A3

The school, the college,

BY ARIELLE CEDENO

“Young Jesuits in formation, writing about faith and culture, in a way that’s accessible to our peers—that’s our elevator pitch,” said Rev. Sam Sawyer, S.J. and BC ’00, of the online startup which he co-founded, The Jesuit Post.

Sawyer and Rev. Michael Rossmann, S.J., assistant editor of The Jesuit Post, spoke to a crowded Hillside Cafe on Tuesday evening at this year’s first installment of the Agape Latte series. The discussion, hosted by the Church in the 21st Century Center and Campus Ministry, was a part of the annual Espresso Your Faith Week, a series of programs and events focusing on faith and spirituality.

The speakers discussed the inception of The Jesuit Post as a startup, and why, for them, this venture was a risk. They connected the process of curating this new medium to other areas in their personal experience of faith where risk-taking was necessary.

“We want to tell the story of The Jesuit Post as a startup—as a brand new thing that a group of Jesuits in formation decided to try in order to reach people in a new medium, and with new techniques,” Sawyer said. “We want to connect this to other places in our lives of faith and our vocations where we felt the possibility of a startup: a chance to take a risk, how we decided to take those risks, and how we found God through them.”

Sawyer, after completing his undergradu-

Mental health and illness—topics that can be hard to discuss because they are similarly difficult to observe—were the subject of a flurry of social media posts from UGBC last week, culminating in a BC Ignites forum on Wednesday and continuing this month in the ongoing “Be Conscious” campaign. At Boston College, though, even problems that might seem more obvious, like the trouble that navigating campus poses for students with disabilities, can also slip under the radar.

Back in the early 2000s, UGBC had an active disability council—according to a 2006 article in The Heights, there was also a director of disability issues within the organizational structure itself. The council hosted events such as student speaker panels and encouraged audience members to ask questions that they may have otherwise been too uncomfortable to broach.

In the intervening years, though, the general student body’s attention to the issue has waned. Amidst various restructurings of UGBC, the director of disability issues position was dropped, and no comparable advocacy group arose to address disabled students’ concerns in the interim.

The lack of representation for students with physical disabilities was brought back under consideration this past February, however, when Phoebe Fico, A&S ’16, wrote a Letter to the Editor that was published in The Heights. “While other minorities on campus, whether they be ethnic minorities or those of

sexual orientation, have groups, such as AHANA and Spectrum, that legitimize their issues, the students with physical disabilities do not have such a group,” she wrote. “As a result, their problems are most of the time forgotten, or even worse, pushed under the rug.”

In response, members of UGBC’s student assembly passed a resolution in the spring semester to create an ad hoc committee to research the status of disability rights on campus, and determine how advocacy for disabled students could fit into the division of Diversity & Inclusion.

According to former UGBC senator Dan Ibarrola and vice president for Diversity & Inclusion Martin Casiano, both A&S ’15, since the issue was raised at the same time that UGBC was transitioning to a new structure and new leadership, the ad hoc committee did not get much traction before the summer break.

Casiano said that he contacted Fico over the summer in order to stress that the division of Diversity & Inclusion did not want the issues she had raised to fall through the cracks. He and Ibarrola plan to meet with her in order to gain her perspective.

“At this point, the goals are to see what the issues are from the students that are experiencing this day-to-day—the lived experience of a student with disabilities on this campus,” Casiano said. “We really want to stray away from being able-bodied students advocating without information from that community.”

From Fico’s point of view, awareness from the student body is one of the most important things she hopes to achieve. “If you have a disability, then you don’t want to think about it—and it’s almost like

New book chronicles BC’s history in images

EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR

GRAHAM BECK / HEIGHTS SENIOR STAFF

BY JULIE ORENSTEIN Assoc. News Editor The history of Boston College was not determined solely by the great men whose names are prominent across campus—Gasson, McElroy, Fulton.

The true history of BC has been formed by the 200,000 people who have graduated from the University since its founding in 1863. It is their images that grace the pages of co-author Ben Birnbaum’s introduction to the new book, The Heights: An Illustrated History of Boston College, 1863-2013.

One of the most poignant parts of writing the book, Birnbaum said, was “finding and publishing images of these people, who didn’t think they were part of history or part of

memory.” They might have been students perched under a tree on the original BC campus in Boston’s South End, or young women of the Philomatheia Club fundraising for the school that would not admit them to study.

“It’s not just about the great men, it’s about everybody,” Birnbaum said.

Birnbaum, who serves as special assistant to University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J.; executive director of the Office of Marketing Communications; and editor of Boston College Magazine, approached Leahy about creating an illustrated history of the University over six years ago, hoping to tell stories—through images, primarily—that people wanted to read.

With Leahy’s backing, the project began in earnest in 2008 when Birnbaum’s co-author, Seth Meehan, the assis-

EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR

tant director of the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College and MA ’09, Ph.D. ’14, was hired to conduct research. He combed archives around the city, down the East Coast, and even across the Atlantic Ocean, utilizing records at the Burns Library, The Boston Globe, the Boston Public Library, Georgetown University, and the Vatican in Rome, among others locations.

Upon finding things that no one had used before, the coauthors realized there was more to their undertaking than they initially believed.

“We tried to dig up everything we could in an effort to make this as accurate as possible,” Birnbaum said.

Meehan particularly focused on increasing his volume

See BC History, A3

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things to do on campus this week

The Heights Today at 5 p.m., in Devlin 101, Babette Bohn, professor of art history at Texas Christian University, will deliver the Josephine von Henneberg Lecture in Italian Art. She will discuss the colored drawings of Italian artist Federico Barocci. A reception will follow the lecture.

Breaking the mold Alex Gaynor In this busy fall season of internship recruitment and post-graduate job applications at Boston College, it is easy to ascribe to a particular model of what it means to succeed.

As students of an elite university, it often seems that we are traveling down a road inextricably leading toward an illusive idea of “success.”

Perhaps we were raised to think that success was a tangible goal that we would receive upon a completion of a set number of tasks such as achieving good grades in high school, getting into a renowned college, making important connections, scoring a well-paying job, and starting a family. But when looked at critically through the reality of the world, success when limited to this storybook sense of achievement does not look the same for everyone.

At BC, we’re frequently inundated with lectures and workshops that are intended to help us chart our paths for success in life, but what about those people that do not seem to fit that mold? By seeking solely tangible and evidence-based results as benchmarks of accomplishment, we inherently are leaving out a whole class of people, work, and lifestyles that can also be deemed as successful, even if they don’t produce straight-As, a wide circle of friends, or leadership of a variety of clubs. Success in life also entails being loved and appreciated by your fellow humans in light of any missteps you might make, regardless of what tangible evidence-based results you contribute to the world.

It is easy to measure success by whether something or someone is working correctly, making concrete changes, or innovating some facet of life. Rev. Greg Boyle, S.J. says in his book Tattoos on the Heart, however, that, “if our primary concern is results, we will choose to work only with those who give us good ones.”

What are we actually doing if we’re not working in fields and enterprises that may not deliver the archetypal success and achievement that we are raised to expect? How might it make fellow students, and people, feel who do not ascribe to these set standards for success? In the real world, situations and people do not always deliver the intended results, but life is not a math problem, and that does not mean that they’re inherently invaluable.

Success is often relative and can mean different things to different groups and individuals. For a CSOM student, getting a well-paying job at a financial firm may be the pinnacle of one’s efforts, whereas for a family living in a low-income neighborhood in Boston, success may take the form of sending their children off to college and making sure that there is enough food on the table. We, as students at a North American university, sometimes are tempted to think that because we are handed many opportunities in our lives, that our definition of evidence-based success should be universally applicable. One does not always need to have examples to show for his or her efforts of achievement in order to be deemed a valuable human being, however.

As Dorothy Day once said, “don’t worry about being effective, just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.” Through being faithful to our own truths, regardless of what our peers or society may tell us, we are successful in our own right.

Alex Gaynor is a senior staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at news@bcheights.com.

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Thursday, October 2, 2014

This evening at 7 p.m., the Eagle Political Society will host a student-led discussion about the ongoing tensions between Russia and the West, titled “The West vs. Putin.” Political Science professor Gerald Easter will join the group to facilitate discussion in Gasson 210.

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UGBC’s Annual Boat Cruise will set sail at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night for a 90-minute cruise around Boston Harbor. Students will board busses beginning at 9:45 p.m. at Eagle’s Nest, and tickets can be purchased through Robsham’s online ticket office.

Few probed 2008 financial crisis, says author

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

By Carolyn Freeman Heights Staff The 2008 financial crisis had profound economic implications for average Americans.

As many lost their homes, savings, and jobs, the executives at Wall Street’s most influential investment firms—the men who engaged in risky practices to boost their own personal gain—were never punished for their actions. This speaks to a change in how society and the press views crime, said awardwinning author and journalist Matt Taibbi.

Taibbi on Wednesday delivered the Lowell Humanities Series’ first lecture of the semester.

Raised in Boston, Taibbi worked for Rolling Stone for 10 years and cofounded The Beast in 2002.

He has authored several books, including The New York Times bestseller The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap. Taibbi began his talk by discussing how the character of journalism has changed over the past several decades. He then discussed the 2008 financial crisis and the government’s neglect to punish those corporations who contributed to the crisis.

When he was a child, everyone Taibbi knew worked with the media. All of the journalists he knew shared some common qualities. “They were all jerks,” he said. Reporters back then saw journalism as a trade that did not require higher education, and journalists seemed to hate everyone, especially those in positions of wealth and power. The media as a business that he knew growing up has changed dramatically and systemically, he said.

“There are things going on in American society today that I

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Editor-in-Chief (617) 552-2223 Editorial General (617) 552-2221 Managing Editor (617) 552-4286 News Desk (617) 552-0172 Sports Desk (617) 552-0189 Metro Desk (617) 552-3548 Features Desk (617) 552-3548 Arts Desk (617) 552-0515 Photo (617) 552-1022 Fax (617) 552-4823

Arthur Bailin / Heights staff

Taibbi was shocked to learn no criminal investigations were launched to look into those behind the 2008 crash. think press in the old days would have reacted very differently to,” he said. “There are things that they would have caught that the current media does not catch.”

The journalists Taibbi knew growing up seemed to disappear around the 1980s. A very different sort of people replaced them—people who grew up with wealth and who viewed journalism as an alternative profession to banking or law school “Twenty years after Watergate, the media became this place where cool kids went after graduation,” he said. “Instead of this isolated tribe of angry social rejects … there was this new group of people who weren’t incompetent, they weren’t bad people, they just had a different view.”

The different views these journalists had changed how the world reacted to the 2008 crisis.

When the crisis first erupted, Taibbi was covering Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech for the vice presidential nomination in Minnesota. Although he was with

other journalists, none of them seemed to know what was going on, he said.

“This was supposedly the cream of the national press tour, and there wasn’t one person who knew anything about what was going on on Wall Street,” he said.

“I asked around the room, ‘Does anyone here know anything about this?’ And it was like a cartoon with crickets chirping.”

Although Taibbi initially had trouble finding information for his story, he soon realized that by researching it as a crime story, rather than a financial story, he could find out more. The entire industry of mortgage-backed securities was fraudulent, he said.

“What the business was really doing was feeding poor people in on one side and cranking out AAA-rated mortgage securities on the other side,” he said. “It was just a common scam, like selling phony Prada bags out of the back of someone’s trunk. They were selling phony AAA-rated securities.”

It was a giant fraud scheme

that blew up the United States’ economy, and there was very little reporting about it. In addition to the lack of reporting, there was very little blowback against those who toppled the economy, he said.

“I started to notice a phenomenon, which is that that every story I did had the same punchline—no one was ever indicted, and nobody ever went to jail,” he said. “There was never any serious criminal investigation.”

The lack of a serious investigation was due in part to the fact that society views those who are wealthy and powerful as different from common criminals. Today’s society is one concerned more for corporations than for the children of a woman convicted of welfare fraud, he said.

“It speaks to a whole change in the way we look at things now, we have a reverence and fear and respect and lack of skepticism about people who are successful and who have power that we didn’t have 30 or 40 years ago,” he said. n

Former Clinton advisor talks Constitution

Business and Operations General Manager (617) 552-0169 Advertising (617) 552-2220 Business and Circulation (617) 552-0547 Classifieds and Collections (617) 552-0364 Fax (617) 552-1753 EDITORIAL RESOURCES News Tips Have a news tip or a good idea for a story? Call Connor Farley, News Editor, at (617) 552-0172, or email news@bcheights.com. For future events, email a detailed description of the event and contact information to the News Desk.

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Call Connor Mellas, Sports Editor, at (617) 552-0189, or email sports@ bcheights.com.

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

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

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

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

The Heights is produced by BC undergraduates and is published on Mondays and Thursdays during the academic year by The Heights, Inc. (c) 2014. All rights reserved.

CORRECTIONS This correction is in reference to the issue dated Sept. 29, 2014, Vol. XCV, No. 32.

Arthur Bailin / Heights staff

William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Insitution and a former domestic policy advisor to President Bill Clinton, delivered the University’s annual Constitution Day Lecture on Tuesday. Galston spoke about what he perceived as some of James Madison’s flawed expectations about key points in the Constitution. One of the most important was Madison’s belief that the Constitution would discourage political parties. Today, parties have contributed to gridlock in Congress and throughout state and local government.

POLICE BLOTTER

9/27/14 - 9/28/14

Saturday, Sept. 27

regarding the civil possession of marijuana at Corcoran Commons.

5:05 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported to a medical facility.

4:20 p.m. - A report was filed regarding a suspicious circumstance off campus.

8:17 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a student at Corcoran Commons.

Sunday, Sept. 28 12:06 a.m. - A report was filed regarding property confiscated at Duchesne West.

12:43 a.m. - A report was filed

8:07 p.m. - A report was filed regarding medical assistance provided to a BC student who was transported to a medical facility from Alumni Stadium.

The article “Moms and Pops” misidentified the “Golden Eagles Dance Team” as the “Screaming Eagles dance crew.”

—Source: The Boston College Police Department

Where’s Waldo?

“Somewhere in Carney, hiding.”

—Isabel Guillen, A&S ’15

“The Plex.”

—Kevin Casari, CSOM ’18

“Looking for a Mod that will let him in.”

—Mohomad Diop, A&S ’15

“Writing for The Gavel.”

—Tom Banfield, A&S ’17

The Heights

Thursday, October 2, 2014

A3

BC publishes book on its history BC History, from A1

graham beck / Heights senior staff

BC must consider the ACC’s growing effort to meet the full cost of attendance for full-scholarship athletes.

ACC recommends closing cost gap NCAA, from A1 ment requires schools to factor these personal expenses into their total cost of attendance, and it varies across the country. One thing that does not vary, though, is that the money cannot come from athletic scholarships.

NCAA member schools voted in 1975 to remove the expenses from scholarship packages, according to meeting minutes obtained by the Indianapolis Star, but there’s been a push in recent years to bring them back.

It was a part of the unionization movement at Northwestern this spring, the ruling in the O’Bannon vs.

NCAA case this summer, and the August vote to give autonomy to schools in the five major conferences, which includes the ACC. The issue was almost resolved in 2011, but enough schools—including BC—voted down an NCAA plan to provide $2,000 stipends to full scholarship athletes that the gap remained.

Either through a court ruling or an official vote, BC will likely have the option to provide the full cost of attendance to athletes at some point in the near future. Bates addressed the issue of additional benefits last week, before the ACC release.

“Every time you talk about additional benefits of some sort, I think you’re diluting the value of the education at Boston College,” he said. “Our student-athletes on a full ride are receiving a quarter-of-a-million-dollar education, as you’re fully aware of. I think dismissing the magnitude of that value is a mistake, because a Boston College education is an unbelievable opportunity. So, we’ll see what the discussions are in terms of cost of attendance and the legal interpretations and the stipends, but my personal feeling is that the whole conversation should start with the fact that this is a very, very valuable and prestigious education that our student-athletes are receiving, and it’s a privilege to be able to earn a scholarship to be a student-athlete.”

There was also a potential downside of increased benefits, from his perspective.

“I think anything you do that further segregates student-athletes from

the student body is not a good thing for student-athletes,” Bates said. “I think the more integrated they are and the more they’re treated like the rest of the campus, I think that’s a context for greater formation and development and growth.”

BC’s Director of Student Financial Strategies Bernie Pekala said that the cost of attendance figure listed on the BC website is a basic number, but that it changes from student to student with personal financial aid packages.

The $2,200 filed under “books/miscellaneous” was determined after surveys and conversations with students.

Pariseau said that if BC eventually does provide the full cost of attendance, any aid from the federal Pell grant program would be added to the total. The book costs can vary from the $1,000 University estimate, and so can the personal expenses. Students can also receive a travel allowance on top of what is listed if they aren’t local.

Still, the $1,200 is a fair estimate of what BC would be allowed to add to full athletic scholarships if reforms allow for the cost of attendance to be covered. It is a total that is audited and submitted to the federal government, and it can help estimate how much BC would have to spend to close the gap.

There were 351 BC students who received athletically related financial aid during the 2012-13 season, according to data provided to The Heights by the athletic department. Assuming that all 351 of those students received full athletic scholarships and would qualify for the $1,200 personal expense, in order to estimate the largest total cost, BC would have needed around $421,000 to close the gap that year. For comparison, BC spent more than $3.9 million in 2012 on salaries for former basketball coach Al Skinner, then-Director of Athletics Gene DeFilippo, then-football coach Frank Spaziani, then-basketball coach Steve Donahue, and hockey coach Jerry York, according to its IRS Form 990.

BC’s cost of attendance gap is on the low end for the ACC, which Pariseau credits to it being a private institution where most of the students live on campus. Virginia Tech’s website lists nearly $5,500 of personal expenses, and the University of Pittsburgh’s

is $3,300. The conference average is around $2,100.* While multiple groups are fighting for the cost of attendance gap to be closed, there isn’t unanimous support among college athletes. This Twitter interaction between BC Heisman finalist Andre Williams and then-freshman running back Myles Willis from October is one example of the dissonance: Willis: I must be the only D-1 athlete that doesn’t believe that we should get paid. @_PBJillyTime Williams: @MylesAhead_23 u trippin lil bruh. U must be living a flashy lifestyle out here. I guess you did go to private school tho.

Willis: @drewill44 naw i just know that football players arent the only people struggling in college.... we just had lobster and steak for lunch lol Williams: @MylesAhead_23 eating good but who paying to wash my clothes every week, pay for my school supplies, clothes, or my insurance?

Willis: @drewill44 same struggles my sis had in college...and now she is battling student loans Williams: @MylesAhead_23 yea student loans eating my sister up too. I don’t exactly feel bad for her tho..

Bates has been paying close attention to these potential reforms, and he said the school will address them if they become official.

“You can’t hold your breath and just wait,” he said. “You’ve got to keep planning and moving and making decisions. All you can do is move forward given your current context and then as the landscape evolves, you’ve got to anticipate how it could evolve, but also adjust if there are significant changes taking place.”

A university spokesman did not return a request for additional comments from Bates yesterday after The Heights’ conversations with compliance and financial aid and in light of the ACC release. *The average was calculated using the personal and travel expenses listed on every school’s cost of attendance website. The University of Louisville did not list these expenses, and Duke University combined everything in a total along with books, which are covered by grant-in-aid. n

of research with primary sources, gaining access to materials that others—including previous authors recording BC’s history—did not have access to.

“We had the president’s support to get into areas of archives at BC that had not previously been opened,” Birnbaum said.

Meehan also worked closely with University Archivist Amy Braitsch at the Burns Library to sort through thick records from the years following World War II, and said he was tasked with separating myths from real history in the limited material from before the war.

Birnbaum added that they could not have written the chapters on former University President Rev. W. Seavey Joyce, S.J., who served from 1968 until 1972, or the early part of Rev. J. Donald Monan, S.J.’s term as Joyce’s successor without that permission. Meehan said that they told the story of some eras, such as Joyce’s presidency, in a decidedly new way based on their access to new material.

On the whole, Leahy was very supportive of the project, particularly as a historian himself who was invested in getting this account right, Birnbaum said. Leahy encouraged Birnbaum and Meehan to be honest in showing the “zigzag way in which an institution grows.”

That institutional growth encompassed many distinct stages of development, beginning when BC was a school in the South End, through its move to the Chestnut Hill campus in the first decades of the 20th century. The construction of dozens of additional buildings followed, and major land purchases would later incorporate the Newton and Brighton campuses into the University.

Throughout its history, BC has established a legacy in the realm of Jesuit, Catholic education, higher education, and society in general. Yet, Birnbaum and Meehan made an effort to ensure that various aspects—not all completely positive—were addressed as they chronicled the upward trajectory of development to where BC

is today.

“There always has been development, and some of the stuff we found is not airing gossip, or pointing out the faults and every mistake that was made, but there are dips along the way, and we highlight some of those moments,” Meehan said. “We appreciate those pauses [in development], we don’t speed past them.”

An example of a pause in development—when BC’s plans perhaps proved more ambitious than its financial means—occurred when Bapst Library stood partially constructed from 1925 until 1928 as the University tried to scrape up more funds. After Bapst was completed, no new buildings were built for 28 years.

“BC had ambitions it couldn’t support … it would run as fast as it could, and it would exhaust itself, and then would have to catch its breath for awhile before it made its next move forward,” Birnbaum said. “The wonderful, brave thing about BC history is that it never gave up.”

Birnbaum noted that the institution’s confidence allowed for a more honest telling of its history.

“I think Seth and I were lucky to walk into this project at a time when BC’s confidence was such that we could be honest about our past,” he said. “[BC] is assured of its place, it’s confident of its contributions to both education and society, and the more mature you get, the better you can look at your past.”

Choosing more recent events to include in the book was a challenge, as the key elements of the years under the Monan and Leahy presidencies are far from solidified as history.

“If you don’t have a 25-year perspective, you really don’t know what was important and what wasn’t,” Birnbaum said. “This is the problem with history: things that are important in the moment turn out, when you see them in the shadow of the next 25 years of history, not [as] something you would want to mention in a history book.”

He did indicate, however, that the acquisitions of both Newton and Brighton campuses—achieved during the Monan and Leahy years—are all but guaranteed a

place in history, due to the extraordinary possibilities that these additions opened for BC. In creating the illustrated history of the University, with a focus on visual information, the coauthors credited Gary Gilbert, the director of photography in the Office of Marketing Communications and photo editor for Boston College Magazine, for his work repairing old photos and creating montages to consolidate vast amounts of photographic information in a small space, as well as book designer Keith Ake. Transitions in BC’s history were central in organizing the information Meehan collected, and the book is divided into major sections outlining BC as a school, a college, and, finally, a university. Meehan said that he found the moments of transition—among them, the decisions to found, move, and expand—particularly fascinating.

For Birnbaum, in addition to depicting the ordinary people who made BC what it is currently, discovering people to be more interesting than he thought they were, and humanizing the towering figures of the University’s history greatly impacted his experience on the project.

“They really had substance, it was not about what they had been reduced to by BC history,” he said.

“These are not plaster saints, these are not heroic figures, these are human beings who lived with the same human ambitions, the same human stresses, the same human desires that we all have. And the same fears that what we’re doing is not enough.”

Among them was Rev. Thomas I. Gasson, S.J., president of the University from 1907 until 1914, and the man responsible for moving BC to Chestnut Hill. Birnbaum and Meehan, in their chapter on Gasson, said that Gasson once wrote, “I am giving my life to the building of this new college … every bone in my body, every drop of my blood, every nerve and fiber is given to the making of a more resplendent Boston College.” n

Jesuits talk media at Agape Latte Agape Latte, from A1 ate degree at Boston College, worked as a software engineer before pursuing his Jesuit vocation and joining the Society of Jesuits in 2004. Sawyer was ordained this past summer, and he has since returned to BC to complete his doctoral thesis.

His experience as a software engineer led to his realization that there was a large gap in the online market of religious—particularly, Jesuit—websites that were accessible to the younger generation.

“The Church missed the Internet revolution.” Sawyer said. “There is a whole generation—our generation—for whom the Internet, social media, is the primary way we communicate, and the Church was nowhere in any of it.”

Sawyer, with his two co-founders, Rev. Eric Sundrup, S.J. and Rev. Paddy Gilger, S.J., decided to take action in fixing this lack, after noticing prolonged inaction among the Jesuit community.

After consulting the support of their superiors, talking to other Jesuits, and recruiting a group of people who were interested in helping, the website was launched, he said.

“The Jesuit Post is a group of Jesuits in formation writing not primarily about faith and spirituality

all the time, but writing about what the world looks like through the eyes of someone to whom faith and Ignatian spirituality is important,” Sawyer said.

In integrating matters of faith with pertinent cultural issues and a strong social media presence, The Jesuit Post seeks to keep the religious conversation relevant and engaging for the younger generation. “This site is about Jesus, politics, and pop-culture; it’s about the Catholic Church, sports, and Socrates; it’s about making the case for God (better: letting God make the case for Himself) in our secular age,” according to the website, www.jesuitpost.org.

After the inception of the website, Rossmann was one of the first to be contacted for involvement.

Rossmann joined the Society of Jesus in 2007 after completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame. He is currently studying theology at BC. Rossmann spoke about the issue of risk that he first associated with this online endeavor when asked to take a position of leadership. “Now, I am stepping into this position where I am going to be a leader of this thing,” Rossmann said. “I am taking a risk in seeing if I might be able to continue the good work that others have started here.”

Both speakers put the issue of risk-taking within the greater context of faith and vocation, speaking about their decision to enter the Society of Jesus.

“When I had the thought that I might be interested in being a Jesuit, it terrified me,” Sawyer said. “That fear was holding me back from the much greater possibility—the possibility that I’m living in now, that it might work.”

Rossmann spoke about his undergraduate experience studying abroad in Uganda and his return to Eastern Africa, as a Jesuit, to teach for two years in Tanzania. “Just as I had tasted what mind and heart expansion was like when I was in college, I wanted more of it,” Rossmann said. “I felt a desire to go out of myself, and to receive more from the people I encountered.”

The conversation concluded with an exhortation for students to examine where they have felt called to take a risk for their faith, and where can they find God in that risk.

“My idea of taking a risk for God—taking a risk with God—is to take that step with faith, and in the process, we become something greater and deeper,” Rossmann said. “Our minds and hearts are expanded.” n

photo courtesy of the office of marketing communications

The University recently published an illustrative history of BC, drawing from previously unused archival materials.

UGBC focuses on disabilities Disability Awareness, from A1 you don’t want to think about it,” she said. “I think it really does make people uncomfortable, because they see something that they’re not—but something that they one day could be.”

According to Fico, there’s a general lack of understanding, from students and from ablebodied people in general, of the context around disabilities—for instance, the U.S. disability rights movement happened around the same time as the civil rights and feminist movements, yet it remains less widely known. In her view, the lack of focus on that movement correlates with the tendency within the U.S. to push disabled people out of view.

“What I would really like to do is get a lot of people with disabilities together on campus,” Fico said. “I think that when a group is divided, that’s how you sort of lose strength. So I just want to bring them together and talk about it, talk about the problems that we face here, and what we need to fix. And I would also really like to possibly do res hall talks, maybe with freshmen or sophomores, just to open up the dialogue about disability.”

Casiano and Ibarrola said that, to their knowledge, this is the first time in recent years UGBC has introduced a new type of advocacy, and they said that they wanted to spend the rest of the semester doing research into the state of accessibility at BC and

having conversations with students who have disabilities, in order to better understand what sort of organizational response would be most useful. The options that they see as available are a caucus like the GLBTQ or AHANA Leadership Councils; a policy initiative orchestrated through the Student Assembly; or programs aimed at raising awareness. The pair hopes to have a more concrete plan by the end of the fall semester.

“Disabilities are an area of policy and awareness that no one’s really talking about,” Ibarrola said. “So that’s why awareness of the issue is a big thing … I think, within the student body, not a lot of people know how to address the issue. Again, that’s why we’re trying to get first-hand knowledge." n

The Heights

A4

Editorial

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Athletic scholarships: bridging the gap The ACC released a statement on Tuesday that might help expand financial aid packages for athletes on full scholarships. Within the list of priorities the conference submitted to the NCAA as a part of the organization’s new allowance for autonomy among the five major conferences was the goal to meet the full cost of attendance for college athletes who receive full scholarships. Although the ACC and the NCAA are not expected to mandate that universities within the conference change the amount of scholarship money they give, it is highly probable that schools will be allowed to offer scholarships that meet the full cost of attendance for the first time since 1975. Should this come to pass, Boston College ought to increase the financial aid packages of its athletes on full scholarship to meet the full cost of attendance.

In 1975, the NCAA voted to prohibit universities from providing students with money for “incidentals,” which includes expenses such as toiletries, laundry, local travel, and school supplies. This limited the maximum scholarship—called full grant-in-aid—to tuition, required fees, room, board, and required textbooks.

According to BC’s financial aid website, the amount for “books and miscellaneous” is $2,200 a year. This $2,200, less what the University estimates is $1,000 for books—according to BC’s Associate Athletics Director of Compliance, Carly Pariseau—leaves BC athletes on full scholarships $1,200 short of receiving the full cost of attendance.

Sparked by O’Bannon v. NCAA, as well as the ruling by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in favor of Northwestern football players trying to unionize, the NCAA is reconsidering this prohibition and will likely vote to allow universities competing in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC to pay for incidentals, if it is not required by the courts. The decision in the O’Bannon case—which has been stayed, pending appeal—would prohibit the NCAA from capping the amount of financial aid schools provide to athletes at any amount below the full cost of attendance. The ruling in favor of Northwestern athletes is also being appealed, but it is within this framework that the NCAA has begun to give schools with the highest revenue more autonomy to set their own rules.

Given the changes that are likely to be coming in the near future, BC should make plans for how it will structure the financial aid that it gives to athletes. The problem with the current system is that, when BC recruits an athlete and offers him or her a full scholarship, it is effectively saying that his or her potential contribution to the University’s goals is so great that it is worth paying for his or her education in full—yet, at the same time, it is not covering the full cost that the athlete will necessarily incur as a student at BC. For the University to continue this practice even if it is legally allowed to cover the full cost of attendance would be disingenuous. If BC values the athlete’s potential contribution to the extent that it will distribute a “full” scholarship to him or her, it should not leave the athlete to come up with that remaining sum on his or her own.

Although it can be argued that the amount of additional money that the athlete will get in this arrangement is trivial and something that could be earned through a part-time job, this stance becomes problematic because of the time commitment required for the sport.

Between that and classes, athletes in the highest-intensity sports do not always have time for a part-time job. Additionally, for some athletes and their families, the money is not a trivial amount.

With respect to the athletic department’s budget, though, the maximum

possible cost of covering the gap is easily manageable. According to data provided to The Heights by the athletic department, there were 351 athletes receiving any athletically-related financial aid in the 2012-13 season. Assuming that they all received full scholarships, the maximum cost to the University for covering the gap and meeting the full cost of attendance would have been approximately $420,000.

Given that not all athletes on scholarship receive full grant-in-aid, the actual cost to BC would have been less than that.

In comparison to the approximately $2.6 million that made up the combined salaries of then-head football coach Frank Spaziani, then-head basketball coach Steve Donahue, and head hockey coach Jerry York in that period, it is in fact a trivial sum of money. BC also paid former men’s basketball head coach Al Skinner more than $500,000 in 2012, according to the University’s IRS Form 990, even though he was fired in 2010.

Although the athletic department does receive institutional support from the University, it generates substantial revenue itself, primarily through a lucrative television contract secured through the ACC. The latest television deal is reportedly worth at least $20 million per year per school, according to ESPN. Many of the full-scholarship athletes are members of teams, such as football and men’s basketball, that allow the school to generate that revenue. The full-scholarship athletes in non-revenue sports also have a role to play, as their teams allow BC’s athletic department to be expansive and developed enough to compete within and contribute to the quality of the ACC. Aside from the cost itself, BC athletic director Brad Bates raised another concern—that giving full-scholarship athletes the additional money to cover the full cost of attendance would further separate them from the student body.

Given that non-athlete students have always been allowed to apply for and receive financial aid that covers the full cost of attendance, this is a specious argument. Simply by virtue of being athletes, they are in a public position at BC both on and off the field through promotion by the athletic department. A little additional money would not have any adverse effect on their relationship with the student body.

This year has already proven to be a year of upheaval for the NCAA. In the spring, after University of Connecticut star and Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four Shabbaz Napier caused a stir by publicly claiming that he went to bed hungry because he could not afford food, the NCAA reformed its regulations on the food colleges could provide athletes.

Now, universities are free to provide any food desired during meetings and events related to their athletic program. The BC athletic department has used this opportunity to increase the food offered to athletes before and after practices and during team meetings. If BC is willing to support athletes in basic nutritional needs, it should also be willing to support them in the incidentals that are necessary for an education.

Although the legal cases have yet to fully unfold and the NCAA has not yet approved the ACC’s plan for allowing scholarships that cover full cost of attendance, it is highly likely that BC will face a different situation for scholarships in the near future. If other schools take the opportunity to cover the personal expenses for athletes on full scholarship and BC does not, the athletic department could see its ability to attract top talent diminish. Even if that is not the case, the University should still do right by these full-scholarship athletes and cover the true cost of an education at BC, incidentals included.

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

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

Heights

The

The Independent Student Newspaper of Boston College Established 1919 Eleanor Hildebrandt, Editor-in-Chief Marc Francis, General Manager Joseph Castlen, Managing Editor

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Editorial

Kayla Famolare, Copy Editor Connor Farley, News Editor Connor Mellas, Sports Editor Kendra Kumor, Features Editor John Wiley, Arts & Review Editor Ryan Towey, Metro Editor Andrew Skaras, Opinions Editor Mary Rose Fissinger, Special Projects Editor Emily Fahey, Photo Editor Maggie Powers, Layout Editor

One always dies too soon—or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up.

-Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980), French playwright, author, philosopher, and literary critic

Letter to the Editor Another take on Teach for America The following letter is in response to “Troubleshooting Teach for America” by The Heights Editorial Board, originally published on 9/22/14: I write to counter the Heights editorial about Teach for America titled “The Problems Facing Teach for America.” I am not a Teach for America spokesperson, but I am both a TFA and Boston College alumnus, and I found that the editorial lacked context and made many blanket assumptions.

First, the contention that “it costs more to place a TFA trainee” due to “relocation costs” is misleading. TFA derives the majority of its funding from private donations, not from public revenue resources. Further, the school districts do not pay for the relocation costs, to suggest otherwise lacks factual foundation.

Second, the assertion that “BC’s continued support of TFA is incongruous with its investment in the teaching profession, and is ultimately damaging the country’s already troubled public education system” is unfounded, and the reasoning used to draw that conclusion is severely flawed. The Editorial Board contends that since TFA applicants have no bargaining power as to placement, those who accept their placements will leave and damage our public education system. Let’s build some context here. First, research indicates that about 50 percent of teachers leave the profession after five years. Thus, retention is a teaching problem, rather than a problem placed squarely on TFA’s shoulders. Next, this assertion that applicants have no say is not true either. Applicants rank their regional preferences, and TFA has begun to emphasize placing corps members in regions in which they have a connection. This assertion also fails to take into account those candidates that will not accept their assigned corps region because they don’t want to move to that particular region.

Third, the editorial notes that TFA gets 70 percent of its operating costs from private foundations and donors, yet simultaneously asserts that TFA corps members cost the taxpayer more. If 100 TFA recruits cost $8.2 million dollars, then the taxpayer may pay up to $2.46 million, or 30 percent of that number. The Colorado report indicates that 100 non-TFA teachers cost $2.22 million. A difference of about $200,000, but that difference is still questionable.

This analysis is questionable given that schools of education, like those who created the report cited favorably by the Editorial Board, are notoriously anti-TFA and a lot of their research seeks to refute TFA effectiveness. The Editorial Board’s face value embrace of one study, while disregarding the others (like Mathematica discussed below) demonstrates a lack of critical analysis. For example, the 2010 Colorado Report puts the attrition cost for nonTFA at $750,000, and $1,080,000 for TFA, noting that these were “estimates” in their research. The Colorado Report does note that TFA charges “up to” a $5,000 finder’s fee per corps member, but does not indicate how that $5,000 per corps members amounts to an almost 400-percent increase in five year costs for TFA corps members versus non-TFA teachers. Again, considering that 50 percent of teachers leave the profession within 5 years, the Report fails to address that particular statistic and how it does or does not impact the attrition costs for nonTFA teachers.

Fourth, the Editorial Board confuses staying in the same school teaching the same grade in perpetuity for proven effectiveness, by noting “only 5 percent of TFA teachers are still in their initial placement.” This assertion misrepresents teacher effectiveness, school administration and internal teachers’ unions’ rules that affect this result. For example, many TFA corps members move into leadership roles, which usually means they have to leave their schools to become school leaders. Further, the editorial doesn’t make clear or provide any research showing how a 6th grade teacher staying in the same grade at the same school does anything to increase student achievement, they just assume it to be true. In addition, if a corps member is excessed (laid off ) because of low enrollment in the school, or because a more senior teacher who was excessed from another school bumps him or her, union contracts determine that even if that TFA teacher was the best teacher in the school, they will still be laid off for a more senior

teacher. This 5 percent figure also connotes that not staying at the same school means that the corps members are no longer teaching in low-income schools, which is assuredly false. I taught in Houston for two years with TFA, and came to Boston and taught at a traditional public school for another three years. All five years I taught low-income students, and I transferred my teaching skills to another group of low-income students. Normally, teachers move around quite a bit, especially in the beginning of their careers.

Fifth, the argument that “TFA’s goal to ‘eliminate educational inequity’ is unlikely to be achieved with such unusually high attrition rates” misunderstands the fact that educational inequity cannot be achieved with teaching alone. The issue needs awareness, political clout, parents, coalitions, and innovation.

We cannot continue to believe that only traditional veteran teachers and teachers’ unions have the answer to educational inequity. If that were true, the Democratic base would not be so conflicted on the issue of education reform, and teacher’s unions would have parents marching with them side by side.

That is not the case.

Finally, and perhaps the most troubling part of the editorial, is the race analysis with the Mathematica study (a study which found a more than two-month growth level for TFA math teachers). The editorial seems to advance the idea that since TFA math teachers in the selected locations were more white than the overall TFA pool, then their results are not indicative of TFA results overall. What I grab from the Heights stating “the educators examined do not represent the diversity of the TFA corps—80 percent of the TFA teachers sampled in the study were white, compared to only 45 percent of the incoming corps members nationally,” is that the Heights Editorial Board believes TFA corps members of color are not as effective as their white counterparts, without examining that perhaps corps members of color are more inclined to teach different subjects or more concentrated in different TFA sites. Also noted in the editorial is that the study excluded charter school TFA corps members. Curiously, the Heights Editorial Board thought the exclusion of the charter school TFA teachers “begin[s] to break down” the otherwise positive results, but this fails to take into account that TFA typically sends corps members to the very high performing KIPP and YES charter networks. Further, the Heights Editorial Board provides no facts or research indicating that the charter teachers excluded would have dropped the scores for TFA teachers.

The editorial brushes aside the Mathematica study and buttresses up the flawed and biased Colorado study. The truth is that several studies find that TFA corps members are more effective than other first year non-TFA teachers. Mathematica found that TFA teachers were more effective at teaching math than non-TFA teachers regardless of their experience.

TFA has its issues; perhaps more training would be beneficial to the corps members, or placing students in regions where they will stay long term (something that they have started to implement).

But I disagree with most of the editorial. Where I agree with the Editorial Board is when they mention that: “Teaching in public schools is not a service opportunity. It is a career, and American universities should start treating it as such.” I agree. I taught for five years in low-income schools. It was not a service opportunity; I worked hard, and made significant gains with my students. It was my career full-time for five years, and I do not believe, for one second, that I did not give my teaching career the level of responsibility and respect that it deserves simply because I went into another career path thereafter. I am thankful for TFA because it brought me into the education reform movement, and developed me as a leader and teacher—the latter I would have never been, but for TFA.

The Heights welcomes Letters to the Editor not exceeding 400 words and column submissions that do not exceed 700 words for its op/ed pages.

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

to the newspaper.

Submissions must be signed and should include the author’s connection to Boston College, address, and phone number. Letters and columns can be submitted online at www.bcheights.com, by email to editor@bcheights.com, in person, or by mail to Editor, The Heights, 113 McElroy Commons, Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467.

Jordan Pentaleri, Graphics Editor Nicole Suozzo, Blog Editor Austin Tedesco, Online Manager Corinne Duffy, Assoc. Copy Editor Evan D. Gatti, Asst. Copy Editor Julie Orenstein, Assoc. News Editor Nathan McGuire, Asst. News Editor Marly Morgus, Assoc. Sports Editor Alex Fairchild, Asst. Sports Editor Samantha Costanzo, Asst. Features Editor

E. Peter Alvarez BC Alumnus TFA Alumnus

Ariana Igneri, Assoc. Arts & Review Editor Michelle Tomassi, Asst. Arts & Review Editor Bennet Johnson, Asst. Metro Editor Emily Sadeghian, Asst. Photo Editor JT Mindlin, Asst. Layout Editor Breck Wills, Asst. Graphics Editor Arielle Cedeno, Editorial Assistant Sarah Moore, Executive Assistant

Business and Operations

Mujtaba Syed, Business Manager Chris Stadtler, Advertising Manager Tricia Tiedt, Outreach Coordinator Donny Wang, Systems Manager Pamela Taylor, National Advertising Manager Jessica Turkmany, Account Manager Catherine Duffy, Collections Manager Russell Puleo, Project Coordinator

The Heights

Thursday, October 2, 2014

A5

Disgust and avoiding real opinions

Diana Kim Screenshots - For when we are too lazy to make a real graph in Excel.

Mason Jars - We have real cups, but we like to drink our beverages from these instead.

Disclosure - A great band. We really enjoyed “Latch.”

Disclosures - We, along with everyone else in the student body (and likely their brothers, sisters, and significant others), received an email yesterday from the Office of the Executive Vice President disclosing the disclosures available to students online. Don’t get us wrong, we always support and encourage transparency.

We are giving this the ol’ Thumbs Down because we know Boston College would never do this if they were not legally required to do so.

Accepted Offers - Stop going out on Monday nights and yelling incoherently (yet comprehensibly when talking about the job you already have post-graduation) outside of our windows. It’s not even Senior Night and you are making us angsty.

I’m as vulnerable to click-bait as anyone, so this summer, when I saw an outrageous BuzzFeed article about my high school, I clicked on it. Like everyone else who read the article, I was upset … by the shoddy journalism and blatant sensationalism of the piece.

For those who didn’t see the article, it was a piece by Katie Baker titled “What Happens When a Prep School’s Black Student President Mocks Her White Male Classmates.” While the Lawrenceville School can be annoyingly pretentious, during my four years there, I felt accepted by both the faculty and the student body despite being female, Asian, and not wealthy. Reading through all the facts of the scandal, it seemed as though this incident was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Lawrenceville School has a strict two-strike policy that Maya Peterson, the student body president, seemed to have already violated by making a couple of bad choices that would have gotten anyone else kicked out of the school when she was an underclassman. She was asked to step down following a photo that she uploaded to the Internet that was poking fun at the white male demographic at the school. The uproar was mostly caused by the article that made it seem as though the only thing she had done wrong was mock a privileged portion of the student body, without considering the rest of her actions. This does not mean that I think Peterson was entirely in the wrong, nor does it mean that I think what the school did was right. I’ll leave that issue to the people involved to figure out. Rather, I came out of the experience with the realization that people love to be angry.

BuzzFeed, Clickworthy, and other

Ebola - There’s a case in the U.S. now.

Watch out.

Layoffs - The New York Times announced yesterday that there will be yet another round of layoffs at America’s paper of record. Although we have long been aware of the plight of the newspaper industry in the modern world, it still saddens our hearts to see this.

Gasson Doors - You know the Quadside Gasson doors? Yeah, we have a serious problem with these doors.

They are too narrow for the traffic that needs to flow through them on a regular basis. We are always left waiting outside, as what we are sure is an entire class from Gasson 305 files out.

Like Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down?

Follow us @BCTUTD

ings, which have been dubbed “uncool.”

Just last week, I was on my way to an interview, confidently getting into stride and perfecting my Boston College-stare-into-your-soul look, when I tripped and fell. It was right behind Rubenstein and I had just passed a big group of people whom I had stared down. As I fell, I panicked internally, and the first words out of my mouth were, “Ew, gross.” Given the circumstances, I was too weirded out by my own reaction to do anything except run away from the scene of the crime. Later, as I thought about what happened, I realized that my reaction was mostly so that I would not look stupid in front of the big group I had just passed.

Mission failed—miserably. Although I was internally flustered, my automatic defensive reaction was to pretend disgust—although in this case, it didn’t work so well. I would like to think that I’m a good specimen of the Internet, given my poor taste in puns and penchant for socially unacceptable jokes.

After examining the Internet click-bait phenomenon again in light of, well, me, it seems that we can see the love of overflowing righteous anger as merely another extension of these disgusted feelings. Being disgusted is a good, safe alternative to sticking your neck out there by voicing a real opinion.

When introducing the Internet community, it would be easier to define it in terms of what it dislikes than in terms of what it likes. We don’t like extroverts, we don’t like introverts, we don’t like cynics, we don’t like romantics, we hate the young and despise the old, we hate feelings, opinions, and even hate. The Internet has become a gathering place for those who hate things recreationally and Buzzfeed is our playground. And so, I’ve emerged from the depths of the Internet to leave you with this word of wisdom: Eeeewwwwwwwww.

Diana Kim is a staff columnist for The Heights. She can be reached at opinions@ bcheights.com.

That’s entertainment

Bae - We just learned about this acronym frequently used by today’s youth culture to refer to one’s significant other. Standing for “before anyone else,” it represents everything wrong with American culture today.

Secret Service, Pt. 2 - We thought that the man who made it into the White House a couple of weeks ago was stopped soon after entering the building. Through an investigation

by The Washington Post, we have learned that not only did he enter the premise, but that he made it all the way into the East Room and was only stopped when an off-duty guard happened to walk by him on his way out of the building. What the hell?!? How does this happen? And, in classic bureaucratic fashion, when called to testify before Congress, the director of the Secret Service deflected questions and managed to leave having said almost nothing of substance.

There is something deeply wrong with that organization. Although he was not home, the president could have been and would have been susceptible to harm. He has enough to worry about without adding the security of his home to the list.

websites like these work so well, not just because of the promise of cute cat pictures, but also because getting upset is fun and rather addictive. Sometimes, after a long day, I’ll sit down with a cup of hot chocolate and go on fixthefamily. com to get myself worked up and fuming before going to bed. Even though I know their arguments for why girls shouldn’t go to college (she will attract the wrong types of men and not learn to be a wife and mother) and why feminism is bad (it’s sinful and degrading to men) will make me angry, I still enjoy reading it if only to rant about it with my always-obliging roommate. For articles on more reasonable websites like BuzzFeed, however, it is worth thinking about why people jump on the accusatory bandwagon so quickly, often without fact-checking. If I had not gone to this high school, I’m sure I would have shared the article on Facebook, ranting about the racism and elitism still alive and well in parts of “civilized” America today. Just by looking through the acidic comments on the page, I was able to see how outsiders would view these events, and the hundredplus replies on each comment showed how people were more than willing to engage in battle over something about which they knew almost nothing.

Being a denizen of the Internet, who spends most of her time vegetatively scrolling through Tumblr, I can confirm that the most ridiculous stories spread the quickest. Despite all the warning signs, people are always quick to feed the countless trolls who live under the Internet bridges. Tumblr is a really scary place where people will get angry about anything and everything from really important societal questions to otp (one true pairing) disagreements. This permanent dissatisfaction does sometimes lead to some good conversations about social justice in the anonymous Internet sphere, but often just leads to good old-fashioned cussing. This disgust for absolutely everything that permeates most of the Internet seems to be a defense mechanism against feel-

Nate Fisher Or “Face/Off Is A Better Movie Than The Godfather.” Or “Nicolas Cage Died For Our Sins.” Whichever title hooks people in better.

That’s the thing about entertainment.

It’s not that society’s collective gluttony for it creates a culture where ideas get ignored unless they are tailored to meet our fickle attention span—you already knew that.

It’s that no one seems to know exactly what entertainment is. The word itself is a conversational catch-all whose definition routinely boils down to “stuff most people like.” Its actual essence remains unclear, and we define it only by its base utilitarian effect on the viewer.

Something close to defining entertainment happens often when discussing movies, but the conversation only goes so far as to place entertainment as the opposite of the even more eternally nebulous term—art. In explaining their relationship to movies they like, many viewers will split the field in two, saying “there are movies, and there are films.” What a convenient system. Whenever you want entertainment, then there are movies tailored for your entertainment, and whenever you want artment, then there are movies tailored for your artment. How, then, to determine which movie fits which category? And what if, God forbid, there’s a disagreement over whether a movie is a movie or a film?

Enter Face/Off. The best movie I’ve seen all year stars Nicolas Cage and John Travolta—the snickering usually starts there—as a criminal and detective who surgically switch faces. Yeah, it’s everything a ’90s Hollywood actioner should be—very ’90s, very Hollywood, very actiony, very very. Apart from being a time capsule from an increasingly bygone era, it has the kind of energy and inventiveness that no Hollywood movie, action or otherwise, has the skill or conviction to attempt now. Many people I know who

have seen this movie roundly dismiss it.

Some “worsts” even get thrown around.

Disagreement is fine, but how can we discuss a movie when one side calls it entertainment and one side calls it art? In my experience, such conversations tend to carry assumptions like “Well, a movie like X is clearly just made for entertainment.”

This is a prickly position to take. It tends to come from a position of stated humility, but is it more hubristic to make a value judgment of a movie’s merits or to declare the purpose for which said movie was made? It goes well beyond the work itself and seeks to state the creator’s intentions, which seems unfair to all involved.

These judgments could be more charitably described as the viewer making aesthetic judgments no different from standard film criticism, but built according to principles of “entertainment,” which seek to protect the casual viewer from being seen as overly critical. This seems truer to his or her intentions—I doubt any proponents of the movie/film duality are really covert film narcissists.

This insistence that movies belong in their respective places, though, implicitly reinforces the position of superiority that the viewer takes in relation to the material. From this position, implicit rather than explicit judgments of quality are made, thus reinforcing dominant taste as mass and unconscious. The active eccentrics are shunned.

Unless they’re just the right distance from the mass entertainment ideal where they can be adopted by the true covert film narcissism of the “so bad it’s good.” In this diseased viewing perspective, terrible and great films alike are subjected to a kind of viewing remove wherein the films are held up and pilloried according to the viewer’s infallible conception of how a movie should be. It’s fine to be fascinated by particular examples of cinematic trash, as some movies, especially ones experienced in childhood, can haunt us forever even if the surrounding movie is otherwise poor. “So bad it’s good,” however, never resorts to such sincerity. It is the realm of words like “amazing” and “unreal” and “best movie ever” delivered with smug remove. It is the rotten pit of self-satisfied groupthink at the heart of

the casual entertainment impulse—and woe to any iconoclasts who would stand in its way.

Enter Nicolas Cage. Again we are drawn back to Face/Off and the “so bad it’s good” movement’s sacrificial Christ figure. You can find choice bits of his Face/Off performance in the many “Nicolas Cage Losing His S***” videos referenced with a chuckle every time I try to explain to someone how much I respect his best work. But if you were to take Face/Off at face value, you would find that his performance comes together quite well. Cage’s face, fittingly for Face/Off, is a rubber canvas full of wild gestures in perfect harmony with the film’s surrounding madcap energy. It’s not a realistic performance, but inspires awe nonetheless. Like all of his best performances, it stands as a rebuke to the way movies sink into Hollywood-esque realism (i.e. not realism) in favor of the novel idea that movies and performances should be unique and memorable. Woah!

Yet, the culture that comforts itself in middle-of-the-road omnipleasance is easily equipped to toss eccentricity in favor of half-gestures and chilly ironic detachment. Everything “very” about Face/Off is ostracized for not being “middle.”

Standard elementary school playground stuff magnified by the self-conscious adolescent impulse to see who can care the least that is habit for our generation.

Maybe this is just a symptom of our time, and probably some day our children will scoff at us in favor of their newfound youthful sincerity. And some day that, too, will become equally cloying, as trendseekers trip over themselves to prove who cares the most about utter dreck. The process is underway—even now, would-be cultural trailblazers are doubling back on themselves to find preposterous movies in which known ham actors swap faces and are singing obscene Hosannas. But for now, we cannot commit entirely, we must still cloak our praise in the guise of a smug, stifling, culture-critic sneer. At least we still have funny Nicolas Cage clips.

Nate Fisher is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@ bcheights.com.

The opinions and commentaries of the staff 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.

Without plan or path Ryan Daly Stop. Look here. Listen.

This is a rallying cry, a fervid address, a fierce soliloquy, a vehement homily. This is not a newspaper article, an opinions column, a Heights production. Look before you. Look around you. Observe. The music playing in your dorm. The espresso machine sputtering in the Chocolate Bar. The bells chiming as you lay in the grass. The silence that envelops the library.

Observe. This is your life. Your life is more than printed words on a page, newspaper folded together, eyes scanning this line. This line, this article, this paper is not your life. Do you understand?

There is an underlying and singular stigma at Boston College: have everything together.

That is it. Forget everything else you know.

There is no such thing as the BC hook-up culture—people decide to date. There is no such thing as the BC look-away—just as many people wave hello. People don’t always dress in button-ups and chinos—sweatpants are extremely common. There’s just as many people that don’t drink as those that do—the latter is just more vocal. Not everyone comes from a wealthy family—many struggle with money. For those that decide to drink, hook-up, and dress up for class, they do so because they want to.

Rarely does a student here change his or her appearance to fit in—that being said, there are always deviations from a pattern.

The one thing that is constant on this campus—and most likely at other top-tier schools—is that you need to have everything together. Know your major. Have the right friends. Have a life plan. Three years. Ten years.

Secure a stellar internship. Land a stellar job.

This is a rallying cry. A fervid address. A fierce soliloquy. A vehement homily. Don’t have everything together. Don’t always have a plan.

Accept the forces that be. Be adaptable. Look before you. Look around you. Observe. Everyone fakes it until they make it. Those who have a major don’t know what to do with it. Those who don’t have a major don’t know where they will find one. Accept that you are faking it, too, because even if you think you have a plan, you have no idea what is going to happen when your eyes open tomorrow. You don’t know what’s going to happen when your eyes look away from this line, in this article, in this newspaper.

Mind you, this is not a rallying cry to let go of the rope, to plunge through the glass, to not give a damn. Not having everything together means that you need to figure it all out. That’s what college is. That’s the point of all of this.

You’re not supposed to have it all together, but you’re supposed to figure it out. Figure it out by being uncomfortable. Don’t settle for comfortable mediocrity, because comfortable mediocrity will sedate you. Wake up.

Do you understand? This is your life. Your life. Do whatever you damn well please, as long as you can stand by it with a firm mind.

Be vulnerable. Stop searching for approval, support, compliments, praise. That will take you nowhere. Whatever it is—science, math, literature, history—that hammers at your heart and beats at your brain, you have a duty to do it. Burn a bridge as often as you build one. Tie your shoes tight and make sure you use them.

Be self-educated. Read the books no one assigns you.

Look now. Look around—this isn’t eternity.

Be bold and roar into the days, into the nights.

This is a rallying cry. The time is now, so you must, you must begin to admit that you don’t have it all together.

Don’t go thinking that just because I’m writing this article that I’m wholesomely straightforward, brilliantly in tune with myself, or completely accepting that I don’t know where my life will go. I just present ideas and questions, and I’m faking it.

Do you understand? Stop saying you do.

Start saying you don’t. The points I presented above could be proven baseless tomorrow, or next week, or next year. One point, though, will always hold true: This article is not everlasting. It is just print on paper. It will be recycled. It will be forgotten.

If you’re reading this on a computer, this article will be gone the second you close the tab. The Internet will supposedly hold this article forever in an archive, but one day, the Internet will be recycled, too.

You’ll be recycled one day. Yes, you. Look before you. Look around you. Observe. Everyone you see will be recycled, one day.

In the meantime, this is a rallying cry, a fervid address, a fierce soliloquy, a vehement homily—inhale the chaos. Let it fill your lungs.

Ryan Daly is a staff columnist for The Heights. He can be reached at opinions@ bcheights.com.

The Heights

A6

The EPL takes the Eagles by storm From Column, A8 win is all a team needs to turn its season around.

But eight minutes into the match with the Welsh side, Jonjo Shelvey was slotting a penalty by Kapp and everything was headed downhill, again. A 6-0 loss was the result the team collected as it headed into a match with title contenders, Manchester City. The Eagles were star-struck by the opposition, and Alvaro Negredo was off the mark six minutes into the game. He struck again two minutes later, and his side was on its way to a 10-0 romp.

The losses kept on coming, and we were bottom at Christmas. Team morale was abysmal, too, as BC failed to score for another 10 games.

The Eagles’ only hope for silverware was the FA Cup, but a loss to Watford put them straight out of the competition.

Relegation to the Championship was assured by January. Stability in the upper offices of the club was lacking, but two things remained constant: One, everywhere the Eagles went, I faced chants of, “Going down, going down, going down,” and two, Toby insisted that the team keep the line higher and that Nana pass the ball.

Mid-May rolled around, and the Eagles were put out of their misery in an

8-0 defeat to City. Rock bottom of the table at the end of the simulation, the team had conceded 192 goals and scored a mere five.

According to the game’s match rating system, which rates each player’s contribution in on-the-ball actions (passes, tackles, shots, goals, assists, etc.), the top-rated players to start in more than 25 matches were Kapp at 6.31 and Normesinu at 6.25. The ratings are computed on a scale of 1-10, and each player starts the match at 6.7. Normesinu was the team’s top scorer with two goals, while Cole DeNormandie and Sandgren chipped in with one each.

Perhaps the competition in the world’s best league was too much for the Eagles, so football in the Championship, the division below the Premier League, would have to suffice. BC failed to avoid the drop, though. The team earned just two wins (against Leeds United and Blackpool), tallying 25 goals in the process.

I concluded that the team could not compete in the top 12 divisions in Europe, according to Football Manager’s ratings, so I put them in Skrill Premier, which is the fifth division of the English game and is otherwise known as conference or non-league football.

The team faired far better, and won 18 games. Lewis and Sandgren both scored

in double digits and the team avoided the drop.

It is important to note that each of these seasons was simulated without the team being properly prepared for each match. Football Manager supplies users with in-depth reports about each opponent, and allows the manager to make in-game substitutions and changes to adapt to the match.

If changes were made, and the team was meticulously nurtured, it easily could have done better in each of the leagues— not by much, but by enough that a difference would be noticeable.

So, as I sat at my desk and reflected on operating a college soccer team in a professional league, I discovered that the result of my colossal, hard drive-busting, and time-killing simulation was that Ed Kelly’s team might be able to compete with the part-time footballers, who grind away their weekends in the fifth division of the English football pyramid.

Even though games in the fifth division are poorly attended, there is comfort in knowing that there are not 35,000 people calling for your head.

Alex Fairchild is the Asst. Sports Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at sports@bcheights.com

Thursday, October 2, 2014

ROUND U p

BY ARTHUR BAILIN | FOR THE HEIGHTS

Women’s tennis struggles The Boston College women’s tennis team found success in the pre-qualifying round of the Riviera/ITA All-American Championship, but met no success in the qualifying draw on Wednesday.

Freshman Assiya Dair, sophomore Lexi Borr, and senior Jessica Wacnik all fell in the first round of the qualifying draw.

Dair was defeated by Quinn Gleason of Notre Dame in the first round, 0-6, 6-3, 6-2. Wacnik failed to advance from first round, too, as she was defeated by Georgiana Patrasc of Mississippi State 6-1, 6-2. Borr lost to Rachel Pierson of Texas A&M 6-1, 6-1.

The doubles team of Borr and Wacnik also struggled in its defeat to a team from Wichita State, 6-2, 5-7, 10-7.

Borr and Dair both found success during the pre-qualifying draw, while Wacnik was chosen as an alternate.

During the pre-qualifying draw, Borr competed first against Lok Sze Leung of

Northwestern. She defeated Leung 6-2, 64. She then continued her success against Texas A&M’s Anna Mamalat, taking her down 4-6, 7-5, 6-2. Borr then finished the pre-qualifying draw sweep when she defeated Middle Tennessee’s Tiffany William, 7-6, 6-2.

Dair defeated Simona Parajova of TCU 6-1, 7-5. She swept the qualifying draw by defeating Caroline Brinson 6-1, 3-6, 6-4, and Mariana Gould 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Wacnik did not share the success of her younger peers. She defeated Maddie Johnson of Drake 6-2, 6-4. Following that match, she defeated Rice’s Natalie Beazant, 4-6, 6-1, 6-3. Wacnik couldn’t finish the sweep, however, falling to Asharvya Shrivastava of New Mexico State 6-4, 7-5.

Wacnik was selected as an alternate.

Gabrielle Otero of New Mexico defeated Junior Katya Vasilyev, an alternate for the competition, in the first round, 6-2, 2-6, 6-3. n

Dowd’s gone from a breakout freshman to a sophomore star From Dowd, A8 was awesome for us,” Dowd said. “We just went into every game like it was our last and didn’t look further down the line, just stuck with that one game, and I think that worked really well.”

When the 2014 season started out full of adversity, the team committed to the same approach from the get-go. “I think taking one game at a time is the perfect way to look at this season,” Dowd said. “We feel the three losses [four after Sunday’s loss to Clemson] could have been avoided, but we’re learning from each of them.”

As Dowd has advanced through her BC career, not everything has been sunshine and rainbows. While Dowd came through big for the Eagles in the NCAA tournament last year, those five points were more than a third of her full season

total. This year, Dowd went the first three games without recording a single point, let alone a goal. She’s also failed to find the score sheet in three of the Eagles’ last four games. Where others might wring their hands and worry, neither Dowd nor her coaches are particularly concerned.

For a striker, not being able to put the ball in the net is akin to a wide receiver not getting enough targets in the passing game. It’s oftentimes frustrating and can snowball into a massive slump that can affect not just the player, but the entire team as well.

“It’s tough, but you can’t think about scoring,” Dowd said earnestly. “Like, as long as we’re winning, it really doesn’t matter to me. I just want to do anything I can to help the team win … you can’t think about the scoring end much, you just have to think about what you can do to make this team better and make them win.”

Dowd’s mindset is one that endears her to her teammates—especially in a year when the Eagles need to rely on their team as a whole instead of hoping a star will cary the team. Her hard-working, team-first attitude is exactly what the Eagles need to repeat what they accomplished last year.

Dowd says her team is completely focused on the tasks ahead of them, first of which is ACC play. “Every game is basically a must-win. We should get as many points from the ACC as we possibly can, and we’re gonna run into some really good teams,” Dowd said, and she’s not wrong. At 1-2 in the conference following their loss to Clemson, the Eagles will face a tough series of tests including Virginia, Louisville, and Duke as they look to match or improve on the year they had last season.

An unexpected challenge BC has had to face this year is the state of the Newton

Campus Soccer Field. Twice this year it has been shut down due to unsafe playing conditions, with both men’s and women’s teams forced to play “home” games elsewhere, including at Harvard and in Waltham. It’s tough enough to play an ACC-strength schedule at home in front of a home crowd and students—it’s even tougher to do so with only a nominal home-field advantage.

Dowd says her team has once again taken it in stride, however, leaning on its “one game at a time” attitude. In fact, as she rightly points out, BC’s record is actually better on the road, at 5-1, than it is at home, at just 2-3. “I think it’s just another form of adversity—with the injuries and now we don’t even have a home field,” Dowd chuckled. “But we’re just taking it in stride.”

Even when she’s simply sitting in a chair, it’s impossible to miss the bubbly

energy that Dowd brings both to the field and to her life every day. The coffee cup she holds probably helps supplement that energy, as it does for so many other college students. That energy is curiously contrasted with her laid back attitude—nothing seems to faze the sophomore—not a scoring drought, not an injury to the best player on the team, and not even the daunting task of trying to help fill in the gap left by that player.

Dowd doesn’t try to replace Meehan—nobody can do that. She brings her own style, her own type of leadership to the team. Focused on just one game at a time, Dowd sincerely believes that this team can make it back to the NCAA Tournament. While Dowd might be the focal point of the attack this year for the Eagles, what she seems to enjoy more than being in the spotlight herself is shining that light on her teammates. n

Emily Fahey / Heights Editor | Graham Beck / heights senior staff

Hayley Dowd has scored eight goals in 12 games for the Eagles this season, including a two-goal performance against ACC foe Pittsburgh. As a freshman last season, Dowd totalled just five goals in 24 appearances.

THE HEIGHTS

EDITORS’ EDITORS’PICKS PICKS

Thursday, October 2, 2014 The Week Ahead

Standings

Men’s soccer travels to No. 1 Notre Dame for a Friday night matchup. The men’s hockey team kicks off its season with an exhibition game against New Brunswick at Conte Forum on Saturday. Field hockey continues conference play when Wake Forest comes to Newton. Nevada and Boise State battle in a Mountain West matchup this weekend.

A7

Game of the Week

Recap from Last Picks

MARLY MORGUS

13-5

ALEX FAIRCHILD

13-5

CONNOR MELLAS

10-8

HEIGHTS STAFF

10-8

The women’s soccer team beat Pittsburgh at Harvard in a 3-1 victory. Colorado State pulled of a 4th quarter comeback to defeat the football team.

Field hockey nearly upset No. 1 UNC in overtime, but failed. Phil Jagielka matched Steven Gerrard’s free kick with a half-volley at the death to level the Merseyside derby.

Women’s Ice Hockey

Boston vs. Syracuse College

Guest Editor: John Wiley

Katie King-Crowley has a star-spangled forward back in Alex Carpenter, and the Eagles beat Queen’s University last weekend 10-1. Ranked No.4 in the nation, the Eagles are poised to be one of the most lethal teams in the country. In her first game back in maroon and gold, Carpenter scored twice and tallied two assists. One of the bigger issues BC will face comes between the pipes, as three players will compete for the spot left behind by standout goaltender Corinne Boyles. Gabriella Switaj made the most saves of the netminders in the exhibiton last week, though any of the three could start.

Arts Editor

“Mitchell caught a body exactly one week ago.”

CONNOR MELLAS

This Week’s Games

Sports Editor

Men’s Soccer: BC vs. No. 1 Notre Dame

MARLY MORGUS Assoc. Sports Editor

ALEX FAIRCHILD

JOHN WILEY Arts Editor

Asst. Sports Editor

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Draw

Notre Dame

Women’s Ice Hockey: No. 4 BC vs. Syracuse

BC

BC

BC

BC

Field Hockey: No. 8 BC vs. No. 16 Wake Forest

BC

BC

BC

Wake Forest

Nevada

Boise State

Boise State

Nevada

College Football: Nevada vs. Boise State

Saturday, 2 p.m.

ACC POWER RANKINGS

BY CONNOR MELLAS, MARLY MORGUS, AND ALEX FAIRCHILD

Been too busy to keep up with what’s going on in ACC football outside of Chestnut Hill? Worry no more— in honor of Steve Addazio & The Dudes’ bye week, we’ve got exactly what you need to get informed.

The Boston College football team is on a bye week. For some, that means a couple of days to spend apple picking and embarking on picturesque autumnal hikes. Others will use the free time to catch up on homework and dissect the relentlessly expanding pile of laundry shoved sadly underneath their bed. The BC football team will probably be tackling. Despite their lack of clean clothes and their plunging GPAs, Heights sports editors Connor Mellas, Marly Morgus, and Alex Fairchild are using the break to reflect on the state of the Atlantic Coast Conference and provide you with woefully under-researched power rankings, five games into BC’s season.

The standings were determined by each judge individually ranking each team from 1-14. The results were then averaged.

Here we go.

1) Florida State Fairchild: Jameis Winston & Co. brought swag back to Florida State last season, and through four games the good vibes still be flowing down south with smiles on their faces and free crabs in their hands. #CrabLegs Mellas: What Fairchild is trying to say is that in their National Championship follow-up season, the Seminoles are 4-0 and still the team to beat. FSU looks significantly less invulnerable than it did last season, though. The Seminoles scraped past Clemson in overtime and survived a scare versus NC State last week—there are cracks in the armor, but for now, FSU remains on top.

2) Georgia Tech Fairchild: No coach in the country can ask for more than being undefeated after four games. The Yellow Jackets might not be favorites on any national stage, but so far they are one of two teams in the ACC yet to pick up a loss.

Morgus: Georgia Tech is overrated here. It hasn’t done anything notable yet, with the most credible win so far a 3-point margin over Virginia Tech. Clemson should have this spot, and I don’t even like Clemson that much. Coastal has nothing on Atlantic.

3) Clemson Mellas: Clemson is 2-2 on the year, but both of those losses came against ranked teams, including the abovementioned heartbreaker against No.1 FSU. Defensive end Vic Beasley sits fourth in the nation with six sacks—Clemson is an all around very balanced team and hasn’t missed a field goal, so that’s cool.

Morgus: I took Sammy Watkins in, like, the second round of one of my fantasy drafts. I loved the team that Clemson had last year. This year, though, it couldn’t do enough against a Florida State team without its greatest weapon. It will bury almost everyone remaining on its schedule, but I’d expect it to struggle against NC State and be absolutely handled by South Carolina, keeping it from doing anything really big this year.

4) Louisville Morgus: Opening up its ACC career with a 31-13 win over Miami set the right tone for Louisville, and even with the loss to Virginia, the Cards are averaging 34.4 points per game, which is pretty respectable five games in, especially when they’re ranked ninth in the FBS for points against.

W. Soccer

scoreboard

Fairchild: The Cardinals have a cool logo, a cool nickname, a defense ranked ninth in the country in points against, and a coach getting a second chance. And there’s nothing more American than that.

doesn’t tell you the Panthers have a problem on offense, I don’t know what will. And for anyone gauging Pitt off of the BC win, you need to shift your perspective. Pitt wasn’t good that day.

BC was bad.

5) NC State

10) BC

Mellas: Holy hell, NC State has gone from a pathetic pile of flattened defensive backs—courtesy of Andre Williams—to a, dare I say it? A good football team. The Wolfpack is 4-1, and damn near took FSU to the house last week. NC State had a 38-35 lead with five minutes left in the third quarter before the wheels came off and Winston came storming back to win it.

Junior quarterback Jacoby Brissett has chucked 13 touchdowns and only one pick, and the running game is respectable. Who are you and what have you done with NC State?

Morgus: It’s fun to say that Tyler Murphy is going to somehow pull this team from its grave and BC will finally have a more-than-moderately successful season, but every time Murphy makes a poor decision—usually an ill-advised throw—BC’s hopes for a more balanced offense die a little more inside.

Morgus: The beginning of that Florida State was a glorious moment of hope for me. Who wouldn’t love to see the ’Noles go down? The Pack hasn’t really been tested yet except in the one loss to No. 1, but it’s put up strong offensive numbers, including almost as many rushing yards as passing. It does what BC tries to do, with a big element of their offense coming on the ground, but NC State does it well.

6) Virginia Morgus: I think the part of me that believes Virginia is going to be good this year is probably bigger than it should be—there’s really nothing special on the books for the Cavs so far, just a narrow win over then No. 21 Louisville, but Virginia is one of those teams like Duke was last year. It’s a basketball school that you don’t expect a decent football team out of, so when they do start winning, it’s easy to get excited.

Mellas: I’m bigger on the Blue Devils than the other editors are—I’d rank them higher—which is surprising given Fairchild’s suspicious attachment to Jabari Parker. For the second year in a row, Duke is sneaky good. Sitting pretty at 4-1, Duke’s only loss came from a 22-10 stumble against Miami last week. Don’t sleep on the Blue Devils.

Fairchild: Heath Miller played there a long time ago, and somehow, he’s still in the NFL.

7)Virginia Tech

12) Wake Forest

Mellas: Virginia Tech tied with Miami in our rankings, but given our cumulative and probably irrational disdain for all things Miami—looking at you, Heat fans—VTech gets the edge.

Morgus: Wake has a loss to a team in the Sun Belt. What is the Sun Belt? With the schedule that they have ahead of them, too, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if Wake didn’t win another game this year.

Fairchild: This said, Va Tech doesn’t have a cool dual-threat quarterback capable of playing in the league this year, and the special teams have been average at best. #NotBeamerBall

Fairchild: The one winnable game on their schedule comes when they host Boston College. Pessimism or realism? You decide.

8) Miami

13) Syracuse

Morgus: No love for this team.

Morgus: Syracuse barely beat Nova.

Mellas: The UUUUUUUUU. Miami beat Duke but got spanked by Louisville and lost by 10 points to Nebraska. The Hurricanes have steadily got better over the last three years, which means the roof should come crashing down very soon.

9) Pittsburgh

Mellas: My dad’s still salty about that—he’s a huge Nova fan.

Syracuse also went on national TV wearing some of the ugliest jerseys I’ve ever seen in my life. BC will still find a way to lose to them at home, though. Even if Terrel Hunt quits to pursue a full time boxing career.

14) UNC

Fairchild: James Conner is really good, and having a good running back with a couple auxiliary guys to pick up the slack is helpful, but works a lot better if Andre Williams is on your team.

Mellas: It all started out so well. Two wins to open the season, and then—chaos. UNC’s defense allowed 120 points in its last two games. 120 points.

Morgus: Works is a strong word there, but Fairchild has a point. Pitt only put up 10 points on Akron at home. If that

Fairchild: If you could create a football team and program as hopeless as my love life, you’d have the Tar Heels. 

WALTHAM, MA 9/28

FIELD HOCKEY

DUNHAM 4 SVS BC HORGAN 1 G UNH

W. Soccer

CAMBRIDGE, MA 9/25

3 1

11) Duke

Morgus: I disagree. Anthony Boone has had a strong start, but I can’t say that a team that was shut down offensively by a thoroughly mediocre Miami defense will be as sneaky good as last year. I respect Cutcliffe and the progress he has made with the Duke team, but I don’t think this is going to be as big a year as last year.

BC 0 CLEM 1 BC PITT

Mellas: I have absolutely no idea how talented BC is. Going into the season, I thought the Eagles were looking at a 4-8 year.

That prediction felt pretty solid after Pitt. I bought in to the hype a bit once the USC game showcased Offensive Coordinator Ryan Day’s genius and BC’s Marian Trench level of running back depth, but then CSU happened. Steve Addazio loves coin metaphors, so here’s another one—BC is a team with two sides, and there’s no way to tell which one will show up on game day.

4 1

FIELD HOCKEY

DOWD 2 G 1 A BC ARVAS 1 G UNC

2 3

CHESTNUT HILL, MA 9/27

NEWTON, MA 9/28 FOOTBALL SHEENAN 1 G FLATLEY 1 G

BC CSU

21 24

NEWTON, MA 9/26 M. SOCCER SETTIPANE 8 SVS SHEALY 1 G

BC 0 DUKE 1

HILLIMAN 2 TD GRAYSON 2 TD

DURHAM, NC 9/26 KAPP 4 SVS PALODICHUK 1 G

VOLLEYBALL BC LOU

3 2

VOLLEYBALL BC PITT

0 3

LOUISVILLE, 9/26 Boston, MaKY11/11 WORKMAN 21 KILLS JENKINS 18 KILLS

Newton, MAPA11/09 PITTSBURGH, 9/28 TOPOR 18 KILLS WYNN 16 KILLS

SPORTS

A8

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2014

Operation: Football Manager ALEX FAIRCHILD With bubbles swirling around my head at Upton Park, all I could hear was a crowd of West Ham United supporters chanting at the top of their lungs, “Sacked in the morning. You’re getting sacked in the morning ... Sacked in the morning.

You’re getting sacked in the morning.”

As if managing a team in the top flight of English soccer didn’t render enough stress already.

Those are the moments when you question your team sheet, the tactics you use, the players you have, and the instructions you give them before they go out on the pitch. But I had already done all that—painstakingly, over and over again— after all, anyone would if he or she had lost his or her first 15 games of the season and failed to score even one goal.

After another week of build-up and press conferences, in which the media questioned my ability to lead and select a squad capable of competing in the Premier League, a change had to come out of a match with the bad boys of the Boleyn Ground. Deflecting questions from the media about my tactics, I was a bit worried about how narrow of a side the Eagles were. With West Ham’s Mark Noble leading the charge in the middle, and Stewart Downing out on the flanks, the full backs would be in for a massive test against the Hammers.

Immediately, the team came under siege. Shot after shot went toward the Boston College goal, but most of them missed. Alex Kapp made six stops in the game and kept his first, and only, Premier League clean sheet.

After 25 minutes of being dominated by the Hammers, BC gained possession from a free kick in its own half. As the Eagles pushed the ball to the right flank, a ball from Matt Wendelken squeaked into the middle of the pitch and slipped through the West Ham defense. Isaac Normesinu ran onto the early cross and pounded it by Adrian to make it 1-0 Eagles on 28 minutes.

Upton Park was so silent, you could hear the bubbles burst.

Despite the victory, the BC men’s soccer team was stuck on a poor run of form when I used Football Manager 2014’s Editor to put all of the players’ attributes from decision-making to finishing rated on a scale from 1-20 into the most accurate soccer simulation available. In this simulation, each one of the team’s student-athletes is as realistically represented as possible. For example, Zeiko Lewis has an eye for the killer ball, but is not strong in the air, while Phil Sandgren is made to be as big and strong as he is in real life.

With this simulation, we can best answer the question: How would BC compete in the Barclays Premier League with the likes of Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, and Chelsea?

To best represent the team, I used the ideal starting lineup and tactics of the team’s coaching staff. The team plays a narrow diamond 4-4-2 and alternatively a 4-4-1-1. Each player is given instructions and roles that best represent what he does on the pitch against ACC opponents each week. The team plays a high-tempo, direct and attacking style, with a highdefensive line.

The Eagles held on until halftime, and West Ham became frustrated. Continuous fouling saw five players, including substitute striker Carlton Cole, pick up yellow cards. A lack of width from the West Ham full backs gave Mohammed Moro and Wendelken 1-on-1s with the opposing wingers, and they were able to cope. Len Zeugner and Atobra Ampadu did well at center back. When the official blew the final whistle, there was relief. BC had won a game in the Premier League.

Next week, heading into the Liberty Stadium to play Swansea, there was a renewal of hope. Sure, the team had only beat West Ham and had suffered 10-0 and 11-0 defeats to Arsenal and Manchester United, respectively, but sometimes a

BRECK WILLS / HEIGHTS GRAPHIC

Breaking Away

By Tommy Meloro | Heights Staff

Coming to the rescue of an offense damaged by injury over the summer, Hayley Dowd has turned into Boston College women’s soccer’s newest scoring machine Hayley Dowd sits back in her chair, coffee cup in hand, the only other person in the room. She’s co-leading the ACC in points and goals, with 19 and eight, respectively, and yet—she’s still completely focused on the team. Dowd is happy to talk about her backstory, how she wound up at Boston College, and how important her family is to her, but when Dowd steps onto the soccer field, it’s the team first, last, and always.

“When I initially started the college search, I was like, ‘I want to go far away, somewhere warm, get away from the winter,’” Dowd said. “But when it got closer and closer to making the decision, I just really wanted to stay close to home and close to my family.”

Dowd’s family still shows up to almost every BC game—and not just her parents. “Some games I have my mom, my dad, my brother, both sets of grandparents, and my aunt—so that’s awesome for me,” she said. Her family isn’t the only support that Dowd gets, however.

At nine years old, Dowd dribbled through multiple defenders and slotted the ball into the net for her rec team. The maneuver would one day become a familiar sight for BC’s fans, one that would normally result in ecstatic celebration for her team and supporters, and heads shaking in disbelief from her opponents. Instead of patting her on the back, though, Dowd’s coach, an older Italian gentleman without any kids on the team, called her over. Dowd recalls him telling her, “Look, that’s great that you can score, but you had two options besides you who could have scored, so next time just keep that in mind.” These days, according to Dowd, it’s always in the back of her mind.

Dowd’s lead-by-example attitude—she dislikes trying to be a vocal leader— has been crucial this year as the Eagles have worked their way to an 8-4 record. Just a sophomore, Dowd has taken on a leadership role as the team fights through multiple injuries to key players. BC has, of course, gotten this far without star forward McKenzie Meehan, who scored 20 goals last year and added one assist for a whopping 41 points in 23 games.

Despite playing with Meehan for the entirety of last year, Dowd still found herself amazed at Meehan’s goal-scoring prowess.

“McKenzie just finds a way to score, she’s always in the right spot.

You’re like ‘Where’d she come from?’ and she scores,” Dowd said with a laugh. “And losing that is terrible. But I think the trio of me, [Lauren Bernard], and [Stephanie McCaffrey], have really stepped up. We’re three

completely different players, so instead of getting production from one, we’re spreading it around a little bit, and I think we’ve stepped up, which we’ve had to.”

Meehan’s is not the only injury BC has had to deal with this year—senior goalie Alexandra Johnson got hurt against the University of South Florida Bulls and has been replaced between the posts by freshman Darien Dunham. Combined with the fact that both center back positions are patrolled by freshmen, Allyson Swaby and Madison Kenny, BC had the potential to fall apart. A young team with multiple new pieces playing key roles—nobody would have been too surprised if they started sliding, spiraling, and then free falling down the ranks of the ACC powerhouses.

As a contributing freshman last year, Dowd knows how tough it can be to adjust to the college game.

“Freshmen just need to feel comfortable,” Dowd said. “We can’t scream at them, we can’t do that. Especially at the back, we don’t need anyone to yell at them, we just need them to feel comfortable. I thought I played at the highest level when I was in high school and club, but when you get on that field, it’s a battle, and it’s tough.”

Dowd’s leadership style is akin to that of army generals of old—take the front lines. She hopes that by working as hard as she can, it will cause a trickle-down.

Last year, it was Meehan who helped the Eagles turn their season around when they stumbled early on and needed a huge rally late in the season to make the NCAA Tournament.

“We didn’t even think we were going to make the tournament at one point in the season because we were losing a lot of games,” Dowd said of the Eagles’ sub-.500 start. After stringing together a strong second half to make the tournament, however, the Eagles managed to reach the Elite Eight before being eliminated by No. 1 Florida State. Dowd recorded two goals and an assist in BC’s four tournament games. “We felt we deserved to be in the tournament, so when we got that call it was awesome,” Dowd said. “We had those hiccups early in the year, but we peaked at the right time.”

Dowd says the turnaround came when the coaching staff told them to take it one game at a time and to leave everything out. “I think that attitude

See Dowd, A6

See Column, A6

I NSIDE SPORTS THIS ISSUE

Power Rankings: Taking stock of ACC teams

The BC football team is heading into a bye week, so The Heights’ sports editors are scoping out the rest of the conference.....................................A7

Scoreboard...........................................................................................................A7 Editors’ Picks.........................................................................................................A7

Outside the lines

Always ‘About That Bass’

meghan trainor is far from the first to bring booty to the charts, Page B3 album review

‘ART OFFICIAL AGE’

R&B Legend prince returns in style on latest record, Page B4

Column

Who’s Your Prophet?

How social media has destroyed our belief in heroes, B3

Thursday, october 2, 2014

Breck wills / Heights photo illustration

The Heights

B2

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Wiley’s Follies

The other ‘BC Lookaway’

John Wiley I look away, hoping they don’t notice.

Our gazes miss narrowly—in fact, so narrowly I swear I can feel the weight of their eyes on the side of my head. I hurry off to class, a slight feeling of annoyance creeping down my spine. My thoughts soon drift elsewhere, away from the small protest staged in the Quad. I spend little energy assessing the matter, and it’s only later that I try to imagine what these six or seven students might have told me, had I the consideration to stop. The scene of students, picketing in Chestnut Hill, Mass. and demanding action on climate change or whatever—it was familiar enough, and to be fair to the demonstrators, it was slightly less disruptive than last semester’s pretend oil spill in front of O’Neill.

For all our talk of setting the world aflame, hundreds of students must have passed that demonstration on the way to class that day, very much unmoved.

There’s a second “BC Lookaway,” one we seldom talk about. It’s what we do when someone has the nerve to play that out-of-tune piano in Eagles Nest.

It’s what we do when someone’s pushing fliers for God-knows-what in the Quad.

It’s what we do when we’re passing through the Mods in the morning, and notice a woman, collecting empty beer cans to deposit for cash.

People can be an incredible time constraint. The more you ignore them, the more freedom you have to go about your day. Music, too, can be a pain, and if you stopped every time you saw a street musician, you’d never get too far.

I can’t help but notice how our campus is physically designed to promote this sort of efficiency of travel and thought. The main academic Quad was once a marketplace of ideas, music, and thought, with carefully crafted banners strung on either side, communicating details on events and causes.

Now, a diagonal path runs through it. On your walk to class, the only banner you’ll pass is a massive three-story advertisement for Espresso Your Faith Week. The bizarre sculptures that were once icons of the Quad have disappeared, and the most activity you’ll see on it is that of the University, laying out new grass.

The arts have found odd enclaves on campus—Robsham Theatre, the photo labs in Devlin’s basement, the fine arts department on the top floor. A few times a semester, we might make some time to see a friend’s cappella group, but in most cases, there’s no real benefit in shaping our weekends around such events.

At our four years’ end, there will have been a world of activity we’ll just barely notice. Those years will pass quickly—so quickly that in our periphery the protesters in the Quad will begin to blur into all the other things we looked away from, and when we arrive where we’re going, we’ll hardly remember the walk there at all.

Those protestors were not the distraction, just like those sculptures in the Quad were not the distraction— and when we don’t stop to notice these things, they tend to disappear around here. There’s a pervasive attitude here at BC, suggesting wherever we’re going is where we so desperately need to be, and whatever we’re doing is what we so desperately need to do. We look for utility in everything we do, and indeed, it’s this forward-looking approach that helped most of us get here in the first place.

But in some cases, this “forwardlooking approach” means we’re not stopping to look around. It can make it difficult to empathize with other people, or appreciate strange music in the Eagles Nest, for that matter. We might not notice a sculpture disappear, or see that random banner cut down.

We might not notice anything change at all around here. In the morning, we’ll catch the landscaping crew, laying down fresh grass.

John Wiley is the Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

Caroline Portu

john wiley / heights editor

“You can take singing and acting and separate them, but I like to put them together.

They’re very vulnerable talents.

Even some of the runs and trills that you can put into your voice, they mean something.”

By Ariana Igneri Assoc. Arts & Review Editor Caroline Portu, A&S ’16—who has made a name for herself on campus by singing at the football games, winning BC Idol in 2013, and even performing at last Friday’s Pops on The Heights—is a lot like her song-writing hero, Sara Bareilles.

“It’s never a show with her,” said Portu. “It’s never about the glitz and the glamour—it’s just about her and her art.”

Last semester, the New Hampshire native returned to the BC Idol stage, not behind her piano for the competition, but with the children’s choir of St. Columbkille School to sing the Bareilles hit, “Brave,” and raise money for the annual benefit. The performance wasn’t flashy. It was an honest moment with the audience: a moment of meaning.

For Portu, a singer and actress, performance is about connecting crafts and purposefully connecting with the audience. “You can take singing and acting and separate them, but I like to put them together,” she said. “They’re very vulnerable talents. Even some of the runs and trills that you can put into your voice, they mean something.”

Although it’s harder to interpret a song like the “Star Spangled Banner,” Portu enjoys the opportunity to be in front of an excited crowd of fans just the same. The first time she performed the national anthem in Conte Forum for the 2012 BC versus Notre Dame hockey match made her a little nervous, but with all the practice, she says that singing at the games for football season is like second nature or “muscle memory” to her at this point.

“I love doing it, but I’ve sung it a lot—and outside of BC, too,” she said. “I don’t think I could forget the words if I tried—go, America.”

At BC, Portu is involved with the theatre and athletic departments, The Acoustics, and the 10:15 p.m. masses, which she says she enjoys because the environment is so laidback that she could wear pajamas if she wanted.

Outside of school, she sings in a wedding jazz band, audi-

tions for TV pilots, and appears in glossy-paged fashion magazines. With those commitments, and an overloaded schedule of courses to complete her Perspectives and Theatre double major, Portu has had to decide what’s most important to her.

“While it’s definitely hard to find the time for all this, it’s my priority,” Portu said. “I’m okay with eating dinner while I walk home or missing a certain event to pursue something else.”

Portu, a fan of Big Fish and Billy Joel, has always liked being active and filling her time with the things she cares about. As a freshman, she walked down Linden Lane for the Activities Fair, offering her email address to nearly every club—as most first year students do—that seemed like a good outlet for performing. What set Portu apart from the majority of her overly ambitious peers, though, is that not only did she sign up for all of these groups, she actually became a member of them, too.

“I look back and think how that had to be the craziest week of my life because I auditioned for so many things.

I still get emails from practically every organization on campus,” she said.

Being in the spotlight has never made Portu too nervous. She’s performed at a Nascar summer event for around 20,000 people, at the Beanpot, and just last weekend, for a large crowd at the Pops on the Heights scholarship gala, where she sang the Wicked hit, “For Good,” with the Boston Pops.

“They were the best backup band I’ve ever had—it was incredible and the song was so sentimental,” she said.

Even when Portu was younger, she enjoyed being the center of attention. She’d organize concerts for her parents and family, compete in talent and variety shows, and even sing impromptu during her piano lessons for her teacher.

Her big break came in elementary school, when Portu debuted her Irish accent in a play titled Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato. “I don’t know if someone was cast as the potato,” says Portu, who played Mrs. O’Rourke, “but

there definitely might have been somebody.” The show was the first time Portu says she remembers her teachers telling her mom and dad that she should seriously consider acting.

Portu—who’s obsessed with Brett Eldredge and a self-proclaimed “northern country bumpkin”—has supportive parents and talented siblings. Her oldest brother plays the piano and saxophone, and is, by her definition, the king of marching band, while her little brother is athletic and good at the drums. Her mom, Portu says, likes to believe she can sing, and her dad, although not vocally or instrumentally skilled, is always willing to listen and offer constructive criticism.

“People used to make fun of us and call us the Partridge Family,” she said.

Portu’s latest project is preparing for her role as the heroine of The Trojan Women, which premiers in Robsham next month. The play, according to Portu, is depressing because it’s about war and death. “If you’re not dead by the end of it, you’re a prostitute,” she said of the characters. “I play Helen of Troy—so basically, I have to mess everything up while still looking good.”

Although Portu is eagerly anticipating the opening of the show, the musicals she’s appeared in at BC—Godspell and The Drowsy Chaperone—are more in line with what she hopes to do after graduation since they allow her to fuse her love for singing and acting and reach people in a more dynamic way.

Portu has her eyes on a musical theatre career in New York, but she hasn’t settled on one thing just yet. Film, music, and even sketch comedy are still on the table. “It’s really hard to choose what to do,” Portu said. “My excuse is that they’re all connected, but I think you need to choose something to be good at.”

While she’s been at BC, Portu has demonstrated that even though she has the voice of a pop star, she has the heart of a songwriter—she’s part Aguilera, part Bareilles.

She approaches her art with power and authenticity and isn’t afraid to make herself vulnerable for her audience. If you’ve seen her on stage, you’ve seen her be brave. n

This weekend in arts

By: Ariana Igneri | Associate Arts & Review Editor

1. Andy Grammar Concert (Saturday 10/4, 9:45 p.m.)

5. The Artist’s Voice (Thursday 10/2, 7 p.m.)

The Boston College Community Activities Board is giving you a reason to keep your head up for the rest of the week—acoustic pop-rocker Andy Grammar is performing live on Saturday in Robsham with Juice.

Tickets are $15.

As part of “The Artist’s Voice” program, Sheila Hicks is speaking at the Institute of Contemporary Art about her fiber sculptures featured in the museum’s new exhibit, which opened this week. Tickets are free and available on a first come, first served basis until two hours before the lecture.

2. Charli XCX Concert (Saturday 10/4, 6 p.m.)

If you hear booms and claps coming from the Royale in Boston on Friday evening—it’s probably Charli XCX. General admission tickets for the pop singer’s concert are $23.25 through Ticketmaster.

3. Dancing With The Scholars (Friday 10/3, 7 p.m.)

Representatives from BC leadership groups are paired with members of campus’s popular dance groups—including Sexual Chocolate, Fuego del Corazon, and Masti—for the Cape Verdean Student Associations Dancing With The Stars spin off competition. The event takes place in The Heights Room upstairs in Lower.

6. UGBC Annual Boat Cruise (Saturday 10/4, 9:45 p.m.)

PHOTO courtesy of Vanyaland.com

4. Sound of Our Town (Saturday 10/4, 3 p.m.)

Listen for the Sound of Our Town in South Boston Saturday afternoon. The free concert, hosted at The Lawn on D, will feature a lineup of New England-based bands and serve as a platform for announcing the nominees of the 2014 Boston Music Awards. Festival goers will be given the chance to vote for their favorites on site.

For more information and a list of featured acts, visit vanyaland.com—one of the curators of the event.

UGBC is sponsoring its annual cruise—with food, refreshments, and dancing—on the Spirit of Boston this weekend. Buses to the harbor will be boarding at Eagles Nest until 10:15 p.m. Tickets are $27.75 online and need to be picked up from Robsham no later than 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 3.

7. When I Grow Up (Friday 10/3, 7:30 p.m.)

Join the Boston College Musical Theatre Wing for its fall comedy cabaret in the Bonn Studio Theatre. Tickets are free at the Robsham box office.

The Heights

Thursday, October 2, 2014

B3

outside The Lines

Nothing new ‘about that bass’

Michelle Tomassi

The missing prophets of Generation Y Mujtaba Syed There haven’t been many moments in the classroom at Boston College that have made me anxious.

Over the past two years, I have been lucky enough to take courses with professors who have challenged me, made me curious, and pushed me to the brink of my academic abilities.

Sure, there has been the occasional exam from which even the freshly expired Dunkin’ gift card could not save me, and certain papers that multiple all-nighters could not perfect. But last Tuesday was the first time I was truly stuck.

“Who is the prophet of your generation?” said Thomas Wesner, a professor within the business law department, looking out into the classroom. He asked three or four times. Our ordinarily talkative, discussion-based Law and Economics class sat dead silent as we stared back at him. Eventually, Wesner stopped really asking. He flatly stated the question one time, then knowing that no one in the room had an answer.

He explained that when he was growing up, his house was full of portraits that proudly displayed American heroes like John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. As a child, he was familiar with numerous examples of seemingly ordinarily people who had worked hard to make a name for themselves, and who then used that name to inspire and lead others.

Americans had universal

figures whom they could genuinely trust—people to whom they listened for advice during good times and hope during bad times. Whom do we have now?

Slowly, timid hands crept up as classmates suggested figures that could be considered prophets for the current generation. Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg? Innovative and brilliant, unquestionably, but both lack the degree of personal connectivity to the common American necessary to fit the bill.

Beyonce? Extremely talented, but hardly someone who engages and inspires the majority of the population in a new way. Barack Obama?

Maybe six years ago. Emma Watson? Too soon.

Although I easily could have suggested personal role models and contributed to the discussion, I sat there silently, knowing that everyone of whom I could think had certain flaws or limitations that would never allow him or her to be a universal figure upon and to whom my peers and I could all agree and look up. Instead, I thought about why our generation specifically has a deficiency in what Wesner calls “prophets,” a sticking point with which older generations seemingly never had trouble.

Part of the problem is certainly a

function of the times in which we live. While the personality flaws and certain bits of questionable behavior of visionaries like Kennedy and King have been written about and documented over time, public figures pre-Internet era did not have to deal with even a fraction of the media scrutiny modern public figures do. In 2014, if a leader or celebrity makes a mistake, 645 million micro bloggers, masquerading as journalists, will leave no stone unturned. The full story will be uncovered, often recklessly, on Twitter.

Speculation takes hold, and while the full truth is rarely reached, the figure’s credibility is almost always at a lower point than when the issue began. And if people aren’t tweeting about these things, they’re reading about them and talking about them, generally from a position of knowing some information, but not a lot of it. In an environment energized by scandal and wrongdoings, is it really surprising that no one can muster the respect to move us forward, and be a “prophet” for our generation?

We deemed ourselves worthy enough to derail a public figure’s social standing based on a few mistakes. While the prophets of the ’60s certainly had their flaws, the people of that time period still looked to them as heroes—understanding that heroes are often imperfect. This ability to look past mistakes, and hold the highest of figures to a human standard, left us somewhere along the way.

To me, this flawed mindset is at least in part a result

of the way we now interact.

Mujtaba Syed has a digital profile on multiple social media outlets. He builds an online identity alongside some people he knows (and some that he does not)—posting pictures from his adventurous life on Instagram, witty jokes on Twitter, and positive updates from his life on Facebook. In time, wouldn’t he start to think his life might just be as flawless as his digital presence makes it out to be? When everyone else does the same thing, he starts to forget what it feels like to make mistakes, to be wrong.

We admire ourselves so much that we have trouble picking role models. Mujtaba Syed might be his own prophet, but he cannot rationalize having one.

I left class last Tuesday feeling jaded—none of us was able to think of someone to whom we look up. It is certainly daunting to move forward as young adults without calming voices assuring us that they can lead the way until we are ready to take charge. In order for us to reach a point where we can call certain people prophets—for ourselves and generations to come—we must be more realistic about what it means to be human and the standards to which we hold others. And at that point—when we start allowing others to give us hope—we might just find ourselves genuinely happy.

Mujtaba Syed is an editor for The Heights. He can be reached at arts@bcheights.com

When Meghan Trainor released her hit single this summer, I was definitely “All About That Bass.” With its catchy chorus and girl-power vibe, the song immediately became the go-to choice for dance parties with my sister and was at the top of my college packing playlist.

After the first listen, however, I knew that it was only a matter of time before someone on the Internet would protest the song’s contradictory messages.

During the past week alone, I’ve read about 10 opinion pieces whose authors claim that they are definitely not “all about that bass.”

Most of the backlash falls into one of two categories: that the song is antifeminist, or that it’s not accepting of all body types. With lyrics such as “’Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase” and “Yeah, my mama she told me don’t worry about your size.

She says, ‘Boys like a little more booty to hold at night,’” it seems as if Trainor is suggesting that a man’s approval is what a woman needs. Check the box for antifeminist. And when Trainor sings that she has “all the right junk in all the right places,” it may seem as if she’s promoting one type of figure while rejecting the size-two, “skinny b—tches.”

Check yes for skinny shaming. A writer for Bustle.com went so far as to rewrite the song’s lyrics to promote a more positive body message for women—both less controversial and definitely less catchy.

For me, the issue is not really about all these complaints. Even though I may be one of the “skinny b—tches” that Trainor calls out in her hit single, I was never personally offended by it. I took the song as an anthem to celebrate my body just the way it is—to love the curves I do (and don’t) have—rather than taking a literal approach to the lyrics (she is, after all, “just playin’”). I understand that not everyone feels this way, and I can respect the issues that people may have with the song.

The problem, for me, is not why Trainor’s song has been criticized, but why other artists have not been questioned for similarly concerning lyrics.

Let’s just make it clear: Trainor is not the only woman who is singing about butts. Thanks to Nicki Minaj, the first thing that appears on Google when you search “anaconda” is her music video, not the Wikipedia definition of the snake. Jennifer Lopez continued the trend with her song “Booty,” featuring Iggy Azalea. And let’s throw it back to Destiny’s child, whose song “Bootylicious” merited a spot in the Oxford English Dictionary—defining bootylicious as “(of a woman) sexually attractive.”

Trainor is reintroducing a concept that has been around since Destiny’s Child was still together, so why is she being criticized for “bringing booty back”? Granted, feminist dialogue has been rapidly increasing in recent years, making it easier to find the faults in songs such as “All About That Bass” for modern-day listeners. Maybe the reason people are so ready to criticize Trainor is that she’s a new artist, a mere 20 years old, and has yet to establish an identity for herself in the public eye. Minaj may have her haters, but she also has a strong fan base who will excuse her for similar missteps because, well, she’s Nicki—and nothing she does seems to surprise us anymore.

Even Beyonce’s “Flawless” isn’t free of flaws—she sings, “My sister told me I should speak my mind,” followed immediately by “My man made me feel so God damn fine.” If the song is a feminist anthem, why does Beyonce need a man to “feel so God damn fine”? Again, this slightly contradictory message is overlooked—Queen Bey, after all, can do no wrong.

I’m not suggesting that we compile a list of every song by a female artist that has even the slightest negative body message and write angry rants about each one. And I’m not saying we should excuse all of them, either. Songs can be powerful in the messages they choose to convey, and the fact that we can have discussions about lyrical content is what makes music such an important part of our lives. It’s important, however, not to single out certain artists like Trainor just because she is more direct in her approach, rather than burying the message in rap verses and quick one-liners. When you look at the artists strictly for their lyrics—not for their age, race, or credibility—then you might realize that some other women have been “all about that bass” the whole time.

Michelle Tomassi is the Asst. Arts & Review Editor for The Heights. She can be reached at arts@bcheights.com.

THE HEIGHTS

B4

Thursday, October 2, 2014

‘Feel Something’ offers a slice of Apple Pie’s creative potential

BY CHRIS FULLER For The Heights

Only a year after the release of its studio debut, British quintet The History of Apple Pie tries to perfect and tweak its image with Feel Something. A Shoegaze band straight out of London, The History of Apple Pie harkens back to the likes of early ’90s British rock bands such Lush, Ride, and Slowdive. The History of Apple Pie is a guitar-heavy, grunge-pop group spiced up with a thin layer of funk.

Having emerged from obscurity last year, the British rockers saw its debut record appear in the top 10 of multiple British charts, and have since gained a reputation both at home and internationally.

The History of Apple Pie tends more toward a pop-centric vibe with this new release—this is its attempt to differentiate itself from the various other groups who have tried to revive the Shoegaze genre as of late. The band replaced its former bassist with newcomer Joanna Curwood for this project, and put drummer James Thomas in a more prominent role—in an effort to expanded to a larger, more diverse audience with less of a genre-specific sound.

The album is marred, however

by a repetitive rhythm which spans the entire record, as well as a lack of convincing lyrics (or, really, even audible lyrics).

The first track on the album, “Come Undone,” does a fantastic job of setting the stage for the rest of the record, almost to a fault.

“Come Undone” shows promise, with gloriously spastic drumbeats and a quick, heavy, complementary guitar. Singer Stephanie Min sounds excellent at the head of the group, but what she is saying is almost entirely inaudible, drowned out by the band’s loud instrumental backing. Min’s lyrics are imperceptible across the whole album, and since it’s hard to focus on the meaning behind the songs, the listener’s attention is directed toward the compelling, holistic sound of the project.

Each song on Feel Something offers either an appealing new concept or sound, but often, the group will abandon what worked mid-track or not fully realize its potential. For instance, the first six seconds of the song “Tame” feature a cool mix of keyboard and acoustic guitar, only to be stamped out entirely by a repetitive keyboard / electric lead guitar groove.

This groove is fully supported

by Thomas’ performance on the

drums, making for a somewhat interesting, almost cosmic guitar riff, but at this point, the magic of the song’s interlude is lost.

There are a few tracks that break away from the flawed formula of the record. “Jamais Vu” and “Puzzles” are notable for their electric flare and catchy rhythms.

These songs are hopefully indicative of the group’s future direction. “Puzzles” in particular has a dynamic and explorative sound, making it the strong track on the

entire album. It’s also the song in which Min can be heard best, and her voice complements the tone of the song quite well. In the case of “Shake,” the vocal contributions of guest Gary Jarman of The Cribs are refreshing, but he does not encourage Min to bolster her own performance. She is again too quiet.

With any luck, Feel Something is the first step in a journey toward rediscovery and innovation for The History of Apple Pie. The band’s sound and vision are

extremely intriguing, but it appears its fault lies with the execution—The History of Apple Pie ultimately flounders in its attempt to reach out to a wider audience.

Min’s quietness is also an incredible weakness in the band’s sound.

While it may be the intention for her to be overpowered by the epic instrumentals surrounding her, Min’s quietness detracts greatly from the lyrics at play. The History of Apple Pie has a lot to work on before its next release. 

FEEL SOMETHING THE HISTORY OF APPLE PIE PRODUCED BY MARSHALL TELLER RECORDS RELEASED SEPT. 30, 2014 OUR RATING

For The Heights

“Clouds,” a single from Prince’s long-awaited album Art Official Age, details a story of the persona Mr. Nelson (Prince’s full name is Prince Rogers Nelson) as he is awoken from nearly half a century of suspended animation. Surely, this is a metaphor for Prince’s troubles as an artist—over the past decade, Prince has struggled in finding ways to make his music resonate with contemporary listeners.

Although Prince had been struggling to stay relevant before this record, his influence can be broadly seen in the work of other contemporary artists.

Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams, Daft Punk, along with various other musicians, are employing the same high, fluid vocals and funk beats that Prince has been using throughout his career.

With Art Official Age, Prince reasserts himself as a pop legend—he is truly just as good as he was at his prime.

Prince has always been different, and by bringing storytelling to the forefront of his music, he separates himself from R&B artists of today.

This album shows Prince’s depth as an artist. While parts of the album keep with Prince’s upbeat, electronic style, Art Official Age also features more intense ballads. “The Breakdown,” for example, is a beautiful, sad account of unrequited love. It features the same electronic beats as some of

the record’s other songs, but slowed down to add a tender, emotional appeal. “The Breakdown” is a testament to Prince’s lasting vocals and diversity in style.

“Art Official Cage,” the album’s sort-of title track, has a chorus that is pretty much everything Pharell’s most recent hits have been attempting to do—but Prince does it better.

This intro track takes gorgeously synthesized chords and paired them with R&B influences to make for truly entertaining music. Because of his longevity in the music career, Prince has a fine-tuned sense of how to use the basic elements of R&B to create a multi-dimensional song. His verses are quick and heated, with the pacing of rap song, then balanced out by a distinct funk groove and sweeping choruses. Because of his knowledge of popular music—and what creates truly successful songs—Prince shows that he hasn’t been under a rock these past few years. He’s been listening, paying attention, and this album reflects that.

This project is full of potential hits, and “Time” seems to be a top contender for the charts because of its relaxed nature. It’s less frenzied than many of the other songs on the record, instead featuring Prince in a duet of sorts with an easy, light, female voice. The two collaborate in a romantic way amidst an instrumental R&B backdrop, and its natural feel makes it more ac-

PHOTO COURTESY OF MARSHALL TELLER RECORDS

The British quintet shows potential for creativity and innovation, but it falters in the new album’s execution.

cessible than most moments on the album. The listener doesn’t have to follow any bizarre storylines or fall in love with a heavy electronic aesthetic to enjoy this particular song.

“Breakfast Can Wait” is another important track on the record, as it strikes a smart balance between new and old. It is more rhythmic than much of the record, and its lyrics match with the beats in a unique manner. “Breakfast Can Wait” is enhanced by a classic R&B vibe, adding a seductive texturing to the song. Strong funk beats, distorted voiceovers, and an overdriven sound make this track standout from the

rest of the album.

Prince is still just as eccentric as he’s always been—perhaps even more so. Without explanation, Prince places tracks “affirmation I & II” and “affirmation III” at random points in the album, continuing the story that started in “Clouds.” These two tracks are essentially eerie voiceovers, detailing how Prince is getting adjusted to a new, active life. There’s not much to say about these “songs,” other than that no one but Prince could get away with them. His music transports people, and its experimental nature is something unique to Prince.

Ultimately, the balance between

genres in Art Official Age is what’s most remarkable about it. Prince even dedicated an entire song to this idea of genre-bending, called “Funkroll.” The song is driven by a ’90s hip-hop beat, but then also incorporates rock, funk, and smooth R&B. It’s not rock and roll, but it’s not just funk either. It’s uniquely “Prince,” and this innovative flavoring spans the entire album. “U Know” and “What It Feels Like” are other great examples of unique style being incorporated into storylines. Unified

by Prince’s legendary style, the variety of sounds featured in Art Official Age work together seamlessly. 

Thom Yorke’s familiar falsetto rings through his new album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, which was released unannounced. The lead singer of Radiohead previously released an album on his own called Eraser, and Yorke has significantly improved his tracks in his latest release.

Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes has been released on vinyl record for a

hefty price of $30, but the album can be purchased on BitTorrent for $6, which comes with all mp3’s and a music video of the first song. It is strange and remains a mystery, though, why Yorke has released his new album through BitTorrent—mainly since the website has been known for illegal downloading and sharing of files. The album features eight songs which all have the type of music that Yorke has been known to produce.

Yorke is infamous for his eight-bit

1 All About That Bass Meghan Trainor 2 Shake It Off Taylor Swift 3 Anaconda Nicki Minaj 4 Black Widow Iggy Azalea feat.

Rita Ora 5 Bang Bang Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj 6 Stay With Me Sam Smith 7 Habits (Stay High) Tove Lo

1 Cheek To Cheek Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga 2 The Big Revival Kenny Chesney 3 Partners Barbra Streisand 4 This is All Yours Alt-J 5 PTX: Vol III Pentatonix Source: Billboard.com

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK

BY RHODA MORRISON

“I LIVED”

ONEREPUPLIC

ART OFFICIAL AGE PRINCE PRODUCED BY WARNER BROS RECORDS RELEASED SEPT. 30, 2014 OUR RATING

PHOTO COURTESY OF WARNER BROS RECORDS

‘Art Official Age,’ Prince’s first album in four years, mixes genres in the artist’s uniquely eccentric style.

Yorke tries to pack too much into ‘Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes’

BY EILEEN KAO For The Heights

TOP SINGLES

TOP ALBUMS

Prince reclaims the throne with new album ‘Art Official Age’

BY MARIAN WYMAN

CHART TOPPERS

bass lines, reverberating tunes, repeating sounds, and ethereal lyrics, but it seems to work better in this album as Yorke has seemed to slowly master more of his own style.

The first song featured on the album is “Brain in a Bottle,” which seems to be the most prominent song on the album since it has a music video as well, yet still does not appeal the most. The song is filled with discords of sound, wobbly sounding effects, and jerky and uneven rhythms—the

TOMORROW’S MODERN BOXES THOM YORKE PRODUCED BY NIGEL GODRICH RELEASED SEPT. 26, 2014 OUR RATING

PHOTO COURTESY OF XL

The Radiohead lead singer has somewhat improved from his first solo venture, but his second record lacks cohesion.

sounds are basically try to play in tune with the main beat of the song.

The song features Yorke’s haunting and anxious voice, but does nothing to hide the fact that the song seems to be many samples of sounds put together. Along with the sixth track on the album, “There is no ice (for my drink),” the sounds that Yorke seems to throw in do not do much, since it is basically a bunch of sounds mashed up together. Both seem to have a wavering “alien-spaceship” like quality sound, but alas, with only Yorke’s voice in the back, there are no words to add meaning to the song.

“Mother Lode” is another song on the track that unfortunately falls into this category as well.

The downfall of the album seems to lie in “Pink Section” which is Yorke’s attempt at creating a soundscape that wants to draw in listeners, but it only pushes them away instead. The track has no words to it, consisting only of unpleasant sounds created by the chords and pieces that Yorke has chosen to put into this song. This song unfortunately does not portray the ever-wondrous soundscapes that Radiohead as a whole is able to produce.

There are a few songs that save the album from coming apart, which

would be “Guess Again,” “Interference,” “Truth Ray,” and arguably the best song on the album, “Nose Grows Some.” These few songs really show York’s potential for creative and harmonious melodies, in contrast to the clashing sounds that he put into the other songs on the album.

These songs all have an uplifting tone as well compared to the other songs that were placed on the album. Both “Interference” and “Guess Again” have more audible lyrics, filled with metaphors and similes. “Interference” features lyrics such like, “We stare into each other’s eyes, like jackals, ravens,” which can be interpreted with both a somber and uplifting tone. In “Guess Again,” one can find relations to “The King of Limbs,” a previously released soundtrack. All of these sounds have more smoothly flowing tunes that the listener can actually enjoy.

Coming to an end, the album does not seem to stand very well on its own. Although the album has come some distance since Yorke’s last album, there is too much discord in the tracks for the album to be considered impressive. If Yorke can find his balance as he has approached in some of his songs, the album could be greatly improved. 

Up until now, the success of OneRepublic’s 2013 album Native has been based on the overwhelming popularity of “Counting Stars” and “If I Lose Myself.” As a result, the rest of the album has taken a back seat. The music video for “I Lived,” however, makes the previously unknown quite difficult to overlook. “I Lived” is an inspiring tribute, paying homage to those battling medical challenges.

The video’s documentary-like opening is far from what is expected of OneRepublic. It features Bryan Warnecke, a 15-year-old Cystic Fibrosis patient, who goes on to describe the nature of his illness and the daily treatment he receives. Paired with distressing footage of Warnecke connected to a breathing machine, the introduction of the simple, somewhat uplifting song develops into a truly heart-wrenching moment. The lyrics are especially moving when we later learn that Bryan may not live past the age of 26, reminding the viewer that Warnecke is sadly running out of time.

OneRepublic cannot be faulted for its attempt to raise awareness of Cystic Fibrosis and encourage watchers to donate money to its cause, but the scene in which the band is playing live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre is ironic and incongruous. It detracts from the beautiful sentimentality of Warnecke’s home video-clips included throughout. These alone convey the most important aspect of the video: even as a young boy prone to falling down, Warnecke has always managed to pick himself back up. The video’s message is made clear—life does go on and he is indeed making the most of the time he has left. 

SINGLE REVIEWS BY LIZ HOLMAN LORDE “Yellow Flicker Beat”

VERITE “Weekend” Lorde kills it once again with this haunting new single. It may start out slow, but the chorus soon proves it to be a song you can jam to, without losing the honesty that’s so characteristically Lorde. This song is refreshing, intimate, and has a great vibe.

US THE DUO “Shake It Off” Verite is kind of like a cheerful Lana del Rey. You get the same quality of lyrics and emotion as Lana, but with an added boost. Verite is definitely on the rise and it’s because of songs like these—fun with great lyrics and a great sound. Not to mention it’s a great workout pump-up (it’s been tested).

Just when you thought this song would finally stop haunting you, Us the Duo, the adorable singing couple that began their career on YouTube, brings it back. They take out some of the cheesiness of T-Swift’s version and add in some soul and, surprisingly, their cover is just refreshing enough to make it feel like you haven’t already heard the song a million times.

Thursday, January 17, 2014 Thursday, October 2, 2014

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Bennet’s Banter

BC joins prestigious startup scene

Bennet Johnson Less than 100 years ago, the Valley of Heart’s Delight was home to over eight million fruit trees, 18 fruit factories, and 13 dried-fruit packing houses, according to The Boston Globe. The area was nationally famous for its high supply of orchards, flowering trees, and plants.

Until the 1960s, it was the largest fruit production and packaging region in the world.

On the other side of the country in Cambridge, a place once dubbed “Nowhere Square” was a former salt marsh that had become known for its production of fire hoses and bicycle tires.

Today, the scene of the two areas is a little bit different.

The Valley of Heart’s Delight has been renamed Silicon Valley, and now boasts the largest population of technology companies in the world. Nowhere Square is now Kendall Square, one of the most sought-after tech centers in the world—a global mecca for science and technology.

In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy headed a movement to bring NASA headquarters to Kendall Square, and used his leverage to obtain 29 acres of land for NASA’s Electronics Research Center. Although Nixon put a stop to the project, the technology boom began and more and more companies moved into Boston for the fist time. Today, over 500 startups call Kendall Square home.

Why should we care about the history of Kendall Square or Silicon Valley?

These locations are two of the largest startup breeding hubs in the world— with companies like Facebook, Dropbox, and ZipCar tracing their roots back to Boston.

The factors that caused Silicon Valley and Kendall Square to expand into two leading tech centers were in large part due to the success of its world-class educationional facilities—Stanford, MIT, and Harvard, in particular—as well as the high population of venture capital firms. Together, Boston’s research universities bring in $1.5 billion in research grants and contracts each year, and a large portion of that funding is given to technology and ideas that create future startups in the city, according to the BBC. Although the startup circle has traditionally focused around Harvard and MIT, Boston College is now gaining more attention from the tech community.

Early stage ventures with ties to BC are now receiving a new form of funding that has put the University in competition with the top players.

According to BostInno, Launch Angels launched the Maroon & Gold Fund last Tuesday to support startups born at BC. The firm will utilize the University’s network, along with the fund’s Advisory Investment Committee, which is comprised of BC alumni, in order to source deals.

BC alumnus Kevin Cook, BC ’04, is responsible for heading the Advisory Investment Committee. The Fund will offer mentoring, investment support, and funding of one to two million dollars that will be allocated to about 10 to 15 companies with BC roots.

“There has been a really impressive number of startups coming out of BC in the last year alone,” Cook said in a statement according to BostInno. “As BC’s subculture of entrepreneurship continues to thrive, the Maroon & Gold Fund is a logical next step in helping connect these budding entrepreneurs to funding and advisors.”

Earlier this past year, another group of BC alumni founded the Soaring Startup Circle, a summer program designed to accelerate student-led startups.

These BC companies, such as Jebbit and Vsnap, received funding and the ability to work in offices of Boston companies with similar paths from universities.

The Maroon & Gold Fund and the Soaring Startup Circle are not sanctioned by BC; however, both organizations recognize the readiness of the University’s alumni to establish a prominent entrepreneurial community in the city.

As the startup market in Boston hits another peak, the emergence of BC in

Bennet Johnson is the Asst. Metro Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@bcheights.com

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Report examines ways to deal with rising seas

By Gus Merrell Heights Staff In a still-struggling economy, it might be the time to tell members of the next generation to invest in the gondola industry—if a recent report by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) regarding rising sea levels in Boston is accurate, it might not be such an absurd way to get around, at least in the Back Bay. On Tuesday, the ULI of Boston and New England released a report titled “The Urban Implications of Living With Water.” The report illustrated different solutions that the ULI believes can be viable options for Boston to consider in the face of rising sea levels.

“This is a change that’s coming whether we want it or not,” said Dennis Carlberg, director of sustainability at Boston University and contributor to the report in an interview with The Boston Globe. “Instead of being afraid of the problem, we need to embrace it and think about opportunities it offers us.”

With sea levels expected to rise anywhere from 0.7 to 6.6 feet by 2100, according to the report, coastal cities around the world are preparing to waterproof their infrastructures. While the sea level has been rising globally at a rate of 0.07 inches per year, the relative sea level in Boston has been rising at a rate of 0.11 inches per year, simply because the city’s infrastructure is sinking back into the ocean at a rate of 0.04 inches per year.

Many of Boston’s neighborhoods have artificially expanded into the bay since the mid 1700s and the man-made areas, such as the Back Bay, will slowly disappear as these sea levels rise, making the city’s plans that much more vital.

Much of Boston sits barely four feet above sea level and there is a risk that parts of the city could flood as often as twice per day at the end of the century, simply due to the tidal patterns. Even if the rise in sea level is not as rapid as projected, mild nor’easters could easily cause major flooding problems for areas like Cambridge, North Boston, South Boston, and much of Logan International Airport. And if a

Sandy-esque storm were to hit Boston, these would not be the only parts of the city to find themselves underwater.

During brainstorming sessions that consisted of over 70 engineers, architects, insurance specialists, and other development specialists, the ULI examined four different areas of Boston: the Back Bay, the Innovation District, Alewife Quadrangle, and Revere Beach. While each area has its similarities and differences, the intent was to choose areas that represent typologies for which solutions could be drawn up and then replicated around the city.

Although implementing some sort of canal system in the Back Bay seems like a strange futuristic vision, it is a completely viable project, according to some of the city’s leading engineers, architects, and city planners. Instead of looking at daily flooding as a threat, city officials want to use the canals as a way of welcoming the inevitable flooding and put a positive spin on the situation. With threats of flooding coming from both the Charles River Dam and the Fort Point Channel, the idea is to integrate a canal system into the area’s grid-based street system. The canals would connect the Charles River to Fort Point Channel through a series of locks and by way of the naturally forming Mass. Pike Canal, creating an alternative method of navigating the crowded neighborhood.

Residents don’t have to worry about their beloved neighborhood being remodeled just yet. City officials, while taking the threat seriously, want to have better estimates of future sea level risings before redesigning whole neighborhoods.

“We’re not going to start digging the canals tomorrow,” said Brian Swett, Boston’s chief of energy, environment, and open space, in an interview with The Boston Globe. “But the report makes the important point that you can’t solve 6 feet of sea level rise simply by building a bigger dam on the Charles River.”

Although the canal system in the Back Bay will be a possible addition throughout the city, the ULI report gave other solutions in other areas.

The Innovation District is planning on

Map Courtesy of OpenStreetmap | Breck Wills / Heights Graphic

The Urban Land Institute issued a report on how the city can prepare for climate change. embracing the threat of floods as design opportunities. The HarborWalk could be re-envisioned to provide a dual service: a location for public gathering and a device that could protect the city from another few feet of rising sea levels. The areas around the walk could also feature flood landscaping that would absorb water and lessen tidal impacts.

New residences in the Alewife Quadrangle might be forced into taller, more concentrated buildings, and new retail areas might be simply moved into an overhead retail corridor that would be above flood levels.

The ULI suggested that Revere Beach raise the height of its sidewalks around Ocean Ave. and install flood landscaping options that will further protect the city.

Since the area is continually in development, it was also suggested that “pop up” retail spots be constructed on a seasonal basis that would allow for rapid evacuation during stormy seasons. The ULI

also thinks it prudent for Revere Beach to redesign their ground plan, moving their plaza to the heart of the commercial area, and connect to the beach via walkways.

The state and city governments realize the importance and the implications of climate change and the rising sea levels.

Former Mayor of Boston Thomas M. Menino created the Climate Action Leadership Committee specifically to overhaul how Boston plans on dealing with climate change and rising sea levels, and Governor Deval Patrick launched a $50 million effort to create a statewide plan for coping with climate change. The ULI was brought in to keep Boston the same quaint and historic city that it is today in spite of all the change that is to come.

“If you just build bigger dams to keep the water out of the Back Bay, you could end up with an unwalkable community,” Carlberg said, according to The Globe.

“So this is one way to look at it differently.” n

Linehan integrates arts into range of city policies Linehan, from B8 will begin her role in December.

In appointing Burros, Walsh fulfilled a campaign promise to appoint a Cabinet-level arts commissioner—the first Boston has known in years, as the arts had been handled through the Office of Arts, Tourism, and Special Events during Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s administration.

“I think she’ll have a great impact when she gets here in December,” said Linehan, who led a committee in its search for Burros.

Until that time, however, Linehan remains the most influential supporter of the arts community at City Hall. As chief of policy—what she calls “the best job in the world”—she works across all

departments in the mayoral administration, often finding ways to fit the arts into policy decisions that might otherwise not consider them. When Linehan learned that the Boston Celtics would be working to promote a White House initiative called “My Brother’s Keeper” designed to help close the opportunity gap for young black and Latino males, she saw an opening.

Linehan recognized this as an inherently good thing, but she also knew that not every kid plays basketball. Alongside Walsh, Linehan brought representatives from the Berklee College of Music and other artists to act as mentors through the White House initiative.

Indeed, Linehan firmly supports the idea that the arts can be crucial at all levels of education.

“I don’t know how many more studies we need to see that say that kids who are exposed to the arts at an early age are better critical thinkers and just tend to do better in school as they go on through their careers,” she said.

In trying to integrate the arts into other policy areas, Linehan looks beyond only those issues that are related to economic development, choosing to focus instead on issues related to artist housing—designed to keep artists in the city—and the retention of Boston’s youth, including recent college graduates.

“I think that the arts are very much tied in with the late night world—music and dance—all of the things that happen in a city that young people are attracted to,” she said. “There is definitely a tie be-

tween talent retention and strengthening the arts in the community.”

Since Walsh’s inauguration, his administration has been known as friendlier to youth culture in the city, marked by the mayor’s support for an MBTA late-night transit program, which launched in March, and later hours for Boston’s bars, which were rejected by city lawmakers in June.

After years as a leader in the arts community, Linehan is finally finding her chance to effect change through government policy—and she feels right at home, especially in light of political gridlock at the federal level.

“Mayors are the ones who are actually changing the world and driving policy,” Linehan said. “How could you refuse to be part of that if you’re asked to?” n

With growing popularity of Uber, taxis take a hit Uber, from B8 nient to contact a driver right from my phone.”

As the popularity of the app has disseminated across campus, the University has recognized Uber as a reliable method of transportation for students. Uber has partnered with the Office of Student Affairs, promoting the company as a transportation option on its website and through student newsletters. The startup has participated in various events on campus—ranging from campaigning to freshmen on the Newton campus, to promoting the brand with free merchandise and music in the Mods, to more formal events like participating at this year’s Student Activities Fair.

“BC has been open to the idea of working with us, and they know that there is a large number of students who are riding with us,” Strader said. “It’s to their benefit to make sure that there is a safe, reliable option for kids who are looking to go offcampus and into the city.”

Over the past year, Uber has focused on offering colleges cheap and reliable methods of transportation. The company dropped its prices twice this past year to tailor to more students with a fixed income—shifting business away from its original high-end, expensive UberBLACK to its new UberX, a service that connects users and drivers to smaller vehicles, like a Toyata Prius at a rate 40 percent off its previous UberBLACK price.

With the decreased prices, the service has become more appealing to students and young professionals looking to explore the city or take a trip that is longer than walking distance. This past

September, demand for Uber cars has skyrocketed, and more drivers are working to keep up with the increased number of users.

“Everyone’s back for school now, and September has been one of the busiest months I’ve ever worked,” said Tom M., an Uber car driver in the Boston area. “I think we have really changed how people get around Boston. A lot of comments I’ve heard once people start using it is that they won’t go back to using a regular taxi cab—they will use Uber because they can get pretty quick service by ordering it right from their smart phones.”

Yet another advantage Uber has over the taxicab industry is that it functions as an independent service in cities around the world—avoiding some costly components that many other transportation companies have to bear.

“From standpoint of a business context, the lack of infrastructure the company has is a very interesting model —they do not have to own a fleet of cars, have parking spaces, or maintain any other elements that would create a barrier for others into the industry,” said Bridget Akinc, a lecturer in the marketing department of the Carroll School of Management.

Despite its enormous success, Uber is currently under a good deal of scrutiny for cutting into the traditional taxi business. Cab owners from Chicago to Berlin have protested against Uber’s entrance into the marketplace, arguing that ridesharing companies are competing unfairly because they offer lower prices and avoid licensing fees and other costly mandates imposed on the highly-regulated industry.

“No matter what the demand is, we regular taxi drivers are locked into the regular state rate of about $2.60 per mile, whereas Uber can change its rates up or down,” said Chavira, who drives a standard taxi. “If our taxi companies go away, many people feel that big companies like Uber will come in and set their own prices.”

Last May, hundreds of taxi drivers protested outside Uber Technologies’ local headquarters near South Station, claiming that many of these pricing regulations gave the company a distinct economic advantage. Uber currently faces federal lawsuits from taxi companies in cities such as Seattle, Houston, Chicago, and Boston claiming unfair competition.

“Drivers look to their daily incomes, and if they are covering their expenses,” Chavira said. “Some of these protests in Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston show that these guys are upset that companies like Uber or Lyft are destroying their prospective incomes.”

Across the globe, cities have been wrestling with similar questions about whether these industries should be regulated. Now, the Boston City Council is considering restrictions on Uber and other ride-sharing services like Lyft and Sidecar.

“Uber has taken a portion of what might have been a ZipCar or taxi set of travel before, and carved out an interesting market,” Akinc said. “The challenge is that some of the regulations haven’t caught up with them yet—there are some questions about safety and regulations that are being raised.”

In contrast to some of these concerns, a recent survey by 40 leading economists

from an Economics Experts Panel at the University of Chicago agreed that consumers would benefit from letting car services like Uber compete with taxis on equal grounds—arguing that unregulated competition increases welfare.

Regardless of the concerns being raised around the company, BC students are utilizing the ride-sharing service now more than ever, according to Sendler.

The app provides a distinct advantage for students living on the Newton Campus or those looking to get somewhere not accessible by the MBTA. “Students use Uber most often when they miss the bus or if they need to get somewhere off campus quickly that isn’t within a walking distance,” said Maya Maddaus, A&S ’18. “It can be hard for some students to always make it in time for the last bus back to the Newton campus, so having an Uber as a backup is the next best alternative.”

“Uber is always useful for going out on weeknights or weekends, and has always provided a dependable service for getting in and out of the city,” said John Miotti, A&S ’17. “The app is useful because it shows you where local drivers are, how far away they are from your location, and who the driver is, to prevent you from getting in the wrong car.”

Looking to the future, Uber hopes to decrease its prices in the area and further establish itself as a transportation service for Boston students. In the meantime, taxi drivers like Chavira are waiting for a decision to be made on the company’s legal operations.

“We’re waiting to see how the legislation bears out,” Chavira said. “For now, all we can do is wait and see.” n

THE HEIGHTS

Thursday, October 2, 2014

B7

Suffolk courthouse may close indefinitely for repairs

BY SARAH MOORE Heights Editor

Suffolk Superior Court, despite being one of Massachusetts’ largest and busiest courthouses, may have to close, potentially indefinitely, that Sunday.

Notwithstanding massive renovations and repairs made as recently as 10 years ago, the courthouse, which is located just a few blocks from City Hall in Government Center, is overcrowded and constantly overrun with people.

Trying the majority of the state’s murder cases in its 26 courtrooms, the Suffolk Superior Court is the third-largest courthouse in Massachusetts.

Built in 1937, the courthouse is an elegant example of art deco architecture. However, the 24-story building is falling apart due to its constant use. On rainy days, water seeps through doors and windows and broken down elevators are not uncommon. With pieces needed for repair becoming more and more frequently out of date, complications with the 77-year-old building are becoming more difficult to fix.

“The Trial Court will have to vacate the Suffolk High Rise to rehabilitate or replace it,” Trial Court Administrator Harry Spence told The Boston Globe.

“The building envelope is falling, so weatherization is a serious problem.

Water comes in through exposed bricks.

This causes water to get inside the building and to travel to office spaces and courtrooms.”

In the early 2000s, the building was closed for similar repairs, and, even after $40 million was spent in renovations, state officials warned renovators that eventually the courthouse would have to come down.

The Suffolk Superior Court is not alone in its dilapidation—it is one of many courthouses in the state that is facing disrepair. Massachusetts Trial Court officials told The Boston Globe that they have been studying the state of the Commonwealth’s 101 courthouses and discussing which need restorations or replacement.

Although officials are trying to keep in mind what is both reasonable and affordable, approved construction plans for other courthouses—including those in Greenfield and Lowell—are estimated to cost somewhere between $45 to $60 million, but as much as $175 million if converted into an energy efficient space,

BRECK WILLS / HEIGHTS GRAPHIC

Suffolk Superior Court is overcrowded and constantly overrun with people, who might be displaced to Malden should the courthouse close. according to The Globe.

The fate of the Suffolk Superior Court building and the other Massachusetts courthouses that are in desperate need of repair are not unique to Boston, but just another example of urban decay in some of the United States’ metropolitan centers. Both federal and state courthouses located in other cities including New York, Washington D.C., and Chicago have had to undergo renovations over the past 10 years. The Second Circuit Court in New York City recently reopened in January of 2013 after a six-year temporary closing for renovations, which included complete rewiring and relighting of the building and amounted to $314 million.

Although no concrete decisions have been made concerning the fate of Suffolk Superior Courthouse, the trial court has hired specialized staff to detail the concerns and potential solutions that such state facilities are facing. Even if the consultants finish the report by their estimated timeline of this upcoming February, the Massachusetts legislature will still have to

approve any allocation of funds through bills for construction.

One suggested proposal for the Suffolk Courthouse would be to temporarily shut it down, and move all civil and criminal matters to an unidentified county court in Malden, Mass. Aside from running the risk of overcrowding the courts of the neighboring county, this plan would displace many judges, attorneys, and clerks as well as inconvenience those Suffolk County residents called to the courthouse for jury duty or other proceedings.

“We serve victims and they are the ones that would be most negatively impacted should this move occur,” Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley said to The Globe regarding the potential solution of moving the courthouse. “We’re not talking about mere inconvenience here but enormous costs and hurdles for victims, witnesses, police officers, and jurors to take their rightful place in the justice system.”

Those affected by the move of the Suffolk Superior Court could include many student s a s the cour thouse

maintains general jurisdiction of both criminal and civil proceedings in Suffolk County which is home to Boston University, Northeastern University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of Massachusetts at Boston, Suffolk University, Tufts University and many of Harvard’s Graduate Schools.

Boston College lies on the boarders between Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex counties yet the majority of off campus houses do fall under Suffolk Superior Court’s jurisdiction.

In the case of all of the Commonwealth’s overcrowded courthouses, the Massachusetts court structure is most concerned with maintaining justice.

Consultants and officials are working constantly to weigh the costs and benefits of courthouse renovations against the potential problems a move from its downtown location would bring to the judicial system. Although the next step for the Suffolk Superior Courthouse is uncertain, Massachusetts’s public officials have recognized the need for change in both structuring and maintaining necessary state organizations. 

Salvatore’s brings Italian out of North End Salvatore’s owners look to expand beyond five locations

BY WILLIAM MENNICKEN For the Heights

PHOTO COURTESY OF SALVATORE’S

worth a try. They offer salads, flatbreads, seafood, pastas, and much more.

“Our most popular items would definitely be the margherita and bruschetta flatbreads,” said Peter Ackerman, vice president of Lupoli Companies, the parent company for Salvatore’s Restaurants. In addition, he said, the shrimp and scallop fra diaovlo is a customer favorite. Almost all of the pasta in Salvatore’s dishes is made freshly at each store. For those who are gluten-free, Salvatore’s has one of the most extensive gluten-free menus in Boston.

Not only do they offer gluten-free pizza and pasta, some of their signature dishes like the chicken parmesan and fried calamari are also cooked with

LOCATIONS: Theater District, Seaport CUISINE: Italian

In memory of a Boston fashion icon SARAH MOORE

BOSTON FOODIE

When considering going to a highquality Italian restaurant in the greater Boston area, one would likely head straight to the North End. Fine Italian dining is offered right at the seaport and in the theatre district, however.

Salvatore’s Restaurants are the ideal places for those who are looking for high quality Italian food without actually going to the North End. Salvatore’s was created by Sal Lupoli, known for the popular Sal’s Pizza chain throughout the greater Boston area, and is a full service Italian restaurant. It has locations in Andover, Medford, and Lawrence, as well as the two Boston locations in the theatre district and by the seaport. Each location has a full dining room, full bar, and the Lawrence location has a full event and conference center.

Whether you’re looking to have a quick flatbread before seeing a show, or sit down for a glass of wine and the risotto after the day, Salvatore’s is

T FOR TWO

gluten-free breadcrumbs. For dessert, he said, college students love to order the Nutella pizza topped with vanilla ice cream.

Salvatore’s offers a college-friendly atmosphere. In fact, its theatre district location places it below Emerson College. During evenings and later at night, students often come in and relax and watch some of the TVs as they share a pizza. Salvatore’s offers specials for college events like move-in day and parents’ weekend. “We like to offer these specials because we know college students are on a budget,” Ackerman said. Salvatore’s restaurant in the theatre district is just a five-minute walk from the Park Street T-station off the Green Line.

For many years, Salvatore’s has been hosting tailgates at its food tent right outside Gillette Stadium. Salvatore’s will have its largest tailgate yet for the Patriot’s away game during the second week of October and, this year, Salvatore’s will host

a tailgate sponsored by Harpoon brewery at is Seaport location. It will take place on Columbus Day weekend and will be both an indoor and outdoor party. In honor of the Patriots playing against the Buffalo Bills, all types of buffalo-themed foods will be offered—buffalo wings, buffalo sandwiches, buffalo chicken pizza, buffalo calzones, and much more. Other classic tailgate foods like hamburgers, hot dogs, and Italian sausages will also be served.

Since it is an away game for the Patriots, the party will offer a Hummer with TV monitors as well as a barbeque in the back of it. The “Tailgate 2014” will take place on Sunday, Oct. 12 from noon to 5 p.m.

Salvatore’s is looking to expand and grow from more than its five locations.

They are looking at opening locations in New Hampshire and other locations father outside of Boston, hoping to maintain its tradition of offering fine Italian dining with the quality and ambiance of North End restaurants. 

As the leaves begin to assume their fiery hues while the muggy, Boston September transitions to balmy autumn breezes, the student body seems to make a few outfit changes as well.

Sleeves get longer, pastels are exchanged for plaid, and Lululemon takes the Heights by storm in a campus-wide wardrobe change in preparation to enter the season of the Bean Boot.

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem also recently assumed a new wardrobe, but unlike Boston College’s autumn apparel, this 700-piece collection isn’t characterized by J.Crew vests and Vineyard Vines quarter-zips.

From motorcycle jackets to parasols, the outrageous closet of late Boston socialite Marilyn Riseman was acquired by the museum last week. The extensive collection was donated to PEM by Riseman’s family members after she passed away in March at age 86, and highlights changes in trends and fashion for over 50 years.

Reflecting her extravagant personality, the closet of one of Boston’s most well-known trendsetters is full of avantgarde pieces by designers including Alexander McQueen, Yohji Yamamoto, and John Paul Gaultier.

The larger-than-life collection fell into the hands of Paula Richter, Curator for Exhibitions and Research at PEM, just a few days before the kickoff of Boston Fashion Week, which will begin on Oct. 5. This year’s annual event will be a weeklong tribute to Riseman and her legacy, including a front-row seat left empty in her honor, during the shows.

Though she began as a red lipstickwearing boutique owner on Newbury St., Riseman’s influence through fashion, especially locally, is demonstrated through the city’s dedication to her memory, for which this upcoming exhibit will also function.

Although I wouldn’t put myself anywhere close to the fabulous sense of style that Riseman had, let alone think of myself as trendy by any means, the thought of being emulated and remembered based on your clothing choices seems a remarkably honest type of reverence.

Aside from deciding whether or not you will be brushing your teeth that morning, which I and the rest of your 11:00 English class could take up in another 600 words, clothing is one of the first decisions that you have to make every day.

A person’s clothes can tell you what their favorite color is, what they are comfortable in, where they’re from, and if they needed coffee this morning or if that stain is just a part of the pattern.

They suggest that you might have had a long night in Bapst, that you have an intermural game after class, or that you are a part of one the many clubs and organizations here at BC. Your clothes are uniquely you.

Although they may be, a bit embarrassingly, the same pair of Tory Burch flats that the girl who sits behind you in Spanish has on, no two people look the same or think the same about a piece of clothing. It tells your story and your schedule, how you want to be perceived and how you perceive yourself.

Although around this time of year I recycle through the similar pattern of sweaters and Hunter boots that a large percentage of the campus seems to also adorn themselves with, these BC-specific trends catalogue my changes in opinion and taste as Riseman’s exhibits her own. Even though her wardrobe overtakes mine in both scope and extravagance, both closets tell a little piece of both Boston’s and my own personal history.

Opting for a black backpack as opposed to a black, studded leather purse, I definitely do not have any outfit-assembling talents close to the means by which Riseman gained her socialite status, but the partygoer’s dedication to one of the simplest attributes of our everyday, which will be on exhibit soon in Salem, can be seen as a very local and very inspiring welcome to sweater weather.

Sarah Moore is an editor for The Heights. She can be reached at metro@bcheights.com.

METRO

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2014

EDGE OF TOWN

Boston’s new time capsule

Running The Road

RYAN TOWEY When you take down a golden lion statue that has perched atop Boston’s Old State House, what do you get?

A time capsule, of course. Because no American city is as singularly obsessed with preserving its historical significance as Boston. (See: generally obese and/or freakishly tall men in colonial dress guiding confused tourists through the Common during a sunny day while people—namely, me—try to eat their lunch in peace. Or observe the gaggles of teenagers that somehow find it appropriate to take selfies in front of tombstones—centuries old or not, that’s a person under there.)

The golden lion was one of two statues—the other being a unicorn— that have graced the top of the Old State House since 1901. While the contents of the time capsule have not yet been revealed, the Bostonian Society is already accepting suggestions from the public regarding what will be put into a new time capsule, so that Bostonians of the future can know what it was like here in the 21st century. Suggestions for the new capsule can be submitted via email, Facebook, or Twitter, using the hashtag #LionAndUnicorn.

As much as I would love to tweet out that bestial hashtag to up my Twitter cool, I hope that the Bostonian Society will accept this column as my official list of suggestions for the new time capsule instead: 1. A piece of one of the swan boats from the Public Garden I say a piece of one, because I will have smashed them all. I ask that we put a shard of these strange wooden creatures into the time capsule not as a reminder of their existence, but as a memorial to my brave and long overdue decision to destroy them.

These absurd boats have been around for over 130 years, and, as their official website boasts, “are the only boats of their kind in the world”—a testament less to their unique quality than to the fact that the rest of the world has actually managed to keep it together.

Never before have I seen such unquestioned devotion to the most obvious of tourist traps. Swim on, Swan Boats, for your days are numbered.

2. A recording of the screeching sound the Green Line makes as it passes through Boylston Just to give them a little reminder of how quaint this city was in the 2000s. Future Bostonians will reason that people living here in the early 21st century must have always worn earmuffs on their way to work. How else, they will wonder, did it never occur to us to find a way to fix the wildcatsstruggling-with-constipation sound that the Green Line decides to emit while negotiating a simple curve? Or they’ll just think we listened to really weird music. That, too.

3. A video of an old guy from Southie explaining why he’s so proud to be from Southie In an increasingly gentrified neighborhood, this guy is a dying breed.

He deserves to be recorded for his 15 minutes of fame while girls with yoga mats parade in the background. He can regale us with tales about the real Boston, where drunk college students trampled his front lawn during the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade. And a bonus for the linguistic anthropologists out there: the video will be a mint condition record of the Boston accent.

4. A photo of that woman I saw one time in Back Bay walking her cat on a leash—all while wearing an array of beaded jewelry, at least three scarves, rings on every finger, and streaks of red dye in her hair Rock on, weird cat lady. You’ve never looked better.

Ryan Towey is the Metro Editor for The Heights. He can be reached at metro@ bcheights.com

Uber has taken over Boston and won the college population— can standard taxis compete?

BY BENNET JOHNSON Asst. Metro Editor Cruz Chavira has been operating his taxi for 24 years. The process has always been the same: he charges customers the established state regulated fee—now $2.60 per mile—and brings home a healthy commission at the end of the day, depending on what is left over after covering the operational expenses of maintaining a taxi in a major city.

In the past few years, the lifestyles of taxi drivers like Chavira have been turned upside down.

The entrance of innovative ride-sharing companies into the marketplace has shifted business away from the taxi industry—swaying tech-savvy students and young-professionals with a greater focus on lower prices and on-demand service.

Family providers like Chavira and taxi drivers across the world are being forced to adapt to the competition.

By now, Boston College students are familiar with Uber, a startup that allows people to request a ride with a few taps on a smartphone. The company is radically changing the way students navigate the

city of Boston, and is showing no signs of slowing down its progress.

“Up to 40 to 50 percent of Boston College students are using Uber pretty frequently, and are relying on the service to get around Boston,” said Christian Sendler, a brand ambassador for Uber and A&S ’16.

Uber was founded as “Ubercab” in San Francisco in 2009, and since has expanded to 45 countries and more than 100 cities worldwide. Now valued at more than $15 billion, Uber is known for its use of disintermediation—a process that allows the company to use its smartphone app to directly connect passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire. Eliminating the uncertainty of trying to hail a taxicab, or hoping a dispatcher will send one when called, Uber allows users to track the arrival of their car in real time on a map. Uber launched in Boston three years ago with a priority of capturing the interest of some 250,000 students in the metro area.

“Twenty to 30 percent of the Boston population is tied to the college market,” said Eric Strader, the marketing manager at Uber’s Boston headquarters.

“We realized, especially here in Boston, that there

is an appetite for cheap transportation and there is an opportunity for us to capture the interest of everyone at various income levels, so the launch of Uber in Boston is very advantageous to the college market and anyone on a fixed budget.”

Uber has grown its Boston headquarters as a top marketplace for new users. Over the past year, the company has targeted various college areas, bars, food festivals, and other special events—including Boston Calling and CollegeFest—in order to offer its services to the younger generations across the city.

BC, in particular, has been one of Uber’s largest user bases in the greater Boston area. Located just outside of the city in Chestnut Hill, BC’s location often poses a challenge to those who are looking for alternative mode of transportation to the MBTA. “BC students usually cannot just walk outside of our dorms and hail a cab,” Sendler said. “When I first got here, getting a cab right on Comm Ave. was a difficult experience. Personally, when Uber was introduced I thought it was super conve-

See Uber, B6

Linehan serves as strong voice for arts at City Hall The Dorchester native is getting her chance at politics—finally

BY RYAN TOWEY Metro Editor Joyce Linehan had known mayor-elect Martin J. Walsh, WCAS ’09, for years, sure, had helped make support for the arts community a key part of his campaign, and had been firmly involved as a co-chair of the mayoral transition team after his victorious 2013 election—but becoming a part of his administration was something else, and she told Boston Magazine that she had no intention of joining Walsh at City Hall.

The Dorchester native had never thought she would pursue politics as any kind of career, preferring to work at her successful PR company Ashmont Media, which was heavily involved with local arts

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organizations. Public service was not on her mind.

But a few weeks before the inauguration, Walsh asked her if she would consider taking on a role in his administration anyway.

“And when someone asks you to do something like that, you can’t refuse,” Linehan said. “Especially in a situation where—in municipal government— you’re so close to the ground that you actually get to see change happen really quickly, which is fantastic … I really didn’t have a choice, I don’t think.”

In Linehan’s eyes, Walsh has been making strides to support the arts since his inauguration—but he made his most high-profile move regarding the arts community just last week, when, after a national search that began in March, he appointed Julie Burros, the current director of cultural planning in Chicago, to be Boston’s chief of arts and culture—she

Boston’s Rising Seas

See Linehan, B6

EMILY FAHEY / HEIGHTS EDITOR

Mayor Martin J. Walsh, WCAS ’09, appointed Joyce Linehan as his chief of policy in January.

The Urban Land Institute released a report regarding how Boston can deal with rising seas, including building canals in the Back Bay ..........................B6

Boston Foodie: Salvatore’s ............................................................................B7 Column: Bennet’s Banter.........................................................................................B6